The history of apple.

Current Apple Inc. logo introduced in 1998, was taken down in 2000 and re-established in 2014

Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer, Inc., is a multinational corporation that creates consumer electronics, personal computers, servers, and computer software, and is a digital distributor of media content. The company also has a chain of retail stores known as Apple Stores. Apple's core product lines are the iPhone smartphone, iPadtablet computer, iPod portable media players, and Macintosh computer line. Founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple Computer on April 1, 1976,[1] and incorporated the company on January 3, 1977,[2] in Cupertino, California.

For more than three decades, Apple Computer was predominantly a manufacturer of personal computers, including the Apple II, Macintosh, and Power Mac lines, but it faced rocky sales and low market share during the 1990s. Jobs, who had been ousted from the company in 1985, returned to Apple in 1996 after his company NeXT was bought by Apple.[3] The following year he became the company's interim CEO,[4]which later became permanent.[5] Jobs subsequently instilled a new corporate philosophy of recognizable products and simple design, starting with the original iMac in 1998.

With the introduction of the successful iPod music player in 2001 and iTunes Music Store in 2003, Apple established itself as a leader in the consumer electronics and media sales industries, leading it to drop "Computer" from the company's name in 2007. The company is now also known for its iOS range of smart phone, media player, and tablet computer products that began with the iPhone, followed by the iPod Touch and then iPad. As of 30 June 2015, Apple was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization,[6] with an estimated value of US$1 trillion as of August 2, 2018.[7] Apple's worldwide annual revenue in 2010 totaled US$65 billion, growing to US$127.8 billion in 2011[8] and $156 billion in 2012.[9]

1975–1985: Jobs and Wozniak

Pre-foundation

Garage of Steve Jobs' parents' home in Los Altos, California

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak first met in the summer of 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced then 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs.[10][11] They began their business partnership in the fall of 1971 when Wozniak, a talented, self-educated electronics engineer, began constructing “blue boxes” which enabled one to make long-distance phone calls at no cost.[12]Jobs managed to sell some two hundred blue boxes for $150 each, and split the profit with Wozniak.[10][11]

Jobs and Wozniak, also referred to collectively as "the two Steves", had withdrawn from Reed College and UC Berkeley respectively by 1975. Wozniak designed a video terminal that he could use to log on to the minicomputers at Call Computer. Alex Kamradt commissioned the design and sold a small number of them through his firm. Aside from their interest in up-to-date technology, the impetus for the two Steves seems to have had another source. In his essay From Satori to Silicon Valley (published 1986), cultural historian Theodore Roszak made the point that the Apple Computer emerged from within the West Coast counterculture and the need to produce print-outs, letter labels, and databases. Roszak offers a bit of background on the development of the two Steves' prototype models.

In 1975, the two Steves started attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club.[13] New microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 and the IMSAI inspired Wozniak to build a microprocessor into his video terminal and have a complete computer. At the time the only microcomputer CPUs generally available were the $179 Intel 8080 (equivalent to $833 in 2018), and the $170 Motorola 6800 (equivalent to $792 in 2018). Wozniak preferred the 6800, but both were out of his price range. So he watched, and learned, and designed computers on paper, waiting for the day he could afford a CPU.

When MOS Technology released its $20 (equivalent to $88 in 2018) 6502 chip in 1976, Wozniak wrote a version of BASICfor it, then began to design a computer for it to run on. The 6502 was designed by the same people who designed the 6800, as many in Silicon Valley left employers to form their own companies. Wozniak's earlier 6800 paper-computer needed only minor changes to run on the new chip.

By March 1, 1976, Wozniak completed the machine and then took it to a Homebrew Computer Club meeting to show it off.[14] Jobs was present at the meeting, and was immediately interested in the commercial potential of Wozniak’s computer.[15] Initially, Wozniak intended to share schematics of the machine for free, but Jobs insisted that they should instead build and sell printed circuit boards of the computer.[16] Jobs eventually convinced Wozniak to start a new company and go into business.[17] In order to raise the money they needed to produce the first batch of printed circuit boards, Jobs sold his Volkswagen VW Type 2 minibus and Wozniak sold his Hewlett-Packard HP-65programmable calculator.[16][14][1