Can do:
"Apple was almost completely destroyed but it’s"
..
"Apple was almost completely destroyed by its" - proofreading would catch "but/by". "It's" is a contraction for "it is". No apostrophe is needed.
"between today market situation and the past"
..
"between today's market situation and the past" - "Today" is used as a possessive so it owns the "market situation". Ownership (in many cases) necessitates an apostrophe+"s". This is John's car. Tomorrow is Kate's birthday. It's a nuance that an ESL student can easily miss.
In fact, rereading your entire post I see many things that are rules that can easily be overlooked by ESL students.
Also, dashes ("-") should not be used for pauses unless they are being used for dramatic effect (someone will correct me on this and that's OK.) In every place where you used it (I count 4) it should either be replaced with a comma or eliminated.
"Apple announced it’s newest baby – game-changing device"
..
"Apple announced its newest baby, a game-changing device"
"During the “PC war” there was a common platform for all the PC Clones – it was Microsoft DOS/Windows."
..
"During the “PC war” Microsoft DOS/Windows was the common platform for all the PC clones."
"And here we are today – Apple is not afraid of competitors"
..
"So here we are today. Apple is not afraid of competitors"
"we know it can be done – JQTouch anyone?" - OK
"write native apps for Android – instead they should reward"
..
"write native apps for Android. Instead they should reward"
English is a very hard language to learn, so don't feel bad. There aren't many simple, clear rules, and it's all weird edge cases and homonyms and you have to figure out which is which from context. Everyone has to figure it out through trial and error - including native English speakers.
> "It's" is a contraction for "it is". No apostrophe is needed.
No. "Its" is a possessive, which puts it in the same class as words like "his" and "hers". If it were a contraction for "it is" then you'd definitely need the apostrophe.
You're parsing the paragraph wrong. The sentence "No apostrophe is needed" doesn't refer to the immediately preceding sentence, it is referring to the original use of "it's" by JarekS.
Ah well. Someone on the internet was wrong, I had to correct them. :)
You're writing your paragraph wrong - the last sentence was incomplete. Something like "No apostrophe is needed when using the possessive its." would have made the object of your sentence much clearer.
One of those other basic but trial-and-error rules of English: don't implicitly refer to something that's a long way away (in this case 4 phrases distant) from your sentence or someone will misunderstand you.
"between today market situation and the past" .. "between today's market situation and the past" - "Today" is used as a possessive so it owns the "market situation". Ownership (in many cases) necessitates an apostrophe+"s". This is John's car. Tomorrow is Kate's birthday. It's a nuance that an ESL student can easily miss.
In fact, rereading your entire post I see many things that are rules that can easily be overlooked by ESL students.
Also, dashes ("-") should not be used for pauses unless they are being used for dramatic effect (someone will correct me on this and that's OK.) In every place where you used it (I count 4) it should either be replaced with a comma or eliminated.
"Apple announced it’s newest baby – game-changing device" .. "Apple announced its newest baby, a game-changing device"
"During the “PC war” there was a common platform for all the PC Clones – it was Microsoft DOS/Windows." .. "During the “PC war” Microsoft DOS/Windows was the common platform for all the PC clones."
"And here we are today – Apple is not afraid of competitors" .. "So here we are today. Apple is not afraid of competitors"
"we know it can be done – JQTouch anyone?" - OK
"write native apps for Android – instead they should reward" .. "write native apps for Android. Instead they should reward"
Just keep writing and practicing your skills.