Apple Computer





Apple Computer is a large multinational corporation whose main business is
computer technologies. It is best known for its range of Apple Macintosh
computers, and has a reputation for innovation.

Pre-history

Steve Wozniak had always been an electronics hacker, and in 1975 he started
attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club. He was inspired by what
was going on.

At the time the only microcomputer CPUs generally available were the $179
Intel 8080, and the $170 Motorola 6800. Wozniak preferred the 6800, but both
were out of his price range. So he watched, and learned, and designed
computers on paper waiting for the day he could afford a CPU. This may have
been the best thing to ever happen to the computer market.

In 1976 MOS Technologies released the famous 6502, at $25. Wozniak
immediately started writing a version of BASIC for the chip, and when he
completed that, he started designing the computer it would run on. The 6502
was designed by the same people who designed the 6800 (like many in Silicon
Valley, they left their employer in disgust to form their own company) and
his earlier 6800 paper-computer needed only minor changes to run on the new chip.

Wozniak completed the machine and started taking it to the meetings at the
Homebrew Computer Club, where he could often be seen showing off the latest
addition to the system. There he bumped into an old friend, Steve Jobs, who
had recently started attending the shows with an interest in the future
commercial applications of these tiny hobby machines.

Early Years

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak ("the two Steves") had been friends for some
time, and Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling the machine and
selling it. Jobs approached a local computer store, The Byte Shop, who said
they would be interested in the machine, but only if it came fully
assembled. The owner, Paul Terrell, went further, saying he would order 50
of the machines and pay $500 each on delivery.

The machine had only a few notable features. One was the use of a TV as the
display system, whereas many machines had no display at all. This was not
like the displays of later machines however, and displayed text at a
terribly slow 60cps. This machine, the Apple I also included bootstrap code
on ROM, which made it easier to start up. Finally, at the insistence of Paul
Terrell, Wozniak also designed a cassette interface for loading and saving
programs, at the then-rapid pace of 1200bps. Although the machine was fairly
simple, it was nevertheless a masterpiece of design, using far fewer parts
than anything in its class, and quickly earning Wozniak a reputation as a
master designer.

Joined by another friend, Ron Wayne, the three started to build the
machines. Using a variety of methods, including borrowing space from friends
and family, selling various prized items (like calculators and a VW bus),
scrounging and some white lies, Jobs managed to secure the parts needed
while Wozniak and Wayne assembled them. They were delivered in June, and as
promised, they were paid on delivery. Eventually 200 of the Apple I's were built.

But Wozniak had already moved on from the Apple I. Many of the design
features of the I were due to the limited amount of money they had to
construct the prototype, but with the income from the sales he was able to
start construction of a very much upgraded machine, the Apple II.

The main difference internally was a completely redesigned TV interface,
which held the display in memory. Now not only useful for simple text
display, the Apple II included graphics, and eventually, color. Jobs
meanwhile pressed for a much improved case and keyboard, with the idea that
the machine should be complete and ready to run out of the box. This was
almost the case for the Apple I machines sold to the Byte Shop, but one
still needed to plug various parts together and type in the code to run BASIC.

Building such a machine was going to cost a lot more money. Jobs started
looking for cash, but Wayne was somewhat gun shy due to a failed venture
four years earlier, and eventually dropped out of the company. Jobs
eventually met "Mike" Markkula who co-signed a bank loan for $250,000, and
the three formed Apple Computer on April 1, 1976.

With both cash and a new case design in hand, the Apple II was released in
1977 and became the computer generally credited with creating the home
computer market. Millions were sold well into the 1980s. When Apple went
public in 1980, they generated more money than any IPO since Ford in 1956,
and instantly created more millionaires than any company in history.

A number of different models of the Apple II family were built, including
the Apple IIe and IIgs, which can still be found in many schools.

The Macintosh

By the 80s Apple faced emerging competition in the personal computing
business. Chief among them was IBM, the first "big name" in computing. IBM's
PC model, running DOS (short for Disc Operating System, and licensed to IBM
by Bill Gates) was capturing a large share of the emerging desktop computing
market in large companies.

Several smaller businesses were using the Apple II, but the company felt it
needed a newer, more advanced model to compete in the corporate desktop
computing market. Thus, designers of the Apple III were forced to comply
with Jobs' lofty and sometimes impractical goals. Among them was the
omission of a cooling fan - it is reported Jobs found them "inelegant." The
new machines were prone to overheating, and most early models had to be
recalled. The Apple III was also expensive, and though the company
introduced an updated version in 1983, it was largely a failure.

Meanwhile various groups within Apple were working on a completely new kind
of personal computer, with advanced technologies such as a graphical user
interface, computer mouse, object-oriented programming and networking
capabilities. These people, including Jef Raskin and Bill Atkinson, agitated
for Steve Jobs to put the company's focus behind such computers.

It was only when they brought him to see the work being done at Xerox PARC
on the Alto in December 1979 that Jobs decided the future was in such
graphics-intensive, icon-friendly computers, and supported the competing
Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh teams. Xerox granted the Apple engineers
access to the PARC facilities in return for $1 million in Apple stock, over
the objections of some of the PARC researchers, many of whom (such as Larry
Tesler) ended up working at Apple. The Lisa debuted in January 1983 at
$10,000. Once again, Apple had introduced a product that was ahead of its
time, but far too expensive (the company would continue to follow this
pattern for the next few years), and Apple again failed to capture the
business market. The Lisa was discontinued in 1986.

The Lisa project was removed from Jobs' control midway through development.
Jobs soon turned his attention to the Macintosh project, originally
envisioned as a kind of "budget Lisa." The Apple Macintosh was launched in
1984 with a now famous ad based on George Orwell's novel "1984." The obvious
implication was that the Mac's new, "user friendly" GUI would liberate IBM
PC users. Apple also spawned the concept of Mac evangelism which was
pioneered by Apple employee, and later Apple Fellow, Guy Kawasaki.

The Macintosh was, and continues to be a success for Apple, but not as big a
success as it could have been. On a visit to Apple headquarters in Cupertino,
Jobs showed Bill Gates, now president of Microsoft, a prototype of the Mac
GUI. In 1985 Microsoft launched Microsoft Windows, its own GUI for IBM PCs.
By that point many companies were also making IBM PC Compatibles, cheaper
copies of the PC. Apple did not allow other computer makers to clone the
Mac. Although the the first version of Windows was technologically inferior
to the Mac, it and a PC clone could be had for less than the price of a Mac,
and there was soon more software available for Windows as well.

Microsoft and Windows would go on to become one of the most phenominal
business success stories of the late 20th century, and Apple would never
again be the the world's number one personal computer maker. By 2003 Apple's
share of the personal computer market had dwindled to less than 5%.

Recent Years

A laptop version of the Macintosh, the PowerBook, was introduced in the
early 1990s. Products from Apple also include operating systems such as
ProDOS, Mac OS and A/UX, networking products such as AppleTalk and
multimedia program QuickTime. Discontinued products include the Apple Power
Mac G4 Cube and the Apple Newton handheld computer.

After an internal power struggle with new CEO John Sculley in the 1980s,
Jobs resigned from Apple and went on to found NeXT Computer, which
ultimately failed, after a promising start. Later on, Apple in an effort to
save the company, bought up NeXT and its UNIX based OS NeXTStep, and this
move brought back Jobs to Apple's management. One of his first acts as new
acting CEO was to instigate development of the iMac, which saved the company
from going under while they had time to work on sorting out the operating system.

More recent products include the Apple AirPort which uses Wireless LAN
technology to connect computers of different brands to the Internet without
wires. There is also the iBook and G4 Computer. In early 2002, Apple
unveiled a new one piece design of the new iMac. It has a hemispherical base
and a 15" flat panel all-digital display supported by a shiny neck that also
serves as the handle.

Recently, Apple has introduced Mac OS X, a new version of their operating
system that finally marries the stability, reliability and security of Unix
with the ease of use of the Macintosh interface in an OS targeted at
professionals and consumers alike.

Apple computers such as the PowerBook, and more recently the iBook and the
iMac, are frequently featured as props in films and television series. At
one time, Apple ran an advertising campaign for the PowerBook featuring
clips from the film Mission Impossible.

In addition to computers, Apple has also produced very popular consumer
devices. In the 1990s, Apple released the Newton, a handheld electronic
note-taking device. It experienced mediocre success, but was clearly many
years ahead of its time. Through the 1990s, Microsoft began to gain a much
larger percentage of new computer users than Apple. As a result Apple fell
from controling 20% of the total personal computer market to 5% by the end
of the decade. The company was struggling financially when on August 6, 1997
Microsoft bought a $150 million non-voting share of company.

In October of 2001, Apple introduced the iPod, a portable digital music
player. Its signature was the incredible amount of storage space, initially
5 GB, able to hold approximately 1,000 songs. Apple has since revised its
iPod line several times in the past few years with newer versions, a
slimmer, more compact design, Windows compatibility, storage sizes of up to
30 GB, and the ability to easily hook it up to a car or home stereo.

Apple has revolutionized the computer and music industry by signing the five
major record companies to join its new Music download service, the
successful iTunes Music Store. Unlike other fee-based music services, the
iTunes Music Store charges a flat $.99 per song (or $9.99 per album). Also
unlike other services, users actually own the music they purchase, and can
burn the songs onto a CD, share and play the songs on up to 3 computers, and
of course download songs onto an iPod, all with very few restrictions.

The acclaimed iTunes Music Store has seen 2 million downloads in only 16
days; all of which were only purchased on Macintosh computers. Apple has
announced they will be releasing a version of iTunes for Windows, allowing
Windows users the ability to access the store as well. In addition, Apple
plans for a worldwide release for its music store; currently, it is only
available to customers in the United States.

Software made by Apple

   * Address Book
   * AppleWorks
   * Backup
   * Chess
   * Darwin Mach-based core OS
   * Developer Tools
   * DVD Studio Pro
   * Final Cut Express
   * Final Cut Pro
   * HyperCard
   * iCal
   * iChat
   * iDVD
   * iLife
   * iMovie
   * iPhoto
   * iSync
   * iTunes
   * Keynote
   * MacDraw
   * MacPaint
   * MacWrite
   * Mail
   * Preview
   * QuickTime
   * QuickTime Streaming Server
   * Apple Remote Desktop
   * Safari web browser
   * Shake
   * Sherlock
   * SimpleText
   * Soundtrack
   * TeachText
   * TextEdit
   * WebObjects
   * X11

Software made by Apple subsidiaries:

   * Logic (Emagic GmbH)
   * Filemaker (Filemaker, Inc (Formerly Claris))

Other Devices made by Apple

   * Airport
   * ImageWriter
   * iPod
   * LaserWriter
   * Apple Newton
   * OneScanner
   * Pippin games console

Documentation

   * Inside Macintosh