XX century is usually called the century of astronautics and aviation. However, the 70’s of the last century can also be called the era of the modern IT-industry development. And Apple played not the last role here.
Nowadays, Apple is a living legend of the computer world. Founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, as usual, in the garage, the company managed to make a computer revolution in a couple of years. The company has gone through the difficult years, it almost went bankrupt, but it is reborn today, once the dismissed Jobs returned to the helm of affairs. And now Apple has become a leader in many niches and is considered one of the most innovative companies, even when one of its founders is no longer alive.
Computers with the image of an apple have ceased to be a rarity. They can now be found almost everywhere — in publishing, advertising agencies, design studios. Apple computers are highly popular among coders and designers, and it can be explained by many reasons, but high quality, user-friendly interface and the reliability of the technology of the brand are the main ones.
In 1971, Steve Wozniak got acquainted with Steve Jobs and they became friends.
At school, Jobs became interested in electronics, and that was the ground on which two Steve met. Wozniak was 5 years older, so when he was studying at the University of Berkeley, Jobs was a high school student. Together they contrived their first device — Blue Box, which allowed making free long-distance calls. Of course, it was illegal, but very interesting, and adventurous Jobs learned how to make money already in high school.
In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and went to college, but dropped out almost immediately, seeing no point in spending a lot of money for nothing. However, for half a year he continued living on campus, attending fascinating courses, like calligraphy, which has later led him to the idea of creating a variety of fonts in Mac. After that, Steve settled in Atari, working as a creator of computer games. His friend Wozniak usually helped him with the job, as by that time he was already outstanding in computers and worked for Hewlett-Packard.
In the early '70s, Jobs while working at Atari, met and became friends with the senior developer of this firm Ron Wayne. Jobs invited Wayne to become a part of the "company" and offered him 10%. Of course at that time it did not sound very serious, but Wayne has accepted the invitation. Wayne was writing technical documentation and developed the very first trademark for a new company, while Jobs was looking for potential customers.
There are several versions of the occurrence of such an unusual name for the computer company — Apple. The most famous version tells us that they could not come up with something acceptable, and annoyed Jobs said that if tomorrow nothing was invented, he would call the company Apple, which was Steve's favorite fruit. And so it happened, one of the most successful and popular brands became known thanks to the love of apples. In addition, the name Apple in alphabetical order came before Atari, and at that time the main goal of Apple was to outrun them, so they did.
Same year when Apple was founded the first hand-built computer Apple Computer I has appeared on the market. For the period of ten months, there were collected and sold 175 units at 666.66 dollar price. In fact, Apple I was a motherboard without a casing, keyboard, sound and graphics.
In February 1977, Michael Scott became the Apple President. An important step forward was the release of Apple Computer II — the first personal computer with color graphics, which happened the same year. The computed was support for displaying different colors, it became possible to work with sound and, therefore, the computer had a built-in speaker and keyboard, it was possible to quickly change the display image, etc. All this " filling" was packed in a specially designed molded plastic housing that very favorably highlighted the new Apple from other computers, that looked like clumsy boxes of sheet metal. Also, it was a time when the world saw a logo of Apple—a colorful, bitten apple, created by the advertising agency of Regis McKenna.
In May 1979, Apple employee Jef Raskin started working on a new computer
"all in one", which was aimed at the average user. This period can be called the beginning of the birth of the first Macintosh.
In 1983, Apple released Lisa — the first personal computer with a graphical user interface, named after the daughter of Steve Jobs. However, because of the relatively high price and limited set of applications, this model was not widespread. Although, from a commercial standpoint, Lisa was a complete failure, however, its release was not in vain - the operating system used here Lisa 7/7 had a window interface, a buffer that allows a user to transfer data between applications.
The very first Macintosh, was officially unveiled in January 22, 1984 by the commercial "1984" based on the story of the book by D. Orwell. That clip was considered to be the best commercial of the decade, received the Grand Prix at Cannes and to this day in the history of advertising is considered to be one of the most original. This event was a significant milestone in the history of personal computing. With the advent of the Macintosh the way people think about computers fundamentally changed. In September of the same year, Apple began selling Macintosh 512K computers at 2495-dollar price. During the entire time Macintosh computers evolved and their operating system Mac OS expanded its opportunities, changed some of its elements and introduced new technology. When the Mac OS was introduced for the first time in 1984, it was the first perfection of modern programming
The system was designed in such a way, that any user, without having the special skills, could begin working with the computer immediately, without learning the technical parameters. Operating systems for other platforms, which appeared a few years later, offered things like multitasking and protected memory, which ultimately gave a better user experience. Apple did not embed those things in Mac OS because microprocessors that were available during the development of Mac OS were not powerful enough. However, over time, Mac OS overgrown additional functionality, and thus remained the most simple and useful operating system. Convenience and simplicity of the working process in this system were one of the main goals of its founders, and the internal logic of the interaction of individual parts of the operating system was first subjected to these requirements.
In 1985, Apple CEO Steve Jobs left the company. He left to return again after decades to revive his lapsed by the time disheartened child.
Jobs return led to the creation of products such as iBook (now MacBook); iMac has revived the idea of a simple computer for everyone, as well as iPod, which has changed the whole music industry. But the most vivid event was the appearance of the iPhone in 2006, which has played a huge role in the mobile phone industry. This smartphone was the basis for the emergence of many other sensing devices and brought new producers into the market, where there was no place in such veterans as Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. Finally, it became clear sets the pace in the smartphone market.
Incidentally, since the company was not producing computers only, in 2007 its name was changed from Apple Computers to Apple Inc.
One of the important achievements of the company after the return of Steve Jobs was its transition to the latest Mac OS X, which has replaced the decent, but outdated Mac OS Classic.
A phenomenon referred to as «Cult of Mac» is a real mystery to many people who think of Apple fans as of a sect. Apple is being loved and hated. Many people are surprised that Apple devices are more expensive with weaker performance, forgetting that it is not only in gigahertz. Not everyone wants to sit at a faceless device just because its characteristics are full of beautiful figures.
Works cited
Imbimbo, Anthony. Steve Jobs: the brilliant mind behind Apple. Pleasantville, NY: Gareth Stevens Pub., 2009. Print.
Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print.
Richardson, Angelique. "Apple Computer, Inc.." Apple Computers: This Month in Business History (Business Reference Services, Library of Congress). The Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2014. <http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/businesshistory/April/apple.html>.
