The History Of Apple Computers
In the world of computing corporate leaders,
there are two names which stand head and shoulders above the rest, and
behind these giants of computing there are two men who are synonymous
with their success. For Apple Computers and Steve Jobs, they were for a
long time considered behind the more successful Microsoft under the
guidance of Bill Gates, but over recent years especially Apple has been
catching up in leaps and bounds.
The
early years of Apple is the story of computer enthusiasts trying to get
their ideas in production, and the first product that was actually
produced by Apple was the Apple I, and was little more than a
motherboard with associated chips, and didn't even come with a case or a
keyboard. From this humble beginning came their advancements to develop
a personal computer, and the Apple II which hit the market in 1977
brought advancements such as an open architecture and the introduction
of color graphics.
Apple proceeded to try and compete in the
home computer market, and also tried to get a piece of the business
computer market. Their next major advancement came with the introduction
of the Macintosh computer, launched with immense fanfare with a Ridley
Scott directed advert taking pride of place in the 1984 Superbowl show.
Although it suffered from a drop in sales after initially encouraging
numbers, the Laserwriter printer and the PageMaker publishing program
came to the machine's rescue, and sales rose once again.
In 1985, in an episode detailed
particularly well by retronics.biz, Steve Jobs found himself with no
option, but to resign after a failed takeover of the company led to the
relationship between him and CEO John Sculley becoming untenable.
As Apple suffered a number of
disappointing models through the late 80s and into the 90s, Jobs was
working with his new company NeXT. Apple struggled to bring its
Macintosh platform up-to-date and in a position to compete with the
Microsoft offerings, and tried a number of partnerships with IBM and AOL
to revive their fortunes.
With Apple still in its slump in 1997,
and the losses unable to be stemmed by a change in the CEO, Apple
purchased NeXT and Steve Jobs was quickly advanced to the new CEO and
began working to turn Apple around and get it working successfully
again.
Within a year came the biggest single
letter in computing, when the 'I' was added to the first Apple product,
and the iMac was introduced. With the proliferation of the 'I'
throughout Apple's products and software, the innovative design of the
iMac and the improvements in its platform led to a pick up in sales, and
the return to profitability for Apple.
Their Mac computers were back in terms of
popularity, and then came the innovation that has made Apple what it is
today. The iPod and the iTunes store to sell music for the iPod music
player were revolutionary in terms of the ability to play music on the
go. Follow this with the iPhone and most recently the iPad, and it seems
that Apple can do no wrong.
Now become..