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12 years of WWDC product launches

Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off on Monday. Here's a quick recap of the hardware and software from the past 12 shows.

Kent German
Kent was a senior managing editor at CNET News. A veteran of CNET since 2003, he reviewed the first iPhone and worked in both the London and San Francisco offices. When not working, he's planning his next vacation, walking his dog or watching planes land at the airport (yes, really).
Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
Xiomara Blanco Associate Editor / Reviews - Tablets and monitors
Xiomara Blanco is an associate editor for CNET Reviews. She's a Bay Area native with a knack for tech that makes life easier and more enjoyable. So, don't expect her to review printers anytime soon.
Kent German
Josh Lowensohn
Xiomara Blanco
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1 of 13 James Martin/CNET

A dozen years of developing

Apple's annual developers conference begins Monday. Details are sparse on what will be announced, but we expect new previews of iOS 9 and Siri-based home ecosystem, HomeKit, as well a possible new Mac OS.

In anticipation, we thought it would be helpful to round out what the company's shown off at the past 12 years of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference.

Editor's note: This gallery was originally published on June 7, 2013, and was last updated June 2, 2015.

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2003: The PowerMac G5

2003 was a big year for Apple, headlined by a preview of the PowerMac G5. What was then dubbed "the world's fastest personal computer" was the first Mac to sport a 64-bit processor. The machine went on sale two months later, and started at $1,999. Apple still uses a very similar design in its current Mac Pro tower, making it one of Apple's longest-lasting looks.

Also announced: A preview of OS X 10.3 "Panther," Safari 1.0, Xcode, and the iSight camera and iChat software.

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2004: The 30-inch display

Alongside its preview of OS X 10.4 "Tiger" in 2004, Apple broke out a new trio of flat-panel displays. The biggest of the bunch was a 30-inch, 2,560x1,600-pixel display that cost a whopping $3,299. To run it, users needed an Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL graphics card (an extra $599) and Apple's PowerMac G5 desktop tower.

Also announced: Xcode 2 and OS X 10.4 Tiger for servers.

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2005: Apple goes Intel

2005's WWDC brought one of the biggest shifts to Apple's computer strategy, with the announcement that the company was ditching IBM's PowerPC processors for Intel's x86 platform. Apple had used IBM's chips since 1994, and the shift required developers to rewrite some of their software to get it to work.

Also announced: A preview of QuickTime 7 for Windows.

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2006: The Mac Pro

2006's show brought the Mac Pro, a new version of the old PowerMac machines that was now running on Intel's chips. It wasn't the first Mac to go from PowerPC chips to Intel, but it was certainly the beefiest. The first model cost $2,499 -- the same price as it costs today.

Also announced: A preview of OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and its Xserve quad-core server.

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2007: Safari jumps to Windows

While Apple was lagging on getting OS X 10.5 Leopard done, and working behind the scenes on a real software development kit for the iPhone, the one thing most people came away with from WWDC in 2007 was a version of Safari for Windows. The public beta of the software ended up getting downloaded more than a million times the first two days it was out.

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2008: The iPhone gets 3G

The biggest knock of the original iPhone was that it didn't have 3G, when many other smartphones on the market did. Apple debuted the 3G model at WWDC 2008 and went through a number of demos to show how much faster it was than its old phone, and even compared it to some rival phones too.

Apple also debuted MobileMe, its sync and Web subscription service, which ended up having numerous problems and became an embarrassment to the company. Apple ended up killing it off in 2011 with iCloud.

Also announced: iOS 2.0 and a preview of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

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2009: The iPhone 3GS arrives, with video

WWDC 2009 was full of hardware and software, but the biggest bit came with the introduction of the iPhone 3GS. This was Apple's first "S" model of an iPhone. Its big claim to fame was that it could finally shoot video thanks to a faster processor. Apple also announced iOS 3.0 (then called "iPhone OS") which finally added cut and paste and voice search -- the precursor to Siri.

Also announced: A new 13-inch MacBook Pro along with upgrades to Apple's 15- and 17-inch models, Safari 4, and a demo of OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard."

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2010: The leaked iPhone 4 gets real

"Stop me if you've seen this before," Apple CEO Steve Jobs quipped while showing off the iPhone 4 to a packed room of developers. A full two months before WWDC 2010, gadget blog Gizmodo had gotten its hands on the device and posted photos and even videos of the hardware on the Internet -- an acquisition that would later lead to a criminal investigation and a very public embarrassment of an Apple engineer who had left the prototype of the device at a bar.

The rest is history, of course. The iPhone 4 went on to become a best-seller, and the general design for the next two generations of iPhones.

Also announced: Apple's iAds platform, Safari 5, Apple's FaceTime video chat service, and iMovie for iOS.

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2011: Year of the iCloud

Apple's 2011 WWDC brought iCloud, a total redo of MobileMe. iCloud did many of the things MobileMe did, but for free. Steve Jobs explained it as a sort of glue that tied devices together, and took over many of the tasks that people were using computers to do with their mobile devices.

Also announced: Price and release date for OS X 10.7 Lion, and a preview of iOS 5.

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2012: Apple's MacBook goes Retina

The 2012 WWDC brought a bunch of Mac hardware revamps, but none were as dramatic as Apple's new high-end MacBook Pro. Its big claim to fame was a new "Retina Display" screen where the pixels were so tightly packed, you wouldn't be able to make them out while using the machine. It also completely did away with a disc drive, and even hard drive -- making it more like a MacBook Air. Apple offered up that it was the "next generation" of its notebooks.

Also announced: New models of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with speedier processors and some new features like USB 3.0, along with a preview of iOS 6 (which would bring Apple's mapping service), and a price and release estimate for OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"

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2013: iOS 7

Though it had added many new features since the very first iPhone, the design of iOS had barely evolved in those six years. That changed with iOS 7, and in a big way. The "flatter" visual overhaul transformed everything, from the typography and color schemes to the typical icon and button shape across the entire platform. Oh, and new features came, as well, like a Control Center, AirDrop, and automatic app updates.

Also announced: Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, a totally new Mac Pro, new MacBook Airs, iTunes Radio, and new features for the Safari browser.

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2014: Yosemite and iOS 8

Less flashy than the year before, Apple introduced small refinements to its mobile and computer operating systems with the release of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, and iOS8.

Also announced:Continuity, which helps makes switching between your iPhone, iPad, or Mac as seamless as possible. One of its biggest features, Handoff, allows you to easily start a task on your phone and finish it on your computer.

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