Giant retailer Costco today announced that it was stopping the sale of Apple products with mutual consent, citing Apple's reluctance to give discounts and restricting it from selling Apple products online as its primary reason. However Apple's march this year has continued unabated even as it launched category-changing products like iPad and became the benchmark for smartphones with its iPhone 4 release.

Here is a chronology of key events that highlight Apple's march this year:

Jan. 5, 2010 - Announces that more than 3 billion apps downloaded from its App Store in less than 18 months.

Jan. 25 - Launches its game-changing device iPad.

Feb. 25 - Announces more than 10 billion songs have been downloaded from its iTunes store.

March 2 - Files patent infringement lawsuit against HTC, accusing it of infringing on 20 patents related to its iPhone.

April 3 -- iPad hits Apple retail stores and Best Buy stores.

April 5 -- Reports 300,000 iPads sold, also that iPad users downloaded over 1 million apps from Apps Store and around 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore.

April 8 - Previews its iPhones OS 4 and releases the software development kit (SDK) which includes 100 new features for iPhone and iPod touch devices.

April 13 - Upgrades its MacBook Pro line with faster processors and increased battery life.

April 20 -- Posts $13.50 billion in revenues and $3.07 billion in net quarterly profit for the quarter ending March 27, 2010.

-- Mac PC sales increase 33 percent

-- iPhone sales increase 131 percent

-- iPod sales decline 1 percent.

May 26 -- Apple surpasses Microsoft in market capitalization to become the most valuable tech company.

May 31 -- Sells 2 million iPads in 60 days.

June 7 - iPhone 4 debuts at the Worldwide Developers Conference, incorporating features such as video calling facility FaceTime and the highest resolution display built for a phone.

-- Also releases Safari 5, its latest version of web-browser.

June 15 - Unveils a redesigned version of its desktop Mac Mini.

June 22 - iPad sales hit 3 million in 80 days.

June 23 - Delays launch of White iPhone 4 due to complexity of manufacturing, says will be due in the second half of July.

June 28 - iPhone 4 sales reach 1.7 million since it hit the stores on June 24.

July 1 - iAd mobile advertising network for iOS devices debuts.

July 2 - Responds to antennagate problems related to iPhone 4 signal reception caused due to the way the phone was held - death grip. Adopts AT&T's formula for calculating how many bars to display signal strength as solution.

July 20 -- Reports $15.7 billion in revenues for the third-quarter with its tablet iPad selling 3.27 million units since its launch.

July 23 - Postpones White iPhone 4 launch to next year.

Sept. 1 - Launches Apple TV for $99, new iPod shuffle and iPod Nano with Multi-Touch interface.

Sept. 9 - Announces changes to App Store Review guidelines primarily relaxing restrictions on tools used to create iOS apps as long as apps do not download any code.

Sept. 23 -- Apple surpasses PetroChina to become the second biggest company in the world by market value.

Oct. 18 - Reports record fourth quarter results with $20.34 billion in revenues.

Oct. 20 - Launches new lighter MacBook Air with solid state flash storage in 11-inch and 13-inch models. Previews Mac OS X Lion, the next version of its Mac OS, and also announces the launch of Mac App Store.

-- Deprecates Java on Mac OS X.

Nov. 5 - Announces that its Xserve family of rack servers will no longer be available from Jan. 31, 2011.

Nov. 12 -- Announces support for Oracle as it joins OpenJDK project.

Nov. 16 - Beatles arrives at iTunes.

Nov. 22 - Makes available iOS 4.2 for iPads, iPhones and iPods with new features like AirPrint and AirPlay.

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