Apple was founded in 1976 bySteve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The company had a rocky start, but soon found their place in the PC world. Jobs was forced out of Apple, but came back after creating the NeXT OS. It was incorporated into today’s Mac OS software. Jobs also introduced iTunes, theiPod, theiPhoneandiPad. Steve Jobs is considered one of the most prolific speakers today.
June 6, 2011 Steve Jobs gave his last keynote for Apple
2005 – Steve Jobs spoke in front of the masses at the WWDC announcing that Apple will switch their processors from PowerPC to Intel. He then showed off the Mac OS X running on aPentium 4 CPU. The reasoning was that PowerPC chips took too much power to run and also ran hotter than an Intel chip.
2014 – Rumors flew high on this one, so when it happened, many people were not surprised. Apple announced they were going to acquire Beats Music and Electronics in a $3 billion deal. As part of the acquisition, co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine would join Apple.
Beats subscription service would continue to work as part of the service would be integrated with iTunes. Currently, Beats has a 20 million song library, and is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone for a $9.99 subscription.
2001 – Apple released the Mac OS X Server, based on Rhapsody, which was a hybrid of NeXT OPENSTEP. The server ran file services, Macintosh Manager, Quicktime Streaming Server, WebObjects, NetBoot and more.
Each new version of OS X Server then coincided with the desktop release name – Jaguar, Panther, Leopard, etc.
“Built on Mac OS X’s incredibly stable and robust foundation, Mac OS X Server has the power of UNIX, yet is simple and easy to install, administer and maintain,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Mac OS X Server is Apple’s most powerful server ever and can easily integrate into Mac, Windows and UNIX networks.”
2003-Apple launches the iTunes Store. iTunes has been around since 2001, but without option to get new music. Before the iTunes store, users would have to burn from CD or copy previously made MP3 files. The store sold 1 million songs within a week. Apple became the biggest music vendor in the US in 2008.
With 28 million songs, over 1 million podcasts, 40,000 music videos, 3,000 shows and even the Beatles library, iTunes music store continues to dominate the market. Of course things exploded in 2007 when Steve Jobs put apps into the iTunes store. Apple just celebrated the 40 billion app mark and 25 billion song mark.
Today, Apple iTunes commands 63% of digital downloads.
1984 – Apple introduces the Apple IIc, their answer to a portable machine. It weighed 7 1/2 lbs and featured a 1.023MHz CPU and 128 KB RAM. $1,295. The device device had a built-in floppy and peripheral expansion ports. This was a closed system – no expansion slots to plug in cards. It was deemed an appliance computer, which meant was ready to go when you pulled it out of the box.
1977 – Apple Computer shows off the Apple II home computer at the West Coast Computer Faire. The $1,298 Home machine featured a 6502 processor, 4kb RAM 16kb ROM and for the first time – A home computer with color graphics. Apple II was the most recognizable home and school computers in the 80s and 90s. I personally would play Ultima III and Ultima IV on an Apple II after school. The final Apple II rolled off the line on October 15, 1993.
Commodore also unveiled the PET 2001, which is a full-featured computer. It also had the 6502 processor, 4kb RAM, 14kb ROM and a cassette drive for $595. The Pet was replaced by the PET 2001-N in 1979.
April 12, 1976: Ronald Wayne gives up his 10% of Apple Stock
1976– What a position Ronald Wayne was in. He was the 3rd co-founder of Apple Computer on April 1 with 10% share. However, after two weeks Wayne sells his share for $800 back to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The reason why was because if the company was to go under, he would be liable for any debts incurred. While a solid reason why (Wayne had assets that couldn’t be risked in that nature), it turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes as Apple is grossed in the billions. Wayne designed the original Apple logo and wrote the partnership agreement.
April 8, 1983: Steve Jobs entices John Sculley to Apple as CEO
1983 – John Sculley, who was president of PepsiCo at the time, decides to leave to become president and CEO of Apple Computer at request of Steve Jobs. Sculley’s campaign of “the Pepsi Challenge” was new thinking and helped Pepsi gain market share over Coca Cola. Steve Jobs wanted that passion so he could beat IBM. Sculley was responsible for incorporating the PowerPC chip in Mac computers.John Sculley took the 800 million dollar in sales to 8 billion. Tension ultimately took it’s toll, as Sculley was forced out in 1993 and was replaced by Gil Amelio.