Apple history

Current Apple Inc. logo introduced in 1998, was taken down in 2000 and was re-established in 2014.

Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer, Inc., is a multinational corporation that creates consumer electronics, personal computers, servers, and computer software, and is a digital distributor of media content. The company also has a chain of retail stores known as Apple Stores. Apple's core product lines are the iPhone smartphone, iPad tablet computer, iPod portable media players, and Macintosh computer line. Founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple Computer on April 1, 1976,^[1] and incorporated the company on January 3, 1977,^[2] in Cupertino, California.

For more than three decades, Apple Computer was predominantly a manufacturer of personal computers, including the Apple II, Macintosh, and Power Mac lines, but it faced rocky sales and low market share during the 1990s. Jobs, who had been ousted from the company in 1985, returned to Apple in 1996 after his company NeXT was bought by Apple.^[3] The following year he became the company's interim CEO,^[4] which later became permanent.^[5] Jobs subsequently instilled a new corporate philosophy of recognizable products and simple design, starting with the original iMac in 1998.

With the introduction of the successful iPodmusic player in 2001 and iTunes Music Storein 2003, Apple established itself as a leader in the consumer electronics and media sales industries, leading it to drop "Computer" from the company's name in 2007. The company is now also known for its iOS range of smart phone, media player, and tablet computer products that began with the iPhone, followed by the iPod Touch and then iPad. As of 30 June 2015, Apple was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization,^[6] with an estimated value of US$1 trillion as of August 2, 2018.^[7] Apple's worldwide annual revenue in 2010 totaled US$65 billion, growing to US$127.8 billion in 2011^[8] and $156 billion in 2012.^[9]

According to a popular urban legend the current logo resembles the apple Alan Turingate before his death, but logo designer Rob Janoff states in an interview that he was unaware of this when he created the logo.^[10]