What preoccupied the online attention in 2012? Here are the top 10 obsessions that, as ranked by their search volume and percentage, spiked compared with 2011 on Yahoo!. Apple fans queued up once again, this time for the iPhone 5 "the thinnest, lightest, fastest iPhone" since, well, the last one. Pre-orders sold out in an houror 20 times faster than the previous version.
As was the case with previous versions, fans camped out at Apple Stores around the world to get their fingers on the device. During the third quarter, the company sold 26.9 million iPhones. And some tech experts say Apple, buoyed by the iPhone 5, could sell 50 million during the last three months of the year.
But the rollout wasn't entirely smooth. A week after launch, Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized after users complained about the phone's unreliable map app, which replaced popular Google Maps from previous iterations. "We strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers," Cook wrote. "With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment."
