Why 2023 was an unprecedented year for Apple

In recent years, Apple's annual release schedule has begun to feel a little predictable. Pretty much every product gets an (often somewhat iterative) update – the iPhone 13 becomes the iPhone 14, the M1 chip becomes the M2 chip, etc, etc. But as 2023 draws to a close, we can now look back on what turned out to be a surprisingly unpredictable year for Apple fans.

For starters, the company entered its first new product space since 2015's Apple Watch, finally revealing the Vision Pro headset. But even the more established line ups such as the iPhone and iPad had some surprises in store this year. (For the lowdown on the latest iPhone, check out our iPhone 15 Pro review.)

Apple's first foray into AR headsets

Launched at WWDC this summer, Vision Pro marks the first new category of product Apple has unveiled in a long time, and with it comes a brand new operating system, visionOS. And like any potentially game-changing new tech, it's both exciting and a little scary.

Apple has, as Apple does, watched a nascent industry for a while before swooping in with a class-of-its-own take on the tech. The design is also as Apple as you'd expect. From the aluminium alloy frame to the laminated glass, it's certainly sleeker than the likes of the plastic-y Meta Quest. And much like how the iPhone did away with the stylus in favour of the finger ("who wants a stylus?" Steve Jobs famously asked – a few years before the Apple Pencil arrived), Vision Pro doesn't require handheld controllers, just hand gestures.

But to ask perhaps the most cliche question of the 2020s, isn't it all a bit Black Mirror? Apple was at pains to make wearing Vision Pro look natural to wear and use, but there's no getting around the fact that it actually looks pretty lonely – not to mention goofy. Notice how there aren't any photos of Tim Cook or anybody at Apple wearing Vision Pro during the initial demonstrations? We can read into this in a number of ways, but I can't help but think it's because AR goggles, no matter how sleek Apple's own interpretation, look daft at best, and dystopian at worst. It's due to launch in February 2024, so we'll soon find out if we're right to be nervous.

Wait, where are the iPads?

Unless Apple has one last surprise up its sleeve for Christmas, 2023 is set to go down in history as the first year no new iPads were released since the very first model dropped in 2010. The 10th generation iPad and 6th generation iPad Pro arrived last October, and since then the line up has proven a little confusing – at the lower end at least. With so many models jostling for attention at the more budget end, it's tricky to know exactly what to recommend, so hopefully things will be streamlined somewhat in 2024.

What we did see in 2024 was a new Apple Pencil – but that arguably served to convolute things even more. While many were expecting a new high-end stylus, we've been given one that sits below even the Apple Pencil 1 in price. And yet, in some ways, it's a more attractive offering – with a USB-C charging port niftily hidden inside the end, and support for Pencil Hover on the iPad Pro, it feels more advanced. To a point. The absence of pressure sensitivity and magnetic charging mean it's also missing some basic features.

The first USB-C iPhone

It finally happened. After years of rumours, Apple was at last strong-armed into replacing Lightning charging with USB-C, thanks to EU law. Both the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro feature the universal port, which allows for greater flexibility with accessories and, at least in the case of the Pro, faster transfer speeds. But while it looked for a while like Apple was set to quickly transition the rest of its products to USB-C, along came the new iMac with its, er, Lightning accessories.

The Great Apple Watch Ban

In a late contender for the most surprising Apple story of the year, it was revealed this week that the company is halting sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 in the US. It's the first time we can recall that the tech giant has frozen sales of new products just months after their release, and comes as a result of a patent dispute over the devices' light-based blood oxygen feature. The final outcome of that dispute has yet to be decided, but it seems that Apple is preparing for the worst. Apple says it will pause Apple Watch 9 and Ultra 2 sales on its website from Thursday (21 December) and from Apple retail stores from 24 December.