Apple Inc.

American company

Formerly Apple Computer, Inc., Apple Inc. manufactures personal computers, smartphones, tablets, computer peripherals, and software. In addition to popularizing the graphical user interface, it was the first successful personal computer company. Cupertino, California, is the company's headquarters.

Start-up garage

A lifelong dream of Stephen G. Wozniak was to build his own computer -- a dream made suddenly possible with the arrival in 1975 of the first commercially successful microcomputer, the Altair 8800, which came as a kit and used the recently invented microprocessor chip. The Homebrew Computer Club, a group centered around the Altair in the San Francisco Bay area, encouraged Wozniak to come up with his own microcomputer. When Wozniak's design was not accepted by Hewlett-Packard Company, where he was an engineering intern, Wozniak and his former high-school classmate Steve Jobs, then 21, moved production operations to the Jobs family garage. Jobs and Wozniak named their company Apple. Jobs sold his Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak his programmable calculator to raise working capital. At Jobs's insistence, the 1977 model was a stand-alone machine in a custom-molded plastic case, unlike other early machines that had intimidating steel boxes. Wozniak's Apple II also featured a colour display and other features, making it the first microcomputer that was accessible to the average person.

Success in business

Although Jobs was a brash business novice whose appearance still reflected his hippie past, he realized that his company was in need of professional management and substantial funding if it was to succeed. He also secured investment from Michael Markkula, a wealthy veteran of the Intel Corporation who became Apple's largest shareholder and an influential member of Apple's board of directors. Wozniak's disk controller made it possible to add a low-cost floppy disk drive, which made information storage and retrieval quick and reliable. Apple IIs were popular among amateur programmers because they could store and manipulate data. The first personal computer spreadsheet was developed by two Bostonians, Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, in 1979. VisiCalc is known as a "killer app" (application): a software program so useful that it propels sales of hardware.

VisiCalc opened up the small-business and consumer markets to Apple II, but primary educational institutions were also important early markets. Apple attained its dominance in primary-school software in the 1990s with aggressive discounts and donations (and an absence of early competition).

Competition from IBM

Apple's profits grew at an unprecedented rate: by 1980, the company had more than 1,000 employees and over $100 million in profits. This was the largest public offering since 1956, when Ford Motor Company went public. Apple's valuation of almost $2 billion by the end of 1980 was greater than Ford's.) However, Apple would soon compete with the computer industry's leading player, International Business Machines Corporation. IBM waited for the personal computer market to grow before it introduced its own line of personal computers, the IBM PC, in 1981. IBM broke with its tradition of using only proprietary hardware components and software and created a machine using readily available components, including the Intel microprocessor, and using DOS (disk operating system) from Microsoft Corporation. The IBM PC became a popular platform for new software developers because other manufacturers were able to use the same hardware components that IBM used, as well as license DOS from Microsoft. Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet soon became the new system's killer app, as it gained instant acceptance in the business community, a market the Apple II had failed to penetrate.

Macintosh and the first affordable GUI

With a new generation of computers that would be dramatically easier to use, Apple had its own plan to regain leadership. Jobs led a team of engineers to the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1979. As a result, they saw the first functional graphical user interface (GUI), which featured on-screen windows, a pointing device called a mouse, and pictures to replace the awkward protocols used by all other computers. Two new Apple computers were released in 1983: the Lisa, which had a higher price, and the Macintosh, which had a lower price. Jobs took over the latter project, insisting that it should be not just great, but "insanely great." The result was a revelation - perfectly in line with the science-fiction-like commercial that debuted the Macintosh during the 1984 Super Bowl - a $2,500 machine unlike any before it.

Desktop publishing revolution

Apple's Macintosh initially sold well below expectations, despite an enthusiastic response from the media. Critics noted that the Mac lacked standard features such as cursor keys and a colour display as well as insufficient memory and storage. Jobs was ousted from the company in September 1985 by its chief executive officer (CEO), John Sculley. (Many skeptics questioned whether adults would want a GUI, calling it "toylike" and a waste of resources.) (Wozniak had left Apple in February 1985 to become a teacher.) Under Sculley, Apple steadily improved the machine. In those early years, the Mac was saved by Apple's 1985 introduction of an affordable laser printer and Aldus Corporation's PageMaker, the Mac's first killer app. They revolutionized desktop publishing together. Suddenly, small print shops and businesses could produce professional-looking brochures, pamphlets, and letters without resorting to costly lithography. Mac's single most important market became the graphic arts and publishing industries within a short period of time.

In 1987, Apple began including a database program called HyperCard free with every Macintosh. Many teachers used this program, written by Bill Atkinson, to organize multimedia elements for classroom presentations -- an idea that predated the HTML (hypertext markup language) underpinnings of the World Wide Web.

Apple litigates while PCs innovate

It was a golden age for Apple; the company had revenues approaching $10 billion and sold more than a million computers a year. However, despite Apple's technological superiority, its market share was declining despite its profits. Despite its incompatibility with Apple II software, the Mac slowed educational sales and forced Apple to retain its outmoded Apple II line through 1993. Out of fear that the Mac would not be taken seriously in the business world, the company discouraged game development, which hurt consumer sales. Additionally, Microsoft introduced Windows, its own graphical operating system, after failing to secure a deal to market the Mac OS on the Intel platform. As successive versions of Windows improved and as competition among multiple PC manufacturers led to greater innovation and lower prices, fewer people were willing to pay the premium that Apple had been able to command because of its reputation for quality. Apple litigated for years, but to no avail, to stop Microsoft from copying its operating system.

Apple–IBM rapprochement

Apple and IBM announced a surprising alliance in 1991. Aside from signing a technology agreement with Motorola, Inc., to develop a next-generation RISC chip called the PowerPC, Apple and IBM created two new software companies, Taligent, Inc., and Kaleida Labs, Inc., to develop operating system software. In addition, Taligent was supposed to enable versions of both Mac OS and IBM OS/2 to run on a new computer hardware standard, the common hardware reference platform (CHRP), and Kaleida Labs was supposed to develop multimedia software. As Apple and IBM argued over CHRP's engineering specifications and the costs soared to $400 million for Taligent and $200 million for Kaleida Labs, Apple pulled out of the project.

Newton and Claris

Sculley also promised more than Apple could deliver with Newton, a personal digital assistant (PDA) that had poor handwriting recognition and diverted engineering and financial resources. Claris Corporation, its software division, was reorganized as an independent company and then reabsorbed when it began shifting more resources to Windows software.

Apple continues to flounder

In 1993, Sculley was replaced by Michael Spindler. As CEO, Spindler's most notable achievements were the successful migration of the Mac OS to the PowerPC microprocessor and the shift away from Apple's proprietary standards. In spite of this, Apple struggled to meet marketing projections, accumulating large inventories of unsalable models while simultaneously failing to meet billion-dollar orders for other models. In 1996, Spindler was replaced by Gilbert F. Amelio due to a combination of drastic quality control problems, notably a defective monitor line and some highly publicized combustible portable computers.

The return of Jobs: iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad

By the time Apple cut costs and reestablished quality controls, only a small percentage of new computer buyers were choosing Macs over Windows-based machines, and Apple's financial situation was dire. As a result of the collapse of CHRP and the company's inability to produce an operating system internally, Apple purchased NeXT Software, Inc., the company formed by Jobs after his 1985 exit. In the NeXT sale, Jobs was retained as an advisor to the CEO, but soon grew disillusioned and sold all but one share of Apple stock he received. In mid-1997, after Apple failed to become profitable under Amelio and its worldwide market share dropped to roughly 3 percent, the board of directors recruited a surprising temporary replacement: Jobs, for the first time the undisputed leader of the company he cofounded.

Steve Jobs

Job's goal was to revitalize the company. He quickly announced an alliance with his erstwhile foe Microsoft; ended a half-hearted (and profit-draining) licensing program for the Mac OS; streamlined what had become a confusing product line to focus on the company's traditional markets of education, publishing, and consumers; and introduced more affordable computers, notably the distinctively designed all-in-one iMac.

Apple iMac

Until Apple introduced the iMac in 1998, all Macs were equipped with a special read-only memory (ROM) chip that contained part of Apple's operating system and enabled it to run only on particular Mac machines. Apple continues its shift away from hardware-specific, or proprietary, standards with the new machine, which is based in part on the scuttled CHRP design, with PC-standard memory and peripheral interface. iMacs were designed with high-speed networking capabilities to revive Apple's consumer and educational markets.

Apple iMac manufacturing plant

The iMac quickly became Apple's best-selling Mac and increased the company's U.S. market share from 2.6 percent in December 1997 to around 13.5 percent in August 1998. In 1998, Apple had its first profitable fiscal year since 1995.

iTunes was introduced by Apple in 2001, a computer program that plays music and converts it to the MP3 digital format commonly used in computers and other digital devices. In the following year, Apple introduced the iPod, a portable MP3 player, which quickly became a market leader. Later models added larger storage capacities or smaller sizes, colour screens, and video playback options. (Podcasting, which combines iPod and broadcasting, is a noun and a verb that refers to audio or video material downloaded for portable playback.) In 2003, Apple began selling MP3 downloads of major record company songs over the Internet. Apple's Web site had sold more than one billion songs and videos by 2006.

iPod Nano

iPhone is a cellular phone with a touch-screen that can play MP3s and videos, as well as access the Internet. AT&T's first models were only available with its wireless service and could not be used over the latest third-generation (3G) networks. Apple corrected the latter limitation in 2008 with the release of the iPhone 3G, or iPhone 2.0, which included GPS support as well. The new iPhone had business-oriented features, similar to those of other smartphones, such as the BlackBerry from Research in Motion. If a unit were lost, the storage memory could be remotely "wiped.". Demand for the new iPhone 3G was very high, and one million units were sold within three days after its introduction. Apple introduced the App Store the same year, allowing iPhone users to purchase applications. With the release of the iPhone 3G S on June 19, 2009, and an estimated one million units sold in the first three days after its release, Apple's share of the smartphone market reached about 20 percent (compared with about 55 percent for the BlackBerry line of smartphones). The iPhone 3G S included a new operating system, the iPhone OS 3.0, in addition to hardware changes such as a three-megapixel camera that can record digital videos. With the new system, users can control electronic games with voice commands and play them with other iPhone users over Wi-Fi networks. With this feature, Apple competes with the Nintendo Company's DS and the Sony Corporation's PSP in the portable gaming market. The iPhone can also be used to read electronic books. Electronic book vendors, such as the iTunes store and Amazon.com, sell iPhone-compatible e-books over the Internet.

iPhone

Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, a touchscreen device with a display measuring 9.7 inches (24.6 cm) diagonally that bridges the gap between a laptop computer and a smartphone. It was about 0.5 inches (1.2 cm) thin and weighed 1.5 pounds (0.7 kg). The iPad operated with the same finger gestures as the iPhone. Videos could be viewed in high definition on the touch screen. Additionally, the iPad had such applications as iTunes built in and could run all iPhone applications. Apple developed its own e-book application, iBooks, as well as an online iBook store, in collaboration with five major publishers: Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette.

iPad

In 2011, Apple launched iCloud, a cloud computing service where a user's apps, photographs, documents, calendars, and recently purchased music would be stored in iCloud and automatically updated across all of their devices. According to some analysts, iCloud is Apple's approach to displacing the personal computer as the primary means for storing data in the future.

After Jobs: Tim Cook as CEO and the first trillion-dollar company

In August 2011, due to ill health, Jobs resigned as CEO and was succeeded by Tim Cook, who died in October of cancer. Apple did not introduce any all-new products during the first years of Cook's tenure, but rather updated versions of previous products, such as the iPhone 4S, which included a personal assistant app, Siri (2011); the iPad Mini (2012); and the iPad Pro (2015), a large iPad intended for business use. Apple purchased Beats for $3 billion in 2014, its largest acquisition to date.

Apple introduced its first smartwatch in 2015. As Series 4, a redesign with an electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor was unveiled in 2018. In 2016, Apple introduced the AirPods, a set of wireless earphones that have become a top seller.

Apple became the first company to reach a valuation of one trillion dollars in 2018 thanks to the popularity of the iPhone. The company doubled that figure two years later.

Apple introduced the M1 microprocessor in 2020 for its Macintosh computers, which previously used Intel chips. It was one of the fastest microprocessors available at the time and was designed to be fast and consume less power than previous chips.