Happy Birthday, Apple Inc.

The company launched with the Apple I, a cumbersome personal computer kit created by Steve Wozniak. The debut failed to make waves within the industry; only a handful of small retailers sold the computer. In 1977, the Apple II was released; it offered two features that were rare at the time, color graphics and a disk drive. The Apple II remained on sale until 1980. Review the specs of Apple’s original products on Apple History. (Click on a product name from the right sidebar.)

Over the next few years, Apple continued to release updated versions of their original release. Then in January 1984, the company introduced the Apple Macintosh. Its compact size, floppy disk drive, keyboard/mouse and affordable price were a hit with the public. While Steve Jobs’s product, the Mac, flourished, his career with Apple did not: he was voted out by his handpicked CEO. In the wake of his departure, the company continued to ride on the success of the Mac; it released numerous updated versions, including a laptop in 1991.

By the mid-nineties, the failure of such products as the Newton Message Pad caused the popularity of the company to wane. Creator Steve Jobs returned as CEO of the company, determined to manufacture the products that would set Apple Inc. apart from the competition. As he explained in a 2005 article with Time magazine, he had to fight to enact his grand vision:  "When we took…[the design for the iMac] to the engineers, they … came up with 38 reasons [why it couldn’t be done]. And I said, 'No, no, we're doing this.' And they said, 'Well, why?' And I said, 'Because I'm the CEO, and I think it can be done.' And so they kind of begrudgingly did it. But then it was a big hit." Read more in the article “How Apple Does It” on the Time magazine site.

In 2001, the company ventured into uncharted territory with the release of the iPod music player. The incredible success of this product helped transform Apple into the robust company it is today. The upward trend continued with the January 2007 release of the iPhone, Time magazine’s “Invention of the Year.”

See the current lineup of Apple products on the official company Web site.

The fortunes of Apple Inc. show no signs of a downward spiral. Since 2004, the company’s stock has increased sixfold in value. While the company keeps getting greener with monetary wealth, Apple plans to concentrate on a whole different type of green in the years to come. Look at Jobs’s environmentally friendly plans for Apple in the site’s “A Greener Apple” section. 

Get the latest Apple information at Apple’s “Hot News” section.