Apple Computer Company\'s History. 3 Reliable Sources

¶ … Apple Computer Company's history. 3 reliable sources required

The history of the Apple Corporation: The legacy of Steve Jobs

The history of Apple begins with the persona of a single figure: Steve Jobs. In 1976, Jobs, a college drop-out, and friend Steve Wozniak, founded Apple with their own money: $1,300. They created their first prototype, working of the Jobs family basement. Almost immediately, the innovation of the company became apparent. When Apple II was revealed, it was promoted that Jobs "had figured out a way to straddle the business and consumer markets by building a computer that could be customized for specific applications. Sales skyrocketed, from $2 million in 1977 to $600 million in 1981, the year the company went public. By 1983 Apple was in the Fortune 500. No company had ever joined the list so quickly" (Markoff 2011: 1).

Jobs proved to be savvy about marketing as well as design early on in the company's history. To announce the release the new, lower-cost Macintosh, in 1981 he used a splashy Superbowl advertisement to stand out from staid competitors like IBM. However, despite the popularity of the Macintosh, after a failure of another company prototype, the 'Lisa,' Jobs was removed in 1984 from the corporate hierarchy by the company's board of directors and CEO. He returned to the company as an 'adviser' in 1997 and became Apple's chief executive again in 2000 (Markoff 2011: 1).

Under Jobs' second tenure, Apple was to create some of its most iconic and innovative product lines, outpacing its rival Microsoft in several key industry areas, including the music business. "He pushed the company into the digital music business, introducing first iTunes and then the iPod MP3 player. The music arm grew rapidly, reaching almost 50% of the company's revenue by June 2008" (Markoff 2011: 1). The iPod, unlike competitor MP3 players, was sleek and customizable. In the midst of debates over ethics in the online music industry, Apple devised a revolutionary solution, the iTunes Music Store, which further stimulated demand by offering cheap, legal downloads. By its first year in operation, "the iTunes Music Store had a 70% market share among all legal online music download services" ("Apple Company history 2000-2004," Apple Corporation, 2012).

Although Apple was occasionally willing to work with other companies, as when Jobs finally negotiated a settlement with Microsoft, enabling the creation of software that could run on both PC and Mac systems, Jobs was usually ruthless and single-minded in his pursuit of excellence: "In 2005, Mr. Jobs announced that he would end Apple's business relationship with IBM and Motorola and build Macintosh computers based on Intel microprocessors" (Markoff 2011: 1).

Some consider Apple's pinnacle of excellence during Job's tenure to be its smartphone, the iPhone, rather than the Mac. In fact, Apple is credited for causing many consumers to turn away from desktops and laptops and instead use phones as personal computer devices. Apple released the first iPhone in June 2007. "Mr. Jobs' goal was to sell 10 million of the handsets in 2008, equivalent to 1% of the global cellphone market. The company sold 11.6 million. Although smartphones were already commonplace, the iPhone dispensed with a stylus and pioneered a touch-screen interface that quickly set the standard for the mobile computing market" (Markoff 2011: 1).