Conceived by out of work college dropouts on April 1, 1976, the history of the company, known as Apple, is quite rich in history.
The first ever Apple computer was hand built and it was retailing at $666.66. The Apple company was started by Steven Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ronald Wayne; all of whom were great high school friends and had great interest in electronics.
Wozniak had experience as a computer designer and in 1976, he designed Apple 1. Since Jobs had an eye for the future, he suggested that they sell the machine which they did in April of 1976 and that’s when Apple Computers was born. Wayne felt that he didn’t have a place in the company and in the same year sold his share to his partners for $800.
Hobbyists didn’t put much emphasis on Apple 1. Due to this, Apple didn't take off right away. The company started taking off in 1977 when Apple II was debuted at a local computer trade show. Apple II was the first personal computer to come in a plastic case. Boasting of open architecture, color graphics, and a floppy disk, Apple II positioned itself way ahead of it's competitors. This wooed many people which resulted to orders for the Apple machines to multiply by several digits.
Apple history doesn’t end there. With increase in sales, came expansion of the company and in 1980, Apple III was released. At this time, Apple had several thousands of employees and were starting to export computers abroad. Also, the company had started to take in more experienced mid- level managers and new investors who were taking seats in the board of directors. The older and serious directors ensured that Apple took a face of a real company.
Apple history took a new turn in 1981. Things were getting difficult. During this year, there were many companies that were selling computers. This made the market saturated which reduced sales. This also forced the company to lay off over 40 employees. In the same year, Wozniak was injured in a plane crash which forced him to take a leave of absence. This resulted to Jobs becoming the chairman of the company in March of 1981.
With great inventors and investors under its belt, Apple continued making great inventions and expanded its empire. This resulted to the creation of great machines such as: Apple Lisa (1983), Machintosh (1984), iMac (1998) iPod (2001), iTunes store (2003), MacBook (2005), iPhone (2007) Ipad tablet (2010) and so forth.
In addition to the great inventions, the company has also had its unique occasions. Some of the unique occasions include: in 1985, Steve Jobs resigned from the company and started another computer company, NeXT Inc., which was bought by Apple in 1996 and Jobs came back as an advisor. Jobs eventually became the interim CEO until 2000 when he was appointed as the official CEO. Another great occasion in the Apple history is the death of Steve Jobs on the 5th of October 2011.
Today, Apple fans are waiting for more updates from their favorite creative company. The fans are always ready to dig deeper into their pockets to buy a new gadget from the beloved, Apple.