Apple Inc.

Apple Inc
Established	01 April 1976
Founder	Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne
Founded at	Los Altos, California, United States
Type	Inc
Status	Company
Headquarters	Cupertino, California, United States
Website	https://www.apple.com/

Apple Inc. is a liberal^[1] corporation based out of Cupertino, California, which deals primarily in computer hardware, software, "smart phones," and their line of MP3 players, iPods. Founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, its first product was the Apple I. The two Steves founded the company in their garage, and has since become the most profitable tech company in America. On January 9, 2007, Apple Computer Inc. officially changed its name to Apple Inc. to include their other non-computer products. That same day, they announced the iPhone, which according to Apple, combines "a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching."^[2]

Original computers[edit]

The Apple I[edit]

The Apple I was the first Apple computer. The Apple I started out with just being a circuit sold to computer hobbyists. Later Apple realized that they could make more money by selling the Apple I all developed and put together instead of having the consumer build it themselves.

The Apple II[edit]

In 1977, however, Apple released the Apple II, which was one of the first computers that came completely contained within a plastic case, motioning towards user-friendliness. The main difference, however, was the screen display. Instead of just being able to display text, it would display graphics, charts, and eventually, color. Many small companies bought these for use in their offices, but Steve Jobs had ambitions to expand.

The Apple III[edit]

The Apple III was created in response to Steve Jobs' wanting to move ahead with new innovations. He wanted to innovate, and as such, provided some questionable designs to the employees, such as it being shipped without a cooling fan, because Steve Jobs felt that having a loud obnoxious fan would interfere with his meditation. This particular defect caused the computer to break down, usually before it had reached its destination. Thousands were recalled.

The Lisa[edit]

The Lisa was named after Steve Jobs' daughter Lisa. The company had contests to come up for a computer acronym using the letters LISA. The Lisa was a failure because it was more expensive and not as powerful as the Macintosh.

The Macintosh[edit]

In 1984, the next Apple computer was released. Apple paired with Adobe to create Adobe PageMaker. The Macintosh was famous for its "1984" Super Bowl advertisement. The name of the device was taken from Steve Job's favorite type of apples the McIntosh apples. Despite the difference in spelling the name was also used by McIntosh Labs who brought certain legal problems into play.^[3] The Macintosh had three major flaws. First, it only had six applications^{[Citation Needed]}, and the Macintosh did not have an internal hard drive to save to, so users constantly had to do the "Floppy disk Olympics."

The Apple IIgs[edit]

The Apple IIgs was a mix between its two predecessors, but its main feature was that it was mouse driven.

John Scully[edit]

John Scully, who had spent his career at PepsiCo, was appointed CEO of Apple by Apple's Board because Apple's Board would not let Jobs run the company. He was selected based on his marketing and management expertise. Jobs supported Scully's selection because he knew nothing about computers and would need to depend on Jobs for all decisions. This backfired on Jobs when he was forced to leave the company leaving control into the hand of a man who knew nothing about computers. Sales at Apple increased from $800 million to $8 billion under Scully's management.^[4] Under Scully, Apple introduced the Newton, a personal digital assistant. Although the Newton was not a market success it inspired other similar products such as the Palm Pilot.

Jobs returns[edit]

In 1997, Jobs organized a boardroom coup against then-CEO Gil Amelio to take control of the company after 3 years of declining stock values. He then restructured the company's product line, and eventually introduced an all-in-one computer named iMac.

Tim Cook was acting CEO when Jobs was having health issues. On October 5, 2011, Jobs died, and Cook became the actual CEO.

Current products[edit]

Apple continues to sell desktop computers, the iMac all-in-one, the MacBook Air laptop line, the iPad tablets, the iPhone smart phones, Beat headphones, the iCloud cloud computing service and iPod portable media players. Apple began selling a smart watch in 2015, known as the Apple Watch. Apple sells its products, on-line, through an international chain of company-owned retail stores, and at select third party retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target, and Toys R Us.

Stock[edit]

Apple became a publicly traded company December 12, 1980. Apple issued its first corporate stock dividend on May 11, 1987. A month later on June 16, Apple stock split for the first time in a 2:1 split. Apple continued to pay a quarterly dividend with about 0.3% yield until November 21, 1995. On January 25, 2012, Apple became the company with the largest market capitalization.^[5] On August 27, 2012, its market capitalization reached $637 billion.^[6] The stock later split 7 for 1 on June 9, 2014.^[7]

Politics[edit]

Apple supported the homosexual agenda by donating $100,000. to defeat Prop 8 ^[8] and named its operating system "Darwin".^[9] Al Gore was appointed to Apple's Board of Directors in 2003.^[10] Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, is openly homosexual and is the highest profile "gay" chief executive in America.^[11]

On December 2, 2015, an Islamist county employee and his wife killed 14 people and wounded 22 others in San Bernardino, California. After the attackers were killed, police found that they had destroyed two burner phones but a county-owned iPhone 5C was recovered in tact from one of the assailants. The iOS operating system encrypted all of the iPhone's contents and has an optional feature that would erase the iPhone if more than 10 incorrect attempts were made to enter a 4 digit pass code. In In the Matter of the Search of an Apple iPhone Seized During the Execution of a Search Warrant on a Black Lexus IS300, California License Plate 35KGD203, Apple and the FBI are fighting over whether Apple can be compelled to crack the iPhone. Apple has been fighting a federal magistrate's ruling that it must assist the FBI in making the iPhone's contents available, and the federal government has argued that there has never been a device that was beyond the scope of a valid search warrant issued by a judge. At a March 21, 2016, Apple press conference, Cook talked about the ongoing conflict with the FBI by saying "...we have a responsibility to protect your data and your privacy. We will not shrink from this responsibility."^[12]

Apple is an opponent of President Donald Trump, having dropped the Parler app from their app store.

See also[edit]

• Apple v. Samsung

References[edit]