Apple's hottest new product is a $299 book that features photos of its past products. 
 
 "Designed by Apple in California" begins with the 1998 iMac that jumpstarted Apple's turnaround, and it ends with the 2015 Apple Pencil, a stylus for the iPad Pro. 
 
 The iMac is a logical place to start the book. Steve Jobs took the helm a year before the iMac's debut. 
 
 Jobs killed off ineffective, poorly designed products of the prior era, including the futuristic Newton tablet. The iMac was a bold departure from the computers of the time. It was among the first PCs with an all-in-one design, and its colorful plastic shell made the iMac distinctive. It is on display at several art and design museums around the world. 
 
 Also included in the book are several less successful products. 
 
 For example, the G4 Cube was a noted flop. The Power Mac won praise for its innovative design, but it was expensive and impractical and couldn't be upgraded. 
 
 The Apple (AAPL, Tech30) Watch has also failed to become the sensation that many in the tech industry expected it to. 
 
 But there are plenty of big winners in the book, including the iPhone. Introduced in 2007, it was a sensation and way ahead of its time. Apple's iPhone design hasn't diverged much from the original over the past nine years. 
 
 The book 
 
 "Designed by Apple in California" is hardcover and comes in two sizes -- a small version for $199 and a larger version for $299. 
 
 In classic Apple form, the book itself was carefully and thoughtfully designed: It is "printed on specially milled, custom-dyed paper with gilded matte silver edges, using eight color separations and low-ghost ink," according to the company's website. The book is bound with linen. 
 
 Photographer Andrew Zuckerman shot the 450 images in the book, captured in "a deliberately spare style." They include both the finished products and some of the gadgets' internal construction. 
 
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 The guts are just as important to Apple and its fanatics as the outside. When he oversaw design of Apple's original products in the 1980s, Jobs famously instructed his team to make the inside as beautiful as the outside -- sometimes to the detriment of the products' usability. He even had the original Macintosh team's signatures engraved on the inside of each computer. 
 
 Appropriately, the book is dedicated to Jobs' memory. 
 
 "The idea of genuinely trying to make something great for humanity was Steve's motivation from the beginning, and it remains both our ideal and our goal as Apple looks to the future," Jony Ive, Apple's chief design officer, said in a statement. 
 
 Ive wrote the book's forward. He said he hopes the book can be a resource for design students. 
 
 "We strive, with varying degrees of success, to define objects that appear effortless," Ive said. "Objects that appear so simple, coherent, and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative." 
 
 The book goes on sale Wednesday on Apple.com and in many Apple Stores across the world. 

 View a mobile-optimized version on Apple Newsroom 
 
 "Designed by Apple in California" Chronicles 20 Years of Apple Design 
 
 New Photo Book Tells the Story of Design at Apple 
 
 While this is a design book, it is not about the design team, the creative process, or product development. It is an objective representation of our work that, ironically, describes who we are. It describes how we work, our values, our preoccupations, and our goals. We have always hoped to be defined by what we do rather than by what we say. 
 
 
 
 We strive, with varying degrees of success, to define objects that appear effortless. Objects that appear so simple, coherent, and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative. 
 
 CUPERTINO, California — November 15, 2016 — Apple® today announced the release of a new hardbound book chronicling 20 years of Apple’s design, expressed through 450 photographs of past and current Apple products. "Designed by Apple in California," which covers products from 1998’s iMac® to 2015’s Apple Pencil®, also documents the materials and techniques used by Apple’s design team over two decades of innovation.The book is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs.“The idea of genuinely trying to make something great for humanity was Steve’s motivation from the beginning, and it remains both our ideal and our goal as Apple looks to the future,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer. “This archive is intended to be a gentle gathering of many of the products the team has designed over the years. We hope it brings some understanding to how and why they exist, while serving as a resource for students of all design disciplines.”The products in this book are the result of a profoundly close collaboration between many different groups. Shot by photographer Andrew Zuckerman in a deliberately spare style, the book’s 450 images illustrate Apple’s design process as well as its finished products.In the book’s foreword, Ive explains:"Designed by Apple in California" is available in two sizes and printed on specially milled, custom-dyed paper with gilded matte silver edges, using eight color separations and low-ghost ink. This linen-bound, hardcover volume was developed over an eight-year period. It is published by Apple."Designed by Apple in California" will be available beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, November 16, in small (10.20” x 12.75”) at $199 (US) and large (13” x 16.25”) at $299 (US) exclusively from Apple.com in Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the UK and the US, and select Apple Stores.*The book is on display at the Apple Stores where it is sold.*"Designed by Apple in California" is available at the following Apple retail locations: Apple Regent Street and Apple Covent Garden in London; Apple Opera in Paris; Apple Kurfürstendamm in Berlin; Apple ifc mall and Apple Canton Road in Hong Kong; Apple Ginza in Tokyo; and Apple Sydney.In the United States: Apple SoHo, Apple Fifth Avenue, Apple Upper East Side, Apple Williamsburg and Apple World Trade Center in New York; Apple The Grove in Los Angeles and Apple Third Street in Santa Monica; Apple North Michigan Avenue in Chicago; Apple Lincoln Road in Miami; Apple Northpark in Dallas; Apple Union Square in San Francisco; Apple Palo Alto and Apple Infinite Loop in Cupertino.Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.Amy BessetteApple(408) 862-8012Lance LinApple(408) 974-5036 
 
 Apple, the Apple logo, iMac and Apple Pencil are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 

 In October 2001 the face of the music industry was changed forever with the launch of a small palm-sized gadget called "the iPod". 
 
 The rectangular-shaped portable music device had a central-scroll wheel on the front and a small window for song selection. It could be charged with a "docking station" and songs could be loaded directly onto the music player from a computer. 
 
 There had been digital music players before, but the fresh look and simplistic usability put the Apple player in a class of its own among portable music devises. 
 
 The first iPod was available in 5GB and 10 GB models and could hold up to 1,000 songs. The name iPod for a personal music player was coined by Apple copywriter Vinnie Chieco who supposedly got the idea after watching the pods in 2001: A space Odyssey. 
 
 In pictures: Apple iPod - a history 
 
 The second generation of the iPod was launched in 2002 with a touch-sensitive scroll wheel. Throughout 2002, 600,000 iPods were sold and by the end of 2003 iPod sales hit the two million mark. 
 
 Apple sold its 100 millionth iPod in April 2007 making it the fastest selling music player in history. 
 
 To date there have been several iPod versions released including the nano, shuffle and touch. More than 275 million iPods have been sold around the world. 
 
 iTunes 
 
 In April 2003, just as the third-generation iPod was released, Apple launched its online music store iTunes with 200,000 songs. 
 
 Before iTunes, music executives had failed to be convinced about the success of an online music market. But coupled with Apple's hugely-successful iPod - launched just two years earlier - Steve Jobs proved it was a market worth exploring. 
 
 The product was an immediate success selling one million songs in its first week and by December it had sold 25 million songs. In 2010 iTune song downloads hit 10 billion. 
 
 There have been several updates of iTunes, the most significant being the introduction of film purchase and rentals in 2008. This week, Apple announced that iTunes will be accessibly across all their devices as part of their move into "cloud" computing. 
 
 iPhone 
 
 The first iPhone was released in January 2007 to a huge fanfare. The phone catapulted Apple ahead of its smartphone rivals with its multi-touch screen. A year later the iPhone 3G was released and the App Store was launched. 
 
 In July this year App Store downloads hit 15 billion with the company having launched App subscriptions just a few months earlier in February. 
 
 To date Apple have sold 125 million iPhones around the world (as of August 8, 2011). The telephone is still gaining popularity with avid Blackberry-user Barack Obama, the US president, even suggesting he may switch to the iPhone. 
 
 Yesterday Apple launched the iPhone 4S with its voice-control function Siri, which promises to revolutionise the way people use their phones (again). 
 
 Video: Apple iPhone 4S revealed 
 
 Mac 
 
 In front of thousands of laughing delegates, a tuxedo-clad Steve Jobs unveiled the first Macintosh computer in January 1984. It started as a small white box in a bag and evolved into the waffer-thin machine it is today. 
 
 A year later he was interviewed in Playboy explaining "something called a mouse". 
 
 The Mac evolved into two main types of Apple computer; the iMac and MacBook. There are now nearly 60 million Mac users around the world. 
 
 iPad 
 
 The iPad - a Mac/ iPhone hybrid - was released in 2010. Although still in its relatively early years, the iPad has been a great success; maintaining its market presence where other tablet computers have faltered. 
 
 The availability of Apps on the device has been a particular success with many newspapers and magazines having launched versions of their publications for the device. The portable tablet is currently teetering on revolutionising the publishing industry. 
 
 To date there have been two iPad versions with 28 million units sold worldwide (as of June 6, 2011).
– "A book like this takes courage" is how the Verge describes Apple's newest publishing venture. Not because the coffee-table tome features narratives on how the company's products change the world, but because it boasts page upon page of breathtakingly beautiful photos of Apple products—450 photos, to be exact—and pretty much nothing else, a veritable steal at $299. Per a press release, Designed by Apple in California—which the Verge snarks is "a name that somehow manages to be both humble and incredibly pretentious at the same time"—is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs and is "printed on specially milled, custom-dyed paper with gilded matte silver edges, using eight color separations and low-ghost ink" in two sizes (the smaller book is only $199). Per CNNMoney, the book, which took more than eight years to pull together, kicks off with the 1998 iMac and finishes off with 2015's Apple Pencil for the iPad Pro. Not every product featured within the linen-bound pages is an Apple bright spot: There's the failed G4 Cube, for example, as well as the Apple Watch, which CNN notes hasn't quite turned into a wearable sensation. Andrew Zuckerman gets photography credits for the "deliberately spare" images in the book, which Apple design chief Jony Ive notes is a "gentle gathering of many of the products the team has designed over the years" that can be fawned over as a "resource for students of all design disciplines." The book will go on sale Wednesday at Apple Stores and on Apple.com.