Before Apple forayed in the smartphone manufacturing sector, it was known for its other products- Macintosh, MacBook, iPod etc. that it manufactured down the years of developing technology. Apple, as we know it today, started off as Apple Computer Inc. on its roller-coaster journey where Steve Jobs, was forced out of his own company, after which he even created another firm called ‘NeXT’ that later merged into Apple in 1997.
The Story of STEVES
Apple was found by two of the Steve’s (Jobs and Wozniak) who met through a common friend named Bill Fernandez, and, bonded over their shared passion and love for technology. Before discovering Apple Inc., with their brains Jobs and Wozniak invented ‘blue boxes’ that allowed people to make long distance calls for free.
Jobs and Wozniak were not only tech enthusiasts but they enjoyed their journey performing pranks along with each other such as a call to the Vatican that nearly got them access to the Pope! Yes, it did happen.
After attending a home-brew computer club together, Wozniak produced the first computer with a typewriter like keyboard that had the ability to connect to a regular TV as a screen. They later named it as Apple I and started selling it, under company name Apple Computer Inc, thus jumpstarting with their career.
According to Steve Jobs biography, he came up with the word apple as he used to work in the orchard. Both Jobs and Wozniak tried to think about some other word but there was nothing they thought could be better than apple as apple being starting with a letter ‘A’ would mean that it would appear at the top in any of the listings.
About Apple I Wozniak in an interview explained that he just wanted to show off his skills of inventing such an inexpensive computer and that it was never his intention to change the world. As Apple I was a fancy product but it couldn’t fulfill the needs of the people, they moved on to invent a better product in 1977 that was Apple II which was more of commercial type and came in its own case.
But the product due to its high cost of $1300 failed as they were not able to justify the costs. But the first app on the Apple II proved a decent way to cover its costs. For a fact, if we compare the then technology of the Apple products, iPhone works at 1,800 times the clock speed with 500,000 times more RAM. After Apple II came out, it was understood that their debut in the industry was successful and they wouldn’t stop there. After the stint of Apple III, jobs wanted to invent something different and settling. He began working on the project which was named as Apple Lisa. To develop such a computer that would stand up to his marks, jobs convinced Xerox to grant three days’ access to PARC for him and some of Apple employees and in exchange Xerox won the right to buy 100,000 Apple shares at $10 each. Maybe this deal would sound unnerving but those who don’t know apple has split its shares in the market many a times in the past.
After almost 3 years of Apple III, came a much fancier product known as Apple Lisa computer in 1983 which featured Apple’s first mouse. But the product didn’t get that much hits because of its hefty price of $10000 which equals $20000 in the present time. A point worth noticing after the launch of Apple Lisa was that, Lisa was the name of Jobs daughter but according to the company it was totally incidental. Lisa according to them stood for Local Integrated System Architecture. By 1984 apple was already a shining name in the industry and had took over IBM.
Meanwhile Jobs indulged more and more in the Lisa project and overruled the management structure of the company.
Jobs may have always been the face of Apple but he was not the CEO of the company and many a people in the workplace considered him to be too inexperienced to handle the role. Mark Markkula, one of the investors in the company, first hired Micheal Scott and then settled with John Sculley, who is believed to be lured by Jobs himself from Pepsi to Apple by asking –”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?”. After a while he was pushed out of the company. This is how it happened!
The Struggle was real
After Jobs left, Apple was free to restructure its game plan in the market. It became more colorful and attractive to the businesses.
For Steve Jobs, he founded NeXT, (now known as Next Software) in 1985. After few years, Jobs returned to the company with NeXT merging with Apple in 1997. Apple carried on with the business, and the first genuine laptop was launched by it, which was designed and built for it by Sony.
Before the iPod was launched in 2001, Newton Message pad was introduced that recognized the real handwriting of an individual for the first time. However, it only lasted for five years and eventually iPod was introduced that featured the combination of music, videos and gaming platform. Between the years of 1994- 2001, apple kept on producing other digital gadgets such as QuickTake100(digital Camera), Power Pc Apple Computer etc.
Beginning of the iPhone Generations
iPhone was launched in June, 2007 that paved Apple into the new platform of success. iPhone was the idea of Steve Jobs, he thought that phone would become the portable device for information exchanging. The idea of making an iPhone came to jobs, when he asked the apple engineers to investigate the use of touchscreen devices and tablet Computers. Although the market was forcing them to follow up on their Newton PDA, Jobs concentrated on developing other software such as iTunes. He was also working on iPod at that period of time. During this period, Apple and Motorola released first Mobile that used iTunes. Jobs was unhappy that it was not a Apple gadget that used iTunes and a new concept of iPhone came to him.
iPhone took 2.5 years to develop and had the storage of 4GB in its initial stage. It was that luxury product that had all characteristics in one gadget and most of all that connected the user with the internet. It truly marked the start of digital computing we live in now. It was not that it was the first to introduce such a feature of portable connectivity but because it was all-in-one kind of a product that supported various applications. The model was also introduced with 8GB and 16GB storage capacity. The iPhone launched with different storage capacity was priced at different costs. (In 2008, worlds thinnest laptop was built by Apple known as MacBook Air. Although it had a slow processor and a poor battery life, the fact that it was the thinnest stood out.)
Then the saga of the iPhone’s kept on, which new generations of iPhone being introduced almost year after year. Apple has made a place for itself in the market with its mobile iPhone. Scott Forstall, the co-founder of iPhone believes that the smartphone roots back to Steve Jobs who created it because he hated a guy from Microsoft and had an unpleasant talk with the worker of the known company. He quoted at an event “Steve hated this guy at Microsoft,“.
Apple as the largest smartphone selling company
Apple has now become the largest smartphone selling company in the world leaving behind Samsung at second position. It was reported that iPhone 7 was the top selling smartphone in the third quarter of 2017. In the fourth quarter of 2017, Apple sold 77.3 million units which was much higher than Samsung selling 74.1 million units in the same period. There are even sites like HowMuchIs that compare the different prices of different iPhones. That’s how popular and desired they have become!
Because of the launch of iPhone 8, 8+, and iPhone X, the profits have increased by an accelerating rate in the quarter 4 of 2017 according to the press released by apple. iPhone 7 released in 2016 still remains in demand by the users. Apple left behind other top smartphone manufactures in the market that includes Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi.
Throughout the 10 years of iPhone, 18 models of it have been introduced. The latest model being also available with a storage capacity of 256 GB.
Recently, Steve Wozniak shared his views on Apple’s latest flagship device iPhone X, saying,”..its not what I would want.”