Apple has long been known for simplicity. Then came this year.
The tech titan's 2015 was punctuated by high-risk, big-ticket launches that have taken it into entirely new areas. It's no longer just that iPhone company, even if its revenue suggests otherwise. Apple this year introduced a smartwatch, a subscription music service, an updated streaming-TV box and a larger tablet aimed at the workplace.
For consumers, and particularly for Apple fans, all the activity may have been dizzying. The array of new products and services came on top of the annual upgrade to the iPhone franchise, which still accounts for roughly two-thirds of total sales for the Cupertino, California-based company.
The September release of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus helped push Apple to its "most successful year yet," CEO Tim Cook said on a call with analysts in October.
It could also be called Apple's most complicated year yet, with a growing sprawl of product lines and variations.
The biggest question at the start of 2015 focused on the Apple Watch. The wearable, initially teased in the latter half of 2014, marked the first new device category to emerge under Cook. It arrived after other tech companies had tried, and failed, to make wearables the next hot thing.
The Apple Watch hit the market in April with no shortage of hype, complete with celebrity endorsements and in-store appointments for fittings. Despite a dominant market share and reassuring comments from executives, the gadget has yet to prove itself essential to consumers.
Apple fans, meanwhile, had been patiently waiting for the company to show off something thrilling in the home entertainment department ever since Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs teased back in 2011 that Apple's co-founder had "cracked TV."
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