The software products manufactured by Apple include iTunes media browser, the Mac OS X operating system, the iLife suite of creative software and Final Cut Studio (a set of professional audio and cinema related software products). (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

At present, the company runs more than 200 retail outlets in eight countries along with online stores where software and hardware products are sold. The company has about 28,000 employees all around the world with annual sales of 24 billion US$ ( as of 2007). Apple has accomplished an unparallel reputation in consumer electronic industry due to diverse reasons from its distinguished advertising campaigns to its philosophy of well rounded aesthetic design.

Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak laid the foundation of Apple I on 1st April 1976 to sell the personal computer kit. The kit was sold as a motherboard along with RAM, CPU and basic textual video chips.

On April 16, 1977 Apple II was introduced with an open architecture and color graphics. Apple II was opted to be the desktop program for being the first “killer app” of professional world. By the end of 1970’s, Apple laid down a big staff of computer designers and product line. In May 1980, Apple II was superceded by Apple III as the company competed with Microsoft and IBM in the corporate business world. In 1984, Macintosh was launched byApple and is now considered to be a marked event and masterpiece in Apple’ success. The fortune of machine further changed with the launch of firstlaser printer “Laser writer” and an early desktop package “ Page Maker”. The Mac was specifically popular in the market because of its advanced graphic capacity that were necessarily created. Apple’s sales reached new heights as the desktop publishing package became widespread.

Apple’s sustained growth during this time was partly due to its ability to lead in the education sector, ascribed to their accimilation of LOGO programming language, applied in many schools with Apple II. In 1991, Apple introduced Powerbook that established the ergonomic form of a Laptop computer. The success of Powerbook and other softwares led to the generation of high revenue and profits.

By this time, Apple experimented with a variety of consumer oriented products like portable CD players, digital cameras, speakers, TV appliances and video consoles. However, all of this did not prove out to be beneficial as their stock prices and market share continued to slide. During this time, Microsoft persisted to gain a large market share with Windows, softwares and deliverance of cheap PCs while Apple redeemed a richly engineered, but expensive products.

In 1994, Apple collaborated with Motorola and IBM in the AIM conferedation. The aim was to develop a new platform that would use Motorola and IBM hardware along with Apple’s software. The same year, Apple also introduced the first of many apple computers, “Power Macnitosh” to employ Power PC processor by IBM.

On 15th August 1998, Apple launched all in one computer package of Macintosh. The iMac featured a groundbreak design and the latest technology. It sold nearly around 80,000 units in the initial five months and retained Apple to profitability after a reasonably long time.

During this time, Apple purchased various companies to develop as a customer oriented and professional digital software production. On 19th May 2001, Apple opened its first official retail store in California and Virginia. In 2003, Apple introduced iTunes Store providing online music downloads and integration with the iPod.

On 10th January 2006, iMac and MacBook Pro became the first computers by Apple to implement Intel’s Core Duo CPU. By mid of 2006, Apple had transformed the complete Mac product line to Intel chips. The success of Apple was apparent in its stock price. Apple’s stock increased almost ten folds btween the period of 2003 and 2006. On 9th January 2007, Steve Jobs anonunced that Apple computer from now on would be recognized as Apple Inc.. The day was also marked with the announcements of Apple TV and iPhone.

The current product range offerd by Apple. Inc includes:

• iPhone

iPhone first became available on 29th June, 2007. The main features of iPhone holds a 4 or 8 GB memory, 3.5 inch touch screen display, Wi-Fi and bluetooth.

• iPod

On 23rd October, 2001, Apple launched the iPod music player. It came up with various models to target the needs of distinct users.the four variants of iPod sold by Apple includes iPod nano, iPod classic, iPod shuffle and iPod touch.

• Apple TV

At present the Apple TV incorporates a memory of 160 GB along with the pre existing 40 GB hard drive for storage. In addition, it includes outputs for component video and HDMI.

• Softwares

Apple offer a range of professional softwares for the users. iWork, iTunes, iLife, Mac OS X Server, Xsan, Logic and Shke are few examples of the advanced programs offered by Apple.

• Mac range

The Mac range offered by Apple includes iMac, Mac mini, Mac Book, Mac Pro, Mac Book Pro, Mc Book Air and Xserve.

There are many features that can be characterized in the success story of Apple. Over the years, Apple has gained an excellent reputation and fostering individuality that sets it apart from its competitors. Apple is a lot more fashionable and stylish today than it was five years back. Apple has for once and all proved that the key to its success is marked by the high-margin design oriented technology. After decades of bloopers and missteps, it is evident that Apple has a winning recipe that can now be applied to influence sales of anything it wishes to sell.

Even though Apple has not made it an open stand for developers, but the company has stoutly encouraged development of Web-based functions for the iPhone. In fact, there are several choices that make it difficult to discover the best. Apple’s interface and iPhone Tech Talks have led developers to craft a plenty of Internet connected iPhone applications. Below mentioned are some of the most powerful iPhone applications for web designers.

1. Glide Mobile

Glide Mobile isn’t specifically an iPhone application as the service applies in many other mobile applications, but one of its features of word processing does fill up a big space for iPhone users.
Glide is an online agency and collaboration group that allocate users to make, edit and share nearly all kinds of documents together with word processing files, photos, contact lists, websites, calendars and more.

Word processing allows the users to create and edit varied documents from an iPhone. Later on these documents can be converted to RTF, PDF or Word on the computer.

2. Wi-Fi Finder

Even though you can approach all the iphone’s Internet features by using data services, however checking your mails or surfing on internet can be relatively slow as the speed is being limited to 2.5G. Connecting to the network using Wi-Fi always convey considerably better performance. JiWire helps you to trace wireless hotspots all round the world. By simply typing the location or zip code, you can attain a list of paid and/or free networks in close proximity.

JiWire’s offers a specialized interface services for iPhone users to easily locate the hotspots around you. It can even assimilate with the iPhone’s Map application program to help you find hotspots.

3. Movies.app

Movie.app is another distinct application that goes well with the look and feel of iPhone’s applications. Movies.app allow you to surf through all the movies showing at different theaters in your area on a particular date. You can either browse by the name of theatre or by the list of movies.

Movies.app can integrate with Maps application for finding the location. You can even buy online tickets with the help of this application.

4. Iphlickr

iPhlickr brings an easy and efficient interface to browse Flickr with the iPhone. The interface is exceedingly similar to YouTube application. It allows you to browse through your photo album and newly uploaded photos along with the search ability based on username and tags. For features such as favorites and comments, iPhlickr grants easy access to Flickr from any image.

5. Google Mobile

Google’s mobile suite is an outstanding set of tools for iPhone users. This iPhone application provides easy access to nearly all the Web-based features of Google including Google Docs, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Notebook and more.

One of the functional features in Google Mobile application is Google Notebook. It allows access to every notebook created through the Google Notebook and you can also create Mobile Notes that can be accessed later from any computer using Gmail account.

Google Reader is another great feature of this application. Although the iPhone servers supply an RSS reader, it is not entirely featured like Google Reader. It also does not provide a method for flagged status or syncing read through the computer. Google Reader offers a separate reader for use on the iPhone and on PC or Mac connected to Internet.

6. UphoneHome

The two greatest challenges for taking benefit of the varied iPhone applications are firstly to find them and secondly to organize them. With the help of uPhoneHome, you can actually do both. Using a similar interface to the iPhone’s home screen, it grants link to a large assortment of iPhone applications. To find out the recently released applications or any specific application, the list can be sorted out on the basis of date and category. Frequently used applications frequently used can be marked as favorites by pressing the star next to every icon. The marked applications are showcased on a separate screen so that you can easily locate them without going through the entire list.
As soon as the application is launched from uPhoneHome, the favorites are displayed together with a home icon to get back to uPhoneHome at the top frame of Safari’s view for easy approach. If you utilize applications that are not available in uPhoneHome’s list, then they can be added in a separate list marked by an icon to uPhoneHome for easy access. This information actually gets stored up in your iPhone, so you need not create an account to make use of uPhoneHome.

7. Listingly

Listingly is an online list manager that now presents an iPhone web-based application. Listingly is used to create wish lists, to-do lists, grocery lists and freestyle lists. You can also group items into different categories. In fact, similar items get automatically grouped in Listingly. Even though you need to make lists from a customary web interface, but once the list is prepared, it can be totally administered from the iPhone. Listingly provides a wonderful list-management enclosure for iPhone that goes far away from only providing the basic shopping or to-do lists.

8. Social networking

A numerous amount of iPhone applications are dedicated to social networking sites. These combined applications are good for keeping in touch with family, friends, relatives and colleagues. Facebook, Twitter, Multiply are some of the best social networking sites that have devoted iPhone applications access to meet your needs. Besides, there are some new social networking sites that are specifically designed for iPhone users including iPling, iRovr, and iPhone Colony.

Besides all the above-mentioned applications, there are many other iPhone applications that are truly great in their use. LED banner, Instafresh, flashlight, My eBay, Collage, Theme builder, poof and RSS Reader are some of the other important applications carried by iPhone. With a large number of iPhone features & applications, it is difficult to say which one holds the best.