The story of Apple. How it was...
By The Forex Review - 24 / February / 21 696
Dominick Bell
In this article we'll try to take a detailed look at the history of Apple, learn what pitfalls the team encountered on the way of its development, and examine their key devices and developments.
Today, Apple is a veritable giant in computer and mobile devices. Among most of today's fans and competitors it is a kind of cherished dream, that attractive end result that many wish to replicate. Today we take a closer look at the company's history and recall most of the key devices it introduced, as well as touching on the biography of Steve Jobs, a key figure in the company's history.
A garage party
It all started back in the 1970s. Like most start-ups, the Apple story was created in a garage by two high school friends, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and specialized in assembling computers. They managed to sell a few dozen of these devices, which led to the official founding of the company on April 1, 1976 under the name Apple Computer Inc.
Another co-founder of the company was Ron Wayne, who had previously worked with Steve at Atari. At that time, he had a 10 percent stake in the company but sold it for $800 on April 12, 1976, two weeks after its founding.
By continuing to work, Wayne would have been able to increase his capital substantially - an estimated 2012 figure would have been around $70 billion. But in 1976, for fear of losing his property, which could have gone to creditors, he was forced to quit.
Apple I and the beginning of the personal computer era
Jobs and Wozniak managed to develop the first truly personal computer, the Apple I, which at the time looked like a wooden box and came without a monitor. The computer had a processor speed of up to 1 MHz and 4 kilobytes of RAM. The Apple I sold out immediately in batches of 50 machines and gave rise to the development of a sequel.
In April 1977, Jobs and Wozniak made the official presentation of their next computer, the Apple II. It became the most mass-produced and successfully sold personal computer of the 1970s, with more than 5 million copies sold worldwide. At the time, the computer offered customers an integrated keyboard, colour graphics, sound, plastic housing, and two floppy disk drive slots.
At that time the first graphical games were also released for the Apple II, the brightest variant being Mystery House, and it looked noticeably brighter than its text-based counterparts.
Apple III and Apple Lisa
In 1980 Apple, already a public company, has appeared on one of the largest stock exchanges NASDAQ with the starting price of 22 dollars per share, later this figure will grow many times - in 2012, for example, it has reached the mark of 500 dollars per share. This decade begins a difficult period in the company's development. In the spring of 1981, Steve Wozniak suffered a plane crash and was forced to take a temporary leave of absence.
This was exacerbated by the sales problems of the Apple III, which often overheated, at a time when customers had to shell out $7,800 to purchase it. Also exacerbating the situation was the unpopular Apple Lisa computer, with its emphasis on graphics.
This led to mass layoffs of employees and brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy. To get out of the situation, Jobs had to take extreme measures. In early 1983, John Scully, who had previously worked at PepsiCo in a similar position, was hired as CEO.
The Macintosh era and the tipping point
The following year, 1984, Apple abandoned the Apple family of computers and replaced them with the Macintosh line of computers, with its first Macintosh 128K. It became the first breakthrough machine with a graphical interface and mouse, and a major competitor to IBM products. At this point Apple became a really big business, and with the Mac the company further built up profits.
In September 1985, after a series of disputes with John Scully, Steve Jobs resigns as chairman to pursue something else. In the same year, he founds his own company called NeXT. After his departure, things are not going well for Apple, to put it mildly, despite the development of more Macs.
In 1987, the next Macintosh II is released, the first computer from Apple to feature colour graphics. What was its price at the time? Nothing at all - about $10,000.
The first notebook.
The Macintosh Portable was Apple's first notebook, and was introduced in 1989. The 9.8-inch screen could render a picture at a resolution of 600 x 400 pixels, and it was priced at $6,500. The next PowerBook 100 weighed 5kg less and ran for 3 hours on a rechargeable charge and became a fairly popular computer - the company made around $1bn in its first year of sales.
The Macintosh line continued to evolve further, at one point the company released a black Mac with a built-in TV tuner. A landmark release was the 20th Anniversary Macintosh, with an astonishing design even by today's standards. The new high-end computer was priced at around $7,500, with a nifty keyboard, 32 megabytes of RAM and a 12.1-inch screen. Its sound output device was a Bose subwoofer.
The return of Jobs and the beginning of the iMac era
The Macintosh could not have saved the company from debt, most likely its development would have ended at the turn of the 2000s had it not been for the return of its founder, Steve Jobs. When he returned, he took over as chief executive and in 1998 he was able to make the company profitable again.
May 1998 saw the launch of a range of i-devices, the first of which was the iMac G3, at which point Apple's stock shot up 19%. A striking design with a 15-inch display, the monoblock was available in 13 different colours and became very popular with the public because all it took to get started was to plug in a keyboard and mouse and press the power button.
Within a year an iBook, similar in external design style to the iMac 3G, was launched. It looks posh to me, just look at it:
In 2000, Jobs officially takes over the company and unveils the Mac OS X operating system. The new computer generation improves further, with the new PowerBook G4 and iMac G4 entering the arena. The latter emerged with a radically new and familiar design - a monitor on a leg.
At the beginning of 2001, due to the collapse of many companies related to the Internet (the so-called dot-com crash), and with a fall in the value of the shares, Steve begins to take the company to new markets and in addition to the computer production begins producing audio players, smartphones and tablets.
The iPod's emergence
In 2001, the company introduced the iPod Classic 1G audio player. Remarkably small in size, it drew a standing ovation when Jobs took it out of his pocket during the event, telling the crowd "This amazing gadget holds 1,000 songs and fits in my pocket.
On the wave of such success for music that the iPod had caused, the company decided to open the iTunes Store, a popular shop for audio, video and gaming content, and also launched the Apple Store chain during this period.
The development of the iPod didn't stop and after several interim versions, the iPod nano and iPod Touch lines were eventually released. The former provided the world with the smallest audio players in the company's history, while the Touch line products became truly multimedia smart devices. The era of audio players effectively ended in 2015, eventually superseded by the iPhone, with even more features.
Mac mini - the smallest
As well as launching the iPod in 2005, Apple also launched a new mini computer, the Mac mini. In fact, they became portable workstations ideal for office work and as mobile servers. It came with an optional keyboard, mouse and monitor, and the entry-level version came with 256 megabytes of RAM and a 40 gigabyte hard drive. The Mac mini remains relevant today - the last update was in October 2018.
Mac...Mac...MacBook!
A year later, Apple ditched the now obsolete PowerBook laptops in favour of the new MacBook, with a redesigned MagSafe magnetic connector that made it noticeably more convenient to charge. The series subsequently received several additional variations with the prefixes Air and Pro. In addition, the introduction of the MacBook Air in 2008 was a sensation, making it the thinnest notebook in the world.
The iPhone - the reinvented phone
The iPhone was launched in 2007 - a landmark presentation where Steve Jobs himself introduced a completely new type of mobile phone. Apple's smartphones were completely new devices, with an insistence on using a touch screen instead of a thousand small buttons. The first was the iPhone 2G, a modest device by today's standards, but truly iconic at the time. Steve was damn right when he said "Today Apple has reinvented the phone".
Subsequently, each new version of the iPhone was markedly better than its predecessor. Key in the smartphone lineup were the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5. The former featured a new and improved iOS operating system that replaced the previous Phone OS. The iPhone 5 gained a taller screen and a new Lightning connector, replacing the 30Pin.
Apple iPad
On 27 January 2010 in San Francisco, Apple introduces its new tablet computers, the iPad. The devices were already in good demand at the time and have evolved and improved each year.
After a series of successful presentations, Steve Jobs made Apple a successful company, noticeably increasing its capital and profits. In August 2011, for health reasons, he left the company and was gone by November. Jobs' work was guided by the famous principle, "the best way to predict the future is to invent it", and he always aimed to position his products at the forefront, anticipating and setting their own trends.
The CEO after Steve, and by extension his ideological successor, was Tim Cook, who is still the CEO today. He has continued to grow the company and as of August 2018, Apple is already the market capitalisation leader at $1 trillion.
MacBook Pro 15 Retina
In 2012, the company announced the 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina. The main innovation here, was the introduction of a high pixel density Retina display, which allows to make the picture as good as possible. In fact this notebook was the first with a really high quality display.
Development of the iPhone
In 2013 the iPhone 5S, with a new fingerprint sensor called Touch ID embedded in the Home button, was an important development. The iPhone could now be opened with your finger.
On 9 September 2014 the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were introduced, with larger and improved screens of 4.7 and 5.5 inches respectively. Subsequently, the release of two smartphones simultaneously became a kind of standard for the company.
In the wake of the popular success to the iPhone 5/5S, the company decided to release a similarly designed iPhone SE, but with state-of-the-art 2016 features to match the iPhone 6s/6s Plus, which even now is quite a good device.
For the first time since the iPhone 7 Plus, the company is introducing dual camera support at the back - with an additional 12-megapixel camera with telephoto lens - and also doing away with the 3.5mm audio jack entirely.
The truly revolutionary smartphone was the iPhone X unveiled in September 2017, becoming the first iPhone without a Home button, and with the new Face ID sensor. It also, like the iPhone 8/8 Plus, has built-in wireless charging.
As of now, the latest iPhone models are the iPhone XS/XS Max and iPhone XR with modern updated processors, in new colour schemes, and the ability to connect two sim cards in the case of the iPhone XS Max.
iPad - the best of tablets
Along with iPhone continued the development of iPad. Today, the entire line of tablets is represented by several series:
Let's call it the classic (the latest is the 2018 iPad 9.7")
The mini series, with some of the tiniest tablets on the market (the last released iPad mini 4)
The Air series, with some of the thinnest tablets on the market (the latest iPad Air 2)
The Pro series - performance and powerful tablets (with the latest iPad 11" - now without the Home button and with the new USB Type-C connector instead of Lightning).
In fact, iPad is a successful example of a comfortable, compact computer that is simpler and easier to understand than their familiar personal counterparts, although they are slightly inferior in functionality. The latest iPad Pro 11" moves even closer to the capabilities of a personal computer, setting a new bar in this direction.
Relevance of iMacs and MacBooks
The iMac line of professional, business-oriented all-in-one PCs also received incremental updates. As of this year, these are some of the most powerful computers on the market, but not the cheapest.
The MacBook family of portable notebooks remains popular today as well. Every year there are regular updates, for example in 2018 Apple refreshed the now noticeably outdated MacBook Air 2 to a 13-inch version, and also launched the new MacBook Pro in 13- and 15-inch screens.
The Apple Watch smartwatch
Among other devices, since 2014 Apple has also promoted its own range of smart watches called the Apple Watch, and has generally positioned them as personal health gadgets. The latest fourth generation watch was unveiled in September 2018, and in addition to the already familiar heart rate sensor, it gets an additional ECG sensor, an improved processor and a larger screen.
Additional accessories
Developing the theme of computers and smartphones, Apple has also been producing related accessories. In 2009, Apple continued its successful advancements in previous years with the launch of Magic Mouse, Apple's latest generation of Multi-Touch capable computer mice.
A range of keyboards is also being launched, featuring a distinctive 'butterfly' key layout with a softer, softer, more pleasant press feel. Separately, the company also makes the Apple Magic Trackpad with Multi-Touch technology, and in addition to the touchpad, it has two hardware buttons on top.
The Apple Pencil, the company's famous stylus, is designed to work in conjunction with tablets and is generally positioned as a precise and convenient tool for drawing, writing and marking. The second version of the Apple Pencil 2 has now been released.
The company's line of headphones, which evolved from the wired Apple Earphones and EarPods to the wireless AirPods, also deserves attention. The new AirPods 2 with a wireless case and an improved H1 chip are still relevant at the moment.
Expanding the device market
The company is also producing its own line of AirPort networking equipment, which includes routers and Wi-Fi hotspots.
Developing the popularity of smart speakers, the Apple HomePod was announced in 2017, with Siri voice control and the ability to work directly with Apple Music.
Apple TV, a set-top box designed to sell and view content from iTunes, connects to the user's TV. At an event on 12 September 2017, Apple unveiled the latest 4K Apple TV fifth generation with support for 4K video and HDR.
Software developments and services
The company has introduced many versions and generations of its operating systems throughout its history. The current current operating systems are:
macOS 10.14 Mojave - for personal computers and servers
iOS 12 for iPhones, iPads and iPods.
tvOS 10.1.1 - for the fourth generation of Apple TV
watchOS 5 - for the Apple Watch.
In addition to the announcement of many innovative technologies, such as 3D Touch, MultiTouch, FaceID, etc., the company is known for launching its own virtual assistant Siri.
Also many services, for example Apple Pay, Apple Music, iCloud deserve special attention. But the most important became Apple HomeKit - software shell to control smart home through smart sensors and devices: thermostats, smart lights etc., by means of Apple devices themselves. At the moment such system is gaining popularity and acceptance in society.
In conclusion, it is safe to add that Apple is not a highly specialized company but a symbiosis of many directions of development: from computer engineering to software development. It is a team with a rich history and its own ups and downs. But most importantly, it is clear proof of what can be achieved by developing a good idea in the right way. Apple is also a company with big ambitions and ideas, and it is quite possible that in the future it will be a trendsetter for something completely new.
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