Apple Inc.
is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California,
in Silicon Valley, best known for its consumer electronics, software and online services. Founded in
1976 as Apple Computer Company by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the company
was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. the following year. It was renamed to
its current name in 2007 as the company had expanded its focus from computers to consumer
electronics. Apple is one of the Big Tech companies.
The company was founded in 1976 to market Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. Its successor,
the Apple II, became one of the first successful mass-produced microcomputers. Apple introduced
the Lisa in 1983 and the Macintosh in 1984 as some of the first computers to use a graphical user
interface and a mouse. By 1985, internal conflicts led to Jobs leaving the company to form NeXT and
Wozniak withdrawing to other ventures; John Sculley served as CEO for over a decade. In the 1990s,
Apple lost considerable market share in the personal computer industry to the lower-
priced Wintel duopoly of Intel-powered PC clones running Microsoft Windows, and neared
bankruptcy by 1997. To overhaul its market strategy, Apple acquired NeXT, bringing Jobs back to the
company. Under his leadership, Apple returned to profitability by introducing the iMac, iPod, iPhone,
and iPad devices; creating the iTunes Store; launching the "Think different" advertising campaign;
and opening the Apple Store retail chain. Jobs resigned in 2011 for health reasons, and died two
months later; he was succeeded as CEO by Tim Cook.
Apple's product lineup includes portable and home hardware like the iPhone, iPad, Apple
Watch, Mac, Apple Vision Pro, AirPods, and Apple TV; several in-house operating systems such
as iOS, iPadOS, and macOS; and various software and services including Apple Pay and iCloud, as well
as multimedia streaming services like Apple Music and Apple TV. Since 2011, Apple has for the most
part been the world's largest company by market capitalization, and, as of 2024, is the largest
manufacturing company by revenue, the fourth-largest personal computer vendor, the largest
vendor of tablet computers, and the largest vendor of mobile phones. Apple became the first
publicly traded US company to be valued at over $1 trillion in 2018, and, as of October 2025, is
valued at just over $4 trillion.
Apple has received criticism regarding its contractors' labor conditions, its relationship with trade
unions, its environmental practices, and its corporate ethics, including anti-competitive
tactics,[5] materials sourcing, and its acquisitions of smaller businesses. Nevertheless, the company
has a large following and enjoys a high level of customer loyalty. Apple has consistently been ranked
as one of the world's most valuable brands since the late 2000s.
History
Main article: History of Apple Inc.
1976–1980: Founding and incorporation
In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple
in Jobs's parents' home on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California.[6] Wozniak called the popular belief that
the company was founded in the garage "a bit of a myth",[7] although they moved some operations
to the garage when the bedroom became too crowded.[8]
The Apple I is Apple's first product, designed by Wozniak and sold as an assembled circuit board
without the required keyboard, monitor, power supply, and the optional case.
Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald
Wayne as a partnership.[6][9] The company's first product was the Apple I, a computer designed and
hand-built entirely by Wozniak.[10] To finance its creation, Jobs sold his Volkswagen Bus, and Wozniak
sold his HP-65 calculator.[11] Neither received the full selling price, but together they
earned $1,300 (equivalent to $7,400 in 2025). Wozniak debuted the first prototype Apple I at
the Homebrew Computer Club in July 1976.[12] The Apple I was sold as
a motherboard with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips—a base kit concept which was not yet
marketed as a complete personal computer.[13] It was priced soon after debut for $666.66 (equivalent
to $3,800 in 2025).[14][15] Wozniak later said he was unaware of the coincidental mark of the beast in
the number 666, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits".[16]
Apple Computer, Inc. was incorporated in Cupertino, California,[1] on January 3, 1977,[17][18] without
Wayne, who had left and sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 only
twelve days after having co-founded it.[19] Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential
business expertise and funding of $250,000 (equivalent to $1,328,000 in 2025) to Jobs and Wozniak
during the incorporation of Apple.[20] During the first five years of operations, revenue grew
exponentially, doubling about every four months. Between September 1977 and September 1980,
yearly sales grew from $775,000 to US$118 million, an average annual growth rate of 533%.[21]
The Apple II, also designed by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16, 1977, at the first West Coast
Computer Faire.[22] It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because of its
character cell-based color graphics and open architecture. The Apple I and early Apple II models used
ordinary audio cassette tapes as storage devices, which were superseded by the 5+1⁄4-inch floppy
disk drive and interface called the Disk II in 1978.[23][24]
The Apple II, introduced in 1977 and designed primarily by
Wozniak, was the company's first major success.
The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first killer application of the business
world: VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program released in 1979.[23] VisiCalc created a business market for
the Apple II and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II: compatibility with the
office,[23] but Apple II market share remained behind home computers made by competitors such
as Atari, Commodore, and Tandy.[25][26]
On December 12, 1980, Apple went public with an initial public offering (IPO) on the fully
electronic Nasdaq stock market, selling 4.6 million shares at $22 per share ($.10 per share when
adjusting for stock splits as of September 3, 2022),[18] generating over $100 million, which was more
capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956.[27] By the end of the day, around
300 millionaires were created, including Jobs and Wozniak, from a stock price of $29 per share[28] and
a market cap of $1.778 billion.[27][28]
1980–1990: Success with Macintosh
See also: List of Mac models and Timeline of the Apple II family
Steve Jobs in 1984 with the Macintosh, the first successful
mass-market personal computer to feature an integral graphical user interface and mouse
In November and December 1979, Steve Jobs and Apple employees, including Jef Raskin,
visited Xerox PARC, where they observed the Xerox Alto, featuring a graphical user interface (GUI)
and a mouse.[29] Jobs had negotiated with Xerox in advance to gain access to PARC's technology, in
exchange for the right to purchase $1 million worth of Apple's pre-IPO shares.[30] This visit influenced
Jobs to implement a GUI in Apple's products starting with the Apple Lisa in 1983, though he was
forced out from the Lisa project during the early development. Despite being pioneering as a mass-
marketed GUI computer, the Lisa suffered from high costs and limited software options, leading to
commercial failure.[31]
Following his removal from the Lisa team, Jobs joined the company's Macintosh division in January
1981.[32] The Macintosh had been envisioned by Jef Raskin as a low-cost, portable computer and
Wozniak had helped its development until a plane crash in early 1981 forced him to step back from
the project.[33][34] Wozniak's absence allowed Jobs to take over the project and he redefined the
Macintosh as a mouse-driven GUI machine similar to the Lisa.[35] Wozniak speculates that Jobs' sense
of rivalry towards the Lisa project was the driving force behind this sudden shift in direction.[35] Jobs
was also hostile to the Apple II division, which at the time generated most of the company's
revenue.[36]
In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh, the first personal computer without a bundled programming
language.[37] Its debut was signified by "1984", a US$1.5-million television advertisement directed
by Ridley Scott that aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984.[38] This
was hailed as a watershed event for Apple's success[39] and was called a "masterpiece" by CNN[40] and
one of the greatest TV advertisements of all time by TV Guide.[41]
The advertisement created great interest in the Macintosh, and sales were initially good, but began
to taper off dramatically after the first three months as reviews started coming in. Jobs had
required 128 kilobytes of RAM, which limited its speed and software in favor of aspiring for a
projected price point of $1,000 (equivalent to $3,100 in 2025). The Macintosh shipped
for $2,495 (equivalent to $7,700 in 2025), a price panned by critics due to its slow performance.[42] In
early 1985, this sales slump triggered a power struggle between Steve Jobs and CEO John Sculley,
who had been hired away from Pepsi two years earlier by Jobs[43] saying, "Do you want to sell sugar
water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"[44] Sculley removed Jobs as
the head of the Macintosh division, with unanimous support from the Apple board of directors.[45]
The board of directors instructed Sculley to contain Jobs and his ability to launch expensive forays
into untested products. Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from
leadership.[46] Jean-Louis Gassée informed Sculley that Jobs had been attempting to organize
a boardroom coup, and called an emergency meeting at which Apple's executive staff sided with
Sculley, and stripped Jobs of all operational duties.[46] Jobs resigned from Apple in September 1985
and took several Apple employees with him to found NeXT.[47] Wozniak had also quit his active
employment at Apple earlier in 1985 to pursue other ventures, expressing his frustration with
Apple's treatment of the Apple II division and stating that the company had "been going in the wrong
direction for the last five years".[36][48][49] Wozniak remained employed by Apple as a
representative,[48] receiving a stipend estimated to be $120,000 per year.[50] Jobs and Wozniak
remained Apple shareholders following their departures.[51]
After the departures of Jobs and Wozniak in 1985, Sculley launched the Macintosh 512K that year
with quadruple the RAM, and introduced the LaserWriter, the first reasonably priced PostScript-
based laser printer. PageMaker, an early desktop publishing application taking advantage of the
PostScript language, was also released by Aldus Corporation in July 1985.[52] It has been suggested
that the combination of Macintosh, LaserWriter, and PageMaker was responsible for the creation of
the desktop publishing market.[53]
This dominant position in the desktop publishing market[54] allowed the company to focus on higher
price points, the so-called "high-right policy" named for its position on a price–profits chart. Newer
models selling at higher price points offered higher profit margin, and appeared to have no effect on
total sales as power users snapped up every increase in speed. Although some worried about pricing
themselves out of the market, the high-right policy was in full force by the mid-1980s, due to Jean-
Louis Gassée's slogan of "fifty-five or die", referring to the 55% profit margins of the Macintosh II.[55]
This policy began to backfire late in the decade as desktop publishing programs appeared on IBM PC
compatibles with some of the same functionality of the Macintosh at far lower price points. The
company lost its dominant position in the desktop publishing market and estranged many of its
original consumer customer base who could no longer afford Apple products. The Christmas
season of 1989 was the first in the company's history to have declining sales, which led to a 20% drop
in Apple's stock price.[56] During this period, the relationship between Sculley and Gassée
deteriorated, leading Sculley to effectively demote Gassée in January 1990 by appointing Michael
Spindler as the chief operating officer.[57] Gassée left the company later that year to set up a rival, Be
Inc.[58]
1990–1997: Decline and restructuring
Macintosh LC II
The company pivoted strategy and, in October 1990, introduced three lower-cost models:
the Macintosh Classic, the Macintosh LC, and the Macintosh IIsi, all of which generated significant
sales due to pent-up demand.[59] In 1991, Apple introduced the PowerBook, a commercially
successful laptop whose clamshell design influenced later notebook computers. The same year,
Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the Macintosh operating system, adding color to the
interface and introducing new networking capabilities.
The success of the lower-cost Macs and the PowerBook brought increasing revenue.[60] For some
time, Apple was doing very well, introducing fresh new products at increasing profits. The
magazine MacAddict named the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the
Macintosh.[61]
The PenLite is Apple's first tablet computer prototype,
created in 1992 to bring the Mac OS to a tablet. It was canceled in favor of the Newton.[62]
The success of lower-cost consumer Macs, especially the LC, cannibalized higher-priced machines. To
address this, management introduced several new brands, selling largely identical machines at
different price points, for different markets: the high-end Quadra series, the mid-range Centris series,
and the consumer-marketed Performa series. This led to significant consumer confusion between so
many models.[63]
In 1993, the Apple II series was discontinued. It was expensive to produce, and the company decided
it was still absorbing sales from lower-cost Macintosh models. After the launch of the LC, Apple
encouraged developers to create applications for Macintosh rather than Apple II, and authorized
salespersons to redirect consumers from Apple II and toward Macintosh.[64] The Apple IIe was
discontinued in 1993.[65]
Apple experimented with several other unsuccessful consumer targeted products during the 1990s,
including QuickTake digital cameras, PowerCD portable CD audio players, speakers, the Pippin video
game console, the eWorld online service, and Apple Interactive Television Box. Apple made
significant investments in the Newton tablet division; the Newton was later criticized for high costs
and limited commercial success, and commentators have attributed the decision to start that division
in part to market forecasts by CEO John Sculley.[66]
Throughout this period, Microsoft continued to gain market share with Windows by focusing on
delivering software to inexpensive personal computers, while Apple was delivering a richly
engineered but expensive experience.[67] Apple relied on high profit margins and never developed a
clear response; it sued Microsoft for making a GUI similar to the Lisa in Apple Computer, Inc. v.
Microsoft Corp.[68] The lawsuit dragged on for years and was finally dismissed. The major product
flops and the rapid loss of market share to Windows sullied Apple's reputation, and in 1993 Sculley
was replaced as CEO by Michael Spindler.[69]
The Power Macintosh 6100, introduced in 1994, was
Apple's first new home computer model after the switch to PowerPC processors.
Under Spindler, Apple, IBM, and Motorola formed the AIM alliance in 1994 to create a new
computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform or PReP), with IBM and Motorola hardware
coupled with Apple software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software
would leave the PC far behind and thus counter the dominance of Windows. That year, Apple
introduced the Power Macintosh, the first of many computers with Motorola's PowerPC processor.[70]
In the wake of the alliance, Apple opened up to the idea of allowing Motorola and other companies
to build Macintosh clones. Over the next two years, 75 distinct Macintosh clone models were
introduced. However, by 1996, Apple executives were worried that the clones were cannibalizing
sales of its own high-end computers, where profit margins were highest.[71]
In 1996, Spindler was replaced as CEO by Gil Amelio, who was hired for his reputation as a corporate
rehabilitator. Amelio made deep changes, including extensive layoffs and cost-cutting.[72]
This period was also marked by numerous failed attempts to modernize the Macintosh operating
system (the classic Mac OS). The original Macintosh operating system (System 1) was not built for
multitasking (running several applications at once). The company attempted to correct this by
introducing cooperative multitasking in System 5, but still decided it needed a more modern
approach.[73] This led to the Pink project in 1988, A/UX that same year, Copland in 1994, and
evaluated the purchase of BeOS in 1996. Talks with Be stalled when the CEO, former Apple
executive Jean-Louis Gassée, demanded $300 million in contrast to Apple's $125-million
offer.[74] With Apple only weeks away from bankruptcy,[75] the board preferred NeXTSTEP and
purchased NeXT in late 1996 for $400 million, retaining Steve Jobs.[76]
1997–2007: Return to profitability
The NeXT acquisition was finalized on February 9, 1997,[77] and the board brought Jobs back to Apple
as an advisor. On July 9, 1997, Jobs staged a boardroom coup, which resulted in Amelio's resignation
after overseeing a three-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses. The board named
Jobs as interim CEO and he immediately reviewed the product lineup. Jobs canceled 70% of models,
ending 3,000 jobs and paring to the core of its computer offerings.[78]
The next month, in August 1997, Steve Jobs convinced Microsoft to make a $150-million investment
in Apple and a commitment to continue developing Mac software.[79] This was seen as an "antitrust
insurance policy" for Microsoft which had recently settled with the Department of Justice over anti-
competitive practices in the United States v. Microsoft Corp. case.[80] Around then, Jobs donated
Apple's internal library and archives to Stanford University, to focus more on the present and the
future rather than the past.[81][82] He ended the Mac clone deals and in September 1997, purchased
the largest clone maker, Power Computing.[83] On November 10, 1997, the Apple Store
website launched, which was tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing model similar to PC
manufacturer Dell's success.[84] The moves paid off for Jobs; at the end of his first year as CEO, the
company had a $309-million profit.[78]
iMac
iBook
Power Macintosh G3
PowerBook G3
On May 6, 1998, Apple introduced a new all-in-one computer reminiscent of the original Macintosh:
the iMac. The iMac sold 800,000 units in its first five months. It abandoned legacy technologies such
as the 3+1⁄2-inch diskette, adopted the USB connector early, and came pre-installed with Internet
connectivity (the 'i' in iMac) via Ethernet and a dial-up modem.[85][86] Its striking teardrop shape and
translucent materials were designed by Jonathan Ive, who had been hired by Amelio, and who
collaborated with Jobs for more than a decade to reshape Apple's product design.[87][88]
A little more than a year later on July 21, 1999, Apple introduced the iBook consumer laptop. It
culminated Jobs's strategy to produce only four products: refined versions of the Power Macintosh
G3 desktop and PowerBook G3 laptop for professionals, and the iMac desktop and iBook laptop for
consumers. Jobs said the small product line allowed for a greater focus on quality and innovation.[89]
Around then, Apple also completed numerous acquisitions to create a portfolio of digital media
production software for both professionals and consumers. Apple acquired Macromedia's Key Grip
digital video editing software project, which was launched as Final Cut Pro in April 1999.[90] Key Grip's
development also led to Apple's release of the consumer video-editing product iMovie in October
1999.[91] Apple acquired the German company Astarte in April 2000, which had developed the DVD
authoring software DVDirector, which Apple repackaged as the professional-oriented DVD Studio Pro,
and reused its technology to create iDVD for the consumer market.[91] In 2000, Apple purchased
the SoundJam MP audio player software from Casady & Greene. Apple renamed the program iTunes,
simplified the user interface and added CD burning.[92]
In 2001, Apple changed course with three announcements. First, on March 24, 2001, Apple
announced the release of a new modern operating system, Mac OS X. This was after numerous failed
attempts in the early 1990s, and several years of development. Mac OS X is based
on NeXTSTEP, OpenStep, and BSD Unix, to combine the stability, reliability, and security of Unix with
the ease of use of an overhauled user interface. Second, in May 2001, the first two Apple Store retail
locations opened in Virginia and California, offering an improved presentation of the company's
products.[93][94][95] At the time, many speculated that the stores would fail, but they later expanded to
more than 500 locations worldwide.[96][2] Third, on October 23, 2001, the iPod portable digital audio
player debuted. The product was first sold on November 10, 2001, and sold over 100 million units
within six years.[97]
The iTunes Store was highly successful in shaping the
legal music downloading industry; chart shows the number of songs sold from 2003 to 2010.
In 2003, the iTunes Store was introduced with music downloads for 99¢ a song and iPod integration.
It quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 5 billion downloads by June
19, 2008.[98] Two years later, the iTunes Store was the world's largest music retailer.[99]
In 2002, Apple purchased Nothing Real for its advanced
digital compositing application Shake,[100] and Emagic for the music productivity application Logic.
The purchase of Emagic made Apple the first computer manufacturer to own a music software
company. The acquisition was followed by the development of Apple's consumer-
level GarageBand application.[101] The release of iPhoto that year completed the iLife suite.[102]
The MacBook Pro is Apple's first laptop with
an Intel microprocessor, introduced in 2006.
At the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on June 6, 2005, Jobs announced that
Apple would move away from PowerPC processors, and the Mac would transition to Intel
processors in 2006.[103] On January 10, 2006, the new MacBook Pro and iMac became the first Apple
computers to use Intel's Core Duo CPU. By August 7, 2006, Apple made the transition to Intel chips
for the entire Mac product line—over one year sooner than announced.[103] The Power Mac, iBook,
and PowerBook brands were retired during the transition; the Mac Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Pro
became their respective successors.[104] Apple also introduced Boot Camp in 2006 to help users
install Windows XP or Windows Vista on their Intel Macs alongside Mac OS X.[105]
Between early 2003 and 2006, the price of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from around
$6 per share (split-adjusted) to over $80.[106] When Apple surpassed Dell's market cap in January
2006,[107] Jobs sent an email to Apple employees saying Dell's CEO Michael Dell should eat his
words.[108] Nine years prior, Dell had said that if he ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the
money back to the shareholders".[109]
2007–2011: Success with mobile devices
The newly announced first-generation iPhone was on
display at the 2007 MacWorld Expo.
During his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced the renaming
of Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple Inc., because the company had broadened its focus from computers
to consumer electronics.[110] This event also saw the announcement of the iPhone[111] and the Apple
TV.[112] The company sold 270,000 first-generation iPhones during the first 30 hours of sales,[113] and
some industry commentators described the device as "a game changer for the industry".[114]
In an article posted on Apple's website on February 6, 2007, Jobs wrote that Apple would be willing
to sell music on the iTunes Store without digital rights management, thereby allowing tracks to be
played on third-party players if record labels would agree to drop the technology.[115] On April 2,
2007, Apple and EMI jointly announced the removal of DRM technology from EMI's catalog in the
iTunes Store, effective in May 2007.[116] Other record labels eventually followed suit and Apple
published a press release in January 2009 to announce that all songs