The History Of The Incredibly Successful Company Known As Apple, Inc.
Today, most people in the United States and most of the modern world have heard of at least one of the Apple companies products, whether it is the iMac computer, macbook parts, ipods andiphone parts , and the more recent iPhone. This company started in 1976 by three men who wanted to make the computer available and accessible to people for their own personal use, not just something that could be found at a lab or in an office. It began with the Apple I personal computer kit which was individually built by one of the three men, Steve Wozniak. Throughout the late 70′s they continued to invent items that would change how computers worked such as the floppy disk to store data and by adding programs that allowed the use of color, graphics and spreadsheets for businesses.
During the 1980′s Apple made their greatest impression on the public with an advertising campaign for the Macintosh personal computer. They had a famous director create a commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl in 1984 that cost {1.5 million dollars|$1,500,000. Several believe, that that one of a kind ad and the buzz surrounding it, gave the Apple company their real thrust in being one of the largest companies around. The commercial was called 1984 and was a take on George Orwell’s novel by the same title.
The following ten years continued to bring additional changes and inventions for the Apple company with some of the intial people leaving the company and new people joining the company. At this point only one out of the original three men was still with the company. In 1991, the Powerbook was created which was a more portable laptop computer that was a new idea to computers in general. All of the concepts that they came up with seemed to succeed until the mid to late 90′s.
With not much success, the company tried other electronics besides computers. Some of the things that failed were digital cameras, portable CD players, speakers and other appliances for televisions. All of the failures took a toll on the company and their stock went down for the first time since it went public in 1980. The invention of Windows software seemed to single handedly get the company back on it;s feet again in addition to the creation of the iMac computer by Jonathan Ive.
Ive later designed the much loved iPod and iPhone and began a fan following to Apple that no other electronic or computer company has. The loyalty that many people have to Apple and their products is very strong. In 2001, Apple opened up their first retail store and even now, lines of fans will be outside the doors of a new store opening. The most recent popular item is the App store that allows third party applications to be sold for the iPhone and iTouch and is estimated that the App store could be a billion dollar business for Apple.