Apple Inc., (NASDAQ:AAPL) formerly Apple Computer, Inc., is an Americanmultinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing consumer electronics and software products. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of personal computers, the iPod line of portable media players, and the iPhone. Apple's software products include the Mac OS Xoperating system, iTunes media browser, the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software, and Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio- and film-industry software products. The company operates more than 200 retail stores in seven countries and an online store where hardware and software products are sold.

Established in Cupertino, California on April 1, 1976 and incorporated January 3, 1977, the company was called "Apple Computer, Inc." for its first 30 years, but dropped the word "Computer" on January 9, 2007 [5] to reflect the company's ongoing expansion into the consumer electronics market in addition to its traditional focus on personal computers. Apple has about 28,000 employees worldwide and had worldwide annual sales of US$24 billion in its fiscal year ending September 29, 2007. For reasons varying from its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic design to its distinctive advertising campaigns, Apple has established a unique reputation in the consumer electronics industry. This includes a customer base that is devoted to the company and its brand, particularly in the United States. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States.

Apple was established on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne to sell the Apple I personal computer kit. They were hand-built by Wozniak and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard (with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips)—not what is today considered a complete personal computer. The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at US$666.66.

Apple was incorporated January 3, 1977 without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of US$250,000 during the incorporation of Apple.

The Apple II was introduced on April 16, 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because it came with color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 51/4inch floppy disk drive and interface, the Disk II.

The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business world—the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II, and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II—compatibility with the office. According to Brian Bagnall, Apple exaggerated its sales figures and was a distant third place to Commodore and Tandy until VisiCalc came along.

By the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a production line. The Apple II was succeeded by the Apple III in May 1980 as the company competed with IBM and Microsoft in the business and corporate computing market.

Jobs and several Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC in December 1979 to see the Xerox Alto. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for US$1 million in pre-IPO Apple stock.Apple Lisa. Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a GUI, and development of a GUI began for the

Steve Jobs began working on the Apple Lisa in 1978 but in 1982 he was pushed from the Lisa team due to infighting, and took over Jef Raskin's low-cost-computer project, the Macintosh. A turf war broke out between Lisa's "corporate shirts" and Jobs' "pirates" over which product would ship first and save Apple. Lisa won the race in 1983 and became the first personal computer sold to the public with a GUI, but was a commercial failure due to its high price tag and limited software titles.

In 1984, Apple next launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by the now famous US$1.5 million television commercial, "1984." It was directed by Ridley Scott, aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984, and is now considered a watershed event for Apple's success and a masterpiece.

The Macintosh initially sold well, but follow-up sales were not strong. The machine's fortunes changed with the introduction of the LaserWriter, the first laser printer to be offered at a reasonable price point, and PageMaker, an early desktop publishing package. The Mac was particularly powerful in this market due to its advanced graphics capabilities, which were already necessarily built-in to create the intuitive Macintosh GUI. It has been suggested that the combination of these three products was responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market.initial public offering on September 7, 1984. As desktop publishing became widespread, Apple's sales reached new highs and the company had its

A power struggle developed between Jobs and new CEO John Sculley in 1985.board of directors sided with Sculley and Jobs was removed from his managerial duties. Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc. the same year. Apple's

Apple's sustained growth during the early 1980s was partly due to its leadership in the education sector, attributed to their adaptation of the programming language LOGO, used in many schools with the Apple II. The drive into education was accentuated in California with the donation of one Apple II and one Apple LOGO software package to each public school in the state.

Having learned several painful lessons after introducing the bulky Macintosh Portable in 1989, Apple introduced the PowerBook in 1991, which established the modern form and ergonomic layout of the laptop computer. The same year, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the operating system which added color to the interface and introduced new networking capabilities. It remained the architectural basis for Mac OS until 2001.

The success of the PowerBook and other products led to increasing revenue. For some time, it appeared that Apple could do no wrong, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazineMacAddict named the period between 1989 to 1991 the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.

Following the success of the LC, Apple introduced the Centris line, a low end Quadra offering, and the ill-fated Performa line which was sold in several confusing configurations and software bundles to avoid competing with the various consumer outlets such as Sears, Price Club and Wal-Mart, the primary dealers for these models. The end result was disastrous for Apple as consumers did not understand the difference between models.

During this time Apple experimented with a number of other failed consumer targeted products including digital cameras, portable CD audio players, speakers, video consoles and TV appliances. Enormous resources were also invested in the problem plagued Newton division based on John Sculley's unrealistic market forecasts. Ultimately, all of this proved be too-little-too-late for Apple as their market share and stock prices continued to slide.

Apple saw the Apple II Family as too expensive to produce, while taking away sales from the low end Macintosh. In 1990 Apple released the Macintosh LC with a single expansion slot for the Apple IIe Card to migrate Apple II users to the Macintosh platform. Apple stopped selling the Apple II in 1993.

Microsoft continued to gain market share with Windows, focusing on delivering software with cheap commodity PCs while Apple was delivering a richly engineered, but expensive, experience. Apple relied on high profit margins and never developed a clear response. Instead they sued Microsoft for using a graphical user interface similar to the Apple Lisa in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation. The lawsuit dragged on for years before being thrown out of court. At the same time, a series of major product flops and missed deadlines destroyed Apple's reputation and Sculley was replaced by Michael Spindler.