Without any doubt, 2006 was and still is a good year for Apple, and "good" is a small word to describe it. Anyway, a lot of things happened this year, and I can only dream about how far the Cupertino-based company will get by the end of 2007; but let's look back at 2006's main events now and check the big ones, shall we?

Clearly, Apple's largest move in 2006 was the introduction of Intel processors into their computers, and this was announced since June 2005, when Steve Jobs announced that the PowerPC-based Macs will soon become history.

Obviously, the MacWorld Expo in January 2006 was the place where a lot of new products have seen the light of day, such as the updated iMac line and the new MacBook Pro laptops, both powered by Intel Core Duo chips that promised better performance and reduced power consumption.

This was only the beginning, and the transition to Intel processors was completed in August, when Apple presented an Intel-based Xserve and the Mac Pro, the dual-core, dual CPU successor of the Power Mac G5. Right after moving to Core Duo processors, Apple moved further, introducing the new Core 2 Duo processors inside their Macs for an average performance gain of 10 percent, according to MacWorld Lab's tests.

While the Mac OS X area has been quiet this year, with a couple of security updates released, work on version 10.5 keeps moving closer and closer to the final one, Leopard's date of release being a sunny day in 2007's spring (the weather may be as rainy as possible, since that day will be a sunny one for Apple anyway...).

The stock value is going higher and higher, the future mobile phone and iTV are just around the corner, and this is only a small part of the picture. 2006 was the year when the iPod celebrated its fifth anniversary, and its father, Apple, celebrated its 30th year. If you think that 2006 was a fast year...just wait for 2007! A Happy New Year, Apple!