Apple Inc. This Article Is About the Technology Company
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Apple Inc. This article is about the technology company. For other companies named "Apple", see Apple (disambiguation). Apple Inc. Type Public Traded as NASDAQ: AAPL NASDAQ-100 Component S&P 500 Component Industry Computer hardware Computer software Consumer electronics Digital distribution Founded April 1, 1976 (incorporated January 3, 1977 as Apple Computer, Inc.) Founder(s) Steve Jobs Steve Wozniak Ronald Wayne[1] Headquarters Apple Campus, 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California, U.S. Number of 357 retail stores(as of October 2011) locations Area served Worldwide Key people Tim Cook (CEO) Arthur Levinson (Chairman)[2] Sir Jonathan Ive (SVP, Industrial Design) Steve Jobs (Chairman, 1976-1985/2011; CEO, 1997– 2011) Products Products list[show] Services Services list[show] [3] Revenue US$ 108.249 billion (FY 2011) [3] Operating income US$ 33.790 billion (FY 2011) [3] Profit US$ 25.922 billion (FY 2011) [3] Total assets US$ 116.371 billion (FY 2011) [3] Total equity US$ 76.615 billion (FY 2011) Employees 60,400 (2011)[4] Subsidiaries Braeburn Capital FileMaker Inc. Anobit Website Apple.com Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ; formerly Apple Computer, Inc.) is an American multinational corporation that designs and sellsconsumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products are the Macintoshline of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Its software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture, a professional photography package; Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; Logic Studio, a suite of music production tools; the Safari web browser; and iOS, a mobile operating system. As of July 2011, Apple has 357 retail stores in ten countries,[5] and an online store.[6] It is the largest publicly traded company in the world by market capitalization,[7][8] overtopping ExxonMobil by some $150 billion, as well as the largest technology company in the world by revenue and profit, worth more than Google and Microsoft combined.[9][10] As of September 24, 2011, the company had 60,400 permanent full-time employees and 2,900 temporary full-time employees worldwide;[4] its worldwide annual sales totalled $65 billion, growing to $108 billion in 2011.[3] Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012.[11][12][13][14][15] However, the company has received widespread criticism for its contractors' labor, and for its environmental and business practices.[16][17] Established on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California, and incorporated January 3, 1977,[18] the company was named Apple Computer, Inc. for its first 30 years. The word "Computer" was removed from its name on January 9, 2007,[19] as its traditional focus on personal computers shifted towards consumer electronics.[20] Contents [hide] 1 History o 1.1 1976–1980: The early years o 1.2 1981–1985: Lisa and Macintosh o 1.3 1986–1993: Rise and fall o 1.4 1994–1997: Attempts at reinvention o 1.5 1998–2005: Return to profitability o 1.6 2005–2007: The Intel transition o 1.7 2007–2011: iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad o 1.8 2011–present: Post–Steve Jobs era 2 Products o 2.1 Mac and accessories o 2.2 iPad o 2.3 iPod o 2.4 iPhone o 2.5 Apple TV o 2.6 Software 3 Timeline of Apple products 4 Culture o 4.1 Corporate o 4.2 Users 5 Corporate affairs o 5.1 Headquarters . 5.1.1 Future plans o 5.2 Advertising . 5.2.1 Name . 5.2.2 Logos . 5.2.3 Slogans . 5.2.4 Commercials 6 Environmental record 7 Labor practices 8 Finance 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External links History Main article: History of Apple Inc. 1976–1980: The early years Apple was established on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne,[1] to sell the Apple I personal computer kit. They were hand-built by Wozniak[21][22] and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club.[23] The Apple I was sold as a motherboard (with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips)—less than what is today considered a complete personal computer.[24] The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66 ($2,723 in 2012 dollars, adjusted for inflation.)[25][26][27][28][29][30] The Apple I, Apple's first product, was sold as an assembled circuit board and lacked basic features such as a keyboard, monitor, and case. The owner of this unit added a keyboard and a wooden case. Apple was incorporated January 3, 1977[18] without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Multi-millionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple.[31][32] The Apple II was introduced on April 16, 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 andCommodore PET, because it came with character cell based color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface, the Disk II.[33] The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business world— the VisiCalc spreadsheet program.[34]VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II, and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II—compatibility with the office.[34] According to Brian Bagnall, Apple exaggerated its sales figures and was a distant third place to Commodore and Tandy until VisiCalc came along.[35][36] By the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a production line. The company introduced the ill-fated Apple III in May 1980 in an attempt to compete with IBM and Microsoft in the business and corporate computing market.[37] Jobs and several Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC in December 1979 to see the Xerox Alto. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares (800,000 split-adjusted shares) of Apple at the pre-IPO price of $10 a share.[38] Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a graphical user interface (GUI), and development of a GUI began for the Apple Lisa.[39] When Apple went public, it generated more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956 and instantly created more millionaires (about 300) than any company in history.[40] 1981–1985: Lisa and Macintosh The Model from Apple's "1984" ad, set in a dystopian future modeled after theGeorge Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, set the tone for the introduction of the Macintosh. Steve Jobs began working on the Apple Lisa in 1978 but in 1982 he was pushed from the Lisa team due to infighting, and took over Jef Raskin's low-cost-computer project, the Macintosh. A turf war broke out between Lisa's "corporate shirts" and Jobs' "pirates" over which product would ship first and save Apple. Lisa won the race in 1983 and became the first personal computer sold to the public with a GUI, but was a commercial failure due to its high price tag and limited software titles.[41] The first Macintosh, released in 1984 In 1984, Apple next launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by the now famous $1.5 million television commercial "1984". It was directed by Ridley Scott, aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984,[42] and is now considered a watershed event for Apple's success[43] and a "masterpiece".[44][45] The Macintosh initially sold well, but follow-up sales were not strong[46] due to its high price and limited range of software titles. The machine's fortunes changed with the introduction of the LaserWriter, the first PostScript laser printer to be offered at a reasonable price, andPageMaker, an early desktop publishing package. The Mac was particularly powerful in this market due to its advanced graphics capabilities, which had necessarily been built in to create the intuitive Macintosh GUI. It has been suggested that the combination of these three products was responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market.[47] In 1985 a power struggle developed between Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired two years earlier.[48] The Apple board of directors instructed Sculley to "contain" Jobs and limit his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products. Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from his leadership role at Apple. Sculley found out that Jobs had been attempting to organize a putsch and called a board meeting at which Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties.[46] Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc. the same year.[49] 1986–1993: Rise and fall See also: Timeline of Apple II family and Timeline of Macintosh models The Macintosh Portable was Apple's first "portable" Macintosh computer, released in 1989. Having learned several painful lessons after introducing the bulky Macintosh Portable in 1989, Apple introduced the PowerBook in 1991. The Macintosh Portable was designed to be just as powerful as a desktop Macintosh, but weighed 7.5 kilograms (17 lb) with a 12-hour battery life.