History of Apple

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms – iOS, OS X, watchOS and tvOS – provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it. (more…)

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II. The company reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. In 2007, the iPhone gave Apple new life. In 2008 the electronic giant continued to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, iLife, professional applications, its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and consolidated the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone. (more…)

The year 2007 was the year of iPhone. Steve Jobs unveiled it at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco on January 9. The first Apple smartphone had very limited functionality (including not being able to connect to the Internet independently of Wi Fi). For many experts this meant it was effectively an entire computer that just happened to make phone calls. But 2007 was a big year for Apple, let’s see: (more…)

This year, 2006, Apple’s market capitalization reaches US460.56 billion dollars (annual amount, but in December 2006 alone, it was US$71.25 billion. Market capitalization equals the price per share of a company times the number of shares outstanding market capitalization (market and financial statement data provided by NASDAQ, BATS Exchange, SEC and Xignite Inc. Industry). In June , 2005, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would begin producing Intel-based Macintosh computers beginning in 2006. He also confirmed rumors that the company had secretly been producing versions of its operating system Mac OS X for both PowerPC and Intel processors over the past 5 years, and that the transition to Intel processor systems would last through 2006 and 2007. Rumors of cross-platform compatibility had been spurred by the fact that Mac OS X is based on OpenStep, an operating system that was available for many platforms. In fact, Apple’s own Darwin, the open source underpinnings of Mac OS X, was also available for Intel’s x86 architecture. (more…)

The 2005 was a good year for Apple. The iPod gave an enormous lift to the company’s financial results. Thus in the quarter ending March 26, 2005, Apple earned US$290 million, or 34¢ a share, on sales of US$3.24 billion. Apple sold its 300 millionth song on March 2, 2005. On July 17, 2005, the iTunes Music Store sold its 500 millionth song. At that point, songs were selling at an accelerating annualized rate of more than 500 million.On April 29, 2005, Apple released Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger” to the general public. As of the week of October 24, 2005 Apple released the Power Mac G5 Dual that featured a Dual-Core processor. This processor contains two cores in one rather than have two separate processors. Apple has also developed the Power Mac G5 Quad with two of the Dual-Core processors for enhanced workstation power and performance. The new Power Mac G5 Dual cores run individually at 2.0 GHz or 2.3 GHz. The Power Mac G5 Quad cores run at 2.5 GHz and all variations have a graphics processor that has 256-bit memory bandwidth. (more…)

The year 2004 was a turning point for Apple. Indeed, the company created a solid financial base to work with, and began experimenting with new parts from new suppliers. As a result, new designs were developed over a short amount of time, with the release of the iPod Video, the iPod Classic and other products. In the summer of 2004, the iMac G5 replaced the iMac G4 after a few iterations increasing the processing speed and screen sizes of the latter from 15″ to 17″ to 20″. Apple’s Xserves were updated to use the G5, and replaced the Power Mac G5 as the main building block of Virginia Tech’s System X. By the way, Apple’s Xserves was ranked in November 2004 as the world’s seventh fastest supercomputer. A new iMac based on the G5 processor was announced on August 31, 2004 and marketed in mid-September. The first Apple store opened in Ginza district of Tokyo, Japan in 2003, was followed by a store in Osaka, in August 2004. (more…)

In January 2003, the recovery began, as Apple released iLife, a bundled package that included iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie and iDVD. It also announced two new PowerBook G4 models, a 12″ model similar to existing 12″ iBooks, and a wide-screen 17″ model. The company also announced Safari, its own Web Browser. The new PowerBooks sold well. The sales of flat panel iMacs remained steady. The iPod was beginning to take off. In April of 2003, the iTunes Music Store opened, which would sell individual songs through the iTunes application, for 99 cents each. When announced, the iTunes Music Store had the backing of the five major record labels, and a catalog of more than 200,000 songs. In October, Apple released iTunes for Windows. (more…)

As Glen Sanford states on his History of Apple Website, «in January 2002, Apple reinvented the consumer desktop, again, when it released its flat panel iMac». The company also announced iPhoto, a new software package. However, Apple stumbled in the second half of 2002, when the marketplace shrank due to global economic conditions. In June, Apple introduced its Switchers ad campaign, which would grow to be one of the most successful of Apple’s history. Based on non-scripted monologues of real people, the Switchers campaign made the strongest case yet for Macs in a PC world. In July 2002, Apple announced iCal and iSync, as well as the free iTools service which would be rolled into a new subscription-based «dotMac» service, aimed at futher centralizing the Mac in the high-tech lifestyle. But in October Apple announced a quarterly loss of $45 million, due to weak PowerBook and PowerMac sales. (more…)

Through the second half of 2000 sales became slower both for Apple and the computer industry as a whole. But the things changed since Steve Jobs announced, in May 2001, that Apple would be opening retail stores across America, selling not only Apple computers, but mp3 players, video cameras, games and more. Apple also announced a major update to the iBook line. Later, in July 2001, Apple refreshed iMacs and G4, and terminated the G4 Cube, ending months of speculation as to how Apple would deal with the Cube’s resounding failure. iBook sold extremely well during the summer. In late October 2001, Apple announced the iPod, which was the first non-computer Apple product in several years and Apple’s first hardware addition to its digital hub strategy. (more…)

In 2000, Apple announced a slew of new machines, including the PowerMac G4 Cube, which added a fifth category to Apple’s four-corner product strategy. The Cube was the biggest gamble Steve Jobs had made since the release of the iMac, and it would turn out to be a failure. (more…)

The end of the century gave Apple new life, but there was one big obstacle to tackle: Clones, as clone vendors such as Power Computing. Clones were taking customers away from Apple and were cutting into Apple’s high-end market, where they traditionally made the most profit. Steve Jobs annonced Apple’s new corporat strategy on November 10, 1997. Through the years to come Appple would sell computers direct, both over the web and the phone, as Power Computing had done so well in the past. This strategy was fully implemented by 1999. In July 1999, the iBook was introduced. This computer brought style to the low-end portable market. Several months later, the PowerMac G4 was introduced, a new professional desktop machine. Apple’s stock had risen all summer, and by mid-September 1999 was trading at an all-time high, in the high 70s. In his Keynote at MacWorld Expo SF in January 2000, Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s new Internet strategy: a suite of mac-only internet-based applications called “iTools” and an exclusive partnership with Earthlink as Apple’s recommended ISP. In July 2000, Apple announced a slew of new machines, including the PowerMac G4 Cube, which added a fifth category to Apple’s four-corner product strategy. (more…)

In July 1997, Apple announces the resignation of Gil Amelio, following another multi-million dollar quarterly loss. The time and place for the most ground breaking announcements, however, would be MacWorld Boston in August 1997. Jobs, who by now was being referred to as “interim CEO,” makes the keynote speech, and speaks of the company’s upcoming aggressive advertising campaign, upcoming new Macs, and Rhapsody. He announces an almost entirely new Board of Directors, including Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. But he saves the best for last. In a ground breaking decision, Jobs announces an alliance of Apple Computer with Microsoft. In 1997, Apple Computer Inc. creates a new advertising slogan: Think different. Indeed, it is not easy to think outside of the box, but it is worth trying. Much later, in an interview with Peter Burrows in Bloomberg Businessweek, in 2004, Steve Jobs will say: “We, Apple, do things where we feel we can make a significant contribution. That’s one of my other beliefs”. (more…)

The PowerMac family, introduced in 1994, was developed through 1995. It was the first Mac to be based on the PowerPC chip, an extremely fast processor co-developed with IBM and Motorola. At the same time Mac OS was licensed to several companies, including Power Computing, one of the more successful Mac-clone makers (but only a handful of companies ever licensed the Mac OS because Apple was too restrictive in its licensing agreements). Apple’s problems were added to by the late-summer release of Windows ’95, which mimicked the Mac GUI. Thus Apple took its worst plunge ever in the winter of 1995-96. The company misjudged the market and pushed low-cost Performas over mid-range PowerMacs. Applefailed to make a profit at all. (more…)

But by the mid nineties Apple were overpriced, and the majority of its products consisted of rehashes of the 1984 Macintosh with different improvements. Many competing products beat the Macintosh in performance, and their prices were much better. The company lost money in 1994, and 1995, 1996, 1997 followed suit . Even more, in the first quarter of 1997 Apple stock hit a 12-year low of $4 and the company reported a $708 million loss, and Microsoft (!) invested $150 million to save its competitor from disaster. (more…)

In the eighties, Apple pioneered the personal computing industry in the world with its computer. However, the company then stumbled, and many say it was because of its limited (or closed) approach, based on the high-end computers, while Microsoft (to give an example) flourished through its software designed for low-cost home computers. Apple learned much from those years, and in the nineties it became the wealthy market leader.

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