The history of Apple in photos, from the early Steve Jobs era and iPhone launch to crossing the $3 trillion milestone under Tim Cook

Apple logo Macworld
  • Apple hit a $3 trillion market cap for the first time in 2023.
  • But the iPhone-maker struggled in the 1990s until Steve Jobs returned as CEO. 
  • Apple has weathered hits and flops, from the influential Apple II to the misguided Newton MessagePad. 

Apple's market cap is close to $3 trillion, a threshold it hit in June, and carried through to the market's close. The company briefly hit that milestone once last year, too, but didn't sustain. 

The consumer electronics juggernaut previously reached a $2 trillion valuation in 2020, becoming the first US company to hit that mark. Apple has cemented its dominance as customers continue to buy iPhones — with the iPhone 15 expected later this year.

When Steve Jobs took over as CEO of Apple in 1997, the company had been struggling to find its legs in a market increasingly dominated by Microsoft and its partners. 

Michael Dell himself once quipped that if he were in Jobs' shoes, he'd shut Apple down and return the money to the shareholders. 

Here's a look into the history of Apple in photos, from its inception, through its hard times, to the triumphant return of Jobs. 

Apple was cofounded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Los Altos, California.
steve jobs wozniak
There was a third cofounder, too: Ronald Wayne. Jobs brought Wayne on board to provide business guidance for the two young cofounders. Wayne sketched the first Apple logo by hand.
Ronald Wayne Apple

Source: Business Insider

Wayne ended up leaving the company before it was even officially incorporated. He took an $800 check for his shares in the company.
Ronald Wayne Apple
Ronald Wayne looks over the blueprint papers of his design of the Apple I that was never built.

Source: Business Insider

Apple's first "office" was the garage at Jobs' parents' house.
steve jobs garage
The home and garage where Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple Computer in Los Altos, California.

Source: Business Insider

The company's first product was the Apple I, which was just a motherboard with a processor and some memory, intended for hobbyists. Customers had to build their own case and add their own keyboard and monitor, as seen in the picture. It sold for $666.66 — seriously. The Apple I was invented by Wozniak, who also hand-built every kit.
Apple I computer Apple 1
An Apple-1 computer.

Source: CNET

Meanwhile, Jobs handled the business end, mainly trying to convince would-be investors that the personal computer market was primed to explode. Eventually, Jobs would bring in Mike Markkula, who made a crucial $250,000 angel investment and came to work for Apple as employee No. 3, with a one-third share in the company.
Mike Markkula
Mike Markkula.

Source: The New York Times, CNBC

Apple would officially incorporate in 1977, thanks to guidance from Markkula. A man named Michael Scott (no, not the one from "The Office") was brought in at Markkula's suggestion to serve as the company's first president and CEO. The thought was that Jobs was too young and undisciplined to serve as CEO.
Michael Scott

Source: Business Insider

1977 also saw the introduction of the Apple II, the personal computer designed by Wozniak that would go on to take the world by storm.
Apple II computer

Source: National Museum of American History

The Apple II's killer app was VisiCalc, a groundbreaking spreadsheet software that propelled the computer ahead of market leaders Tandy and Commodore. With VisiCalc, Apple could sell the Apple II to the business customer.
Apple II computer

Source: National Museum of American History

By 1978, Apple would actually have a real office, with employees and an Apple II production line.
Apple production line
Production engineer Tom Beier examines a new Apple IIC keyboard at the Apple Computer plant.

Source: Business Insider

The Xerox PARC lab is world-famous for its technological accomplishments, which include the laser printer, mouse, and ethernet networking. In 1979, Apple engineers were allowed to visit the PARC campus for three days, in exchange for the option to buy 100,000 shares of Apple for $10 a share.
Xerox PARC

Source: Newsweek

In 1980, Apple released the Apple III, a business-focused computer that was supposed to compete with the growing threat of IBM and Microsoft. But the Apple III was only a stopgap, and Xerox PARC had gotten the young Jobs thinking in a different direction.
Apple III computer

Source: Byte Magazine, Newsweek

Xerox PARC convinced Jobs that the future of computing was with a graphical user interface (GUI), like the kind we're used to today.
steve jobs young lisa computer 1983
Steve Jobs with the Lisa computer in 1983.

Jobs spearheaded the effort to equip Apple's next-generation Lisa computer with a GUI, but was bumped from the project thanks to infighting. Lisa was released in 1983 to much fanfare, but disastrous sales — it was too expensive and didn't have enough software support.

Source: Newsweek, CNBC

Jobs ended up leading the second project, the Apple Macintosh, billed as the most user-friendly computer to date. It would go on to become popular with graphic-design professionals, who liked its visual chops (even though it was in black and white). It was still very expensive, however.
Steve Jobs
Jobs, chairman of the board of Apple Computer, and the new Macintosh personal computer following a shareholder's meeting in Cupertino, circa 1984.

Source: The Guardian

Around the time of the launch of the first Macintosh in 1983, Apple got a new CEO: John Sculley.
Steve Jobs John Sculley apple
Steve Jobs and John Sculley, Apple's president, pose with the new Macintosh personal computer.

Sculley was serving as Pepsi's youngest-ever CEO, but Jobs managed to bring him to Apple with the now-legendary pitch: "Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?"

Source: Forbes

In 1984, Apple would release the TV commercial that would make it a household name. This ad, appropriately called "1984," was directed by Ridley Scott and cost the company $1.5 million. It aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, and never again.

Source: Business Insider

This was also when tensions between Jobs and Bill Gates started to run high. Originally, Microsoft was working hard at making software for the Macintosh. But those plans were scuttled in 1983 when Microsoft revealed that it, too, was working on a graphical user interface called Windows.
Bill Gates Steve Jobs

Source: Business Insider

The Macintosh had strong sales, but not enough to break IBM's dominance. This led to a lot of friction between Jobs — the head of the Macintosh group who liked doing things his own way — and Sculley, who wanted stricter oversight on future products in light of the Lisa disaster and disappointment of the Macintosh. It got to the point that Apple's board specifically instructed Sculley to "contain" Jobs.
steve jobs john sculley steve wozniak
Jobs, Sculley, and Wozniak.

Source: Business Insider, Fortune

Things came to a head in 1985 when Jobs tried to stage a coup and oust Sculley — but Apple's board of directors took Sculley's side and removed Jobs from his managerial duties. A furious Jobs quit and went on to found NeXT, a computer company making advanced workstations where he had total control.
steve jobs
In this April 4, 1991, photo, Steve Jobs of NeXT Computer poses for the press with his NeXTstation color computer at the NeXT facility in Redwood City.

Source: Fortune, Business Insider

Wozniak left around the same time in 1985, saying that the company was going in the wrong direction. He sold most of his shares.
steve wozniak
Wozniak (center) with concert promoter Bill Graham (left) and the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart (right).

Source: CNN

With Jobs gone, Sculley had a free hand at Apple. At first, things seemed great, and Apple introduced its PowerBook laptop and System 7 operating system in 1991. System 7 introduced color to the Macintosh operating system, and would stick around (with updates) until OS X was released in 2001.
John Sculley Apple Computer

Source: Engadget, Cult of Mac

The 1990s would see Apple get into lots of new markets, none of which really worked out. Possibly the most famous Apple flop of the '90s was 1993's Newton MessagePad, which was Sculley's own brainchild. It literally created the market for "personal digital assistants," but it was $700 and did little more than take notes and keep track of your contacts.
Apple Newton

Source: Baltimore Sun, Time, MacWorld

But Sculley's longest-lasting mistake was in spending lots of time and lots of Apple's cash on bringing System 7 to the brand-new IBM/Motorola PowerPC microprocessor instead of the dominant Intel processor architecture. Most software was written for Intel processors, plus they got cheaper and cheaper over the years.
John Sculley Apple

Source: Cult of Mac

At the same time, Microsoft's influence was on the rise. Macs offered an excellent, but limited, library of software on expensive computers. Meanwhile, Microsoft was selling Windows 3.0 on cheap, commodity computers.
bill gates windows
Bill Gates in 1992.

Source: Microsoft

Between the high-profile flops and the costly decision to move to PowerPC, Apple's board had had enough. After Apple missed on its first quarter earnings in 1993, Sculley stepped down and was replaced as CEO by Michael Spindler, a German expatriate who had been with Apple since 1980.
Michael Spindler Apple

Source: Washington Post, Los Angeles Times

Spindler had the unfortunate job of following through with Sculley's big PowerPC mistake. In 1994, the first Macintosh running on a PowerPC was released. But Apple's fortunes continued to sag as Windows took off. After acquisition talks with IBM, Sun MicroSystems, and Philips all fell through, Apple's board replaced Spindler with Gil Amelio in 1996.
amelio jobs
Gil Amelio, left, and Steve Jobs.

Source: The New York Times

Amelio's tenure was equally troubled. Under his reign, Apple stock hit a 12-year low (largely because Steve Jobs himself sold 1.5 million Apple shares in a single transaction). Amelio decided to just purchase Jobs' NeXT Computer for $429 million in February 1997 to bring him back to Apple.
Steve Jobs Next

Source: CNET, CNET

On the July 4 weekend that same year, Jobs would stage a boardroom coup and convince Apple's board to install him as interim CEO. Amelio resigned a week later.
steve jobs

Source: The New York Times

1997 would also see the introduction of Apple's famous "Think Different" ad campaign, celebrating famous artists, scientists, and musicians.
Apple think different

Source: Cult of Mac

Under the new era of Jobs' leadership, the company would make nice with Microsoft, which invested $150 million in Apple circa 1997.
steve jobs bill gates microsoft 1997

Source: CNBC

It was a new era for hardware and software, too. Jobs had Jony Ive spearhead the design of the iMac, an all-in-one computer released in 1998. In 2000, Jobs introduced Mac OS X, based on the operating system from NeXT Computers, finally replacing System 7. And in 2006, Apple finally moved to an Intel-based system architecture.
steve jobs imac 1998

Source: CNET, Apple, Apple

Apple had two massively influential product releases in the 2000s, beginning with the iPod in 2001. It blew other MP3 players out of the water and radically altered the way we listen to music. The iPod also launched Apple's white earbuds as a status symbol.
ipod steve jobs john mayer 2004
Steve Jobs, John Mayer, and the iPod.

Source: Business Insider

But the single biggest victory for Apple — and arguably the world of technology as a whole — was 2007's introduction of the iPhone. When it went on sale, customers lined up outside stores in the US to get their hands on one.
Steve Jobs

Source: Cult of Mac

Since then, Apple has gone on to release 17 more models and, under CEO Tim Cook — who took over after Jobs' death in 2011 — Apple has introduced new hardware product lines, including the Apple Watch and AirPods.
Tim Cook apple watch

Source: CNBC

The company has also expanded into services, which has helped fuel Apple's growth as iPhone sales have lagged. Apple now offers its own music- and video-streaming services, its own payments system and credit card, and other subscription offerings in news and gaming.
Apple Card

Source: Business Insider

In August 2020, Apple hit a new milestone: It became a $2 trillion company, just 24 months after reaching the $1 trillion threshold.
Tim Cook

Source: Business Insider

Apple's chief design officer Jony Ive left Apple in 2019, setting up his own design shop LoveFrom. Apple said at the time that it would be one of his company's "primary clients," though that relationship wound down in 2022, according to The New York Times, which reported there were frustrations on both sides about the arrangement.
Jony Ive Met Gala 2016
Jony Ive at the 2016 Met Gala.

Source: Insider; The New York Times.

Apple's programming has also received critical nods, including the movie "CODA" which is streaming on Apple TV+ and won the Oscar for best picture in last year's Academy Awards. The beloved Apple comedy series "Ted Lasso" also won four Emmys last year.
coda oscars 2022
The cast and director of "CODA," which won best picture at the 2022 Oscars.

Source: Apple

Apple's second quarter earnings this year showed strong iPhone sales ($51.3 billion, which CEO Tim Cook said in a statement reflected a "March quarter record") and a high for its services revenue. The company had previously said that pandemic-related delays had affected production of some of its devices, including the iPhone 14 Pro.
An Apple store.

Source: Apple earnings report and release

Apple unveiled its nearly $3,500 Vision Pro headset in June, an AI-driven "mixed-reality" headset that allows users to toggle between the digital and real worlds. The product is slated for a 2024 release.
Apple's Vision Pro
Apple's new headset lets you see your surroundings with breakthrough 'EyeSight' tech.

Source: Insider.

Apple became the first public company to close with a market cap above $3 trillion on June 30 when the stock closed at $193.97.
People walk near the Nasdaq building in Times Square on January 24, 2023

Source: Insider; Yahoo Finance.

Apple is now worth $2.8 trillion ahead of the iPhone 15 launch in September.
Apple logo

Source: Yahoo

Read the original article on Business Insider


Contributer : Business Insider https://ift.tt/BRFPXOE
The history of Apple in photos, from the early Steve Jobs era and iPhone launch to crossing the $3 trillion milestone under Tim Cook The history of Apple in photos, from the early Steve Jobs era and iPhone launch to crossing the $3 trillion milestone under Tim Cook Reviewed by mimisabreena on Monday, September 11, 2023 Rating: 5

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