Welcome to I Am Your Target Demographic and today we’re diving into the history and
highlights of the company Apple.
I know a lot of this is common knowledge, especially considering the multiple movies
focusing on the rise of Apple and the life of Steve Jobs, so I’ll do my best to include
some stuff that those movies maybe didn’t focus on.
It began in the late 70s when computer engineer Steve Wozniak teamed up with a man by the
name of Steve Jobs to create something called the Apple I.
It was the first thing we have termed as a personal computer but its resemblance to
today’s computers is pretty minimal.
The product itself was entirely Wozniak’s invention but he needed Jobs to play the part
of the businessman and to sell these computers.
Steve Jobs, he played no role at all in any of my designs.
He did not know technology, he'd never designed anything.
He was a hardware engineer and he never wrote any software.
But he wanted to be important and the important people are always the businessmen.
So that's what he wanted to be. I wanted to be the engineer, in a laboratory like a mad scientist.
There was a third man involved, Ronald Wayne, who sold his 10% share of the company
for $800.
Those same shares in Apple would today be worth about $60 billion dollars.
I would have wound up heading a very large documentation department at the back of the building
shuffling papers for the next 20 years of my life and that was not the future I saw for myself.
The Apple I eventually gave way to the Apple II, also created entirely by Wozniak.
With the Apple II also came the first spreadsheet program called VisiCalc, which now gave people
a reason to use the Apple for their businesses.
The Apple III arrived in 1980, launching with issues that severely damaged the reputation
of the Apple, such as stability issues and a factory recall.
It’s at this point that most of the drama kicked in between leadership.
Wozniak and Jobs had different priorities, nonetheless all the other professionals that
had been brought on board by this time as well.
Some wanted to focus on the average consumer, some focused on the sleek and attractive look
over the computer’s functionality, and some wanted to get back to its core of evolving
in terms of what it can do.
It was in 1984 that the first Macintosh was debuted, a computer with a higher degree of
visuals, able to graphically represent much more than the previous Apples were capable of.
The Macintosh was revealed in one of the most famous commercials of all time, called “1984”
and directed by acclaimed director Ridley Scott, which alludes to the famous novel 1984.
Macintosh struggled for a long time, in the shadow of IBM and other personal computers,
which had more variety in terms of software and were usually cheaper.
A lot of personal things also happened during this time, including Steve Jobs being removed from Apple.
Wozniak also left Apple, selling most of his stock in the company.
It wasn’t long before Jobs was back though.
In his time off, he launched a new company called Next.
This technology he worked on there was eventually bought by Apple, which brought Jobs back into
the fold initially as a consultant, but later he regained his position as CEO.
10 years went by and Apple needed to reinvigorate the Macintosh, launching a rebranded iMac,
a computer and monitor combined, utilizing this new technology that came with the Next purchase.
The iMac marked the first time in nearly 10 years that the Macintosh was profitable.
The iMac of today looks much different but owes much of its success to this late 90s origin.
In 2001, Apple unveiled the iPod, which became a worldwide sensation.
With this came the invention of iTunes and one of the first legal ways to download and
purchase music entirely online.
Because of this success, Apple was rebranded from Apple Computer Inc to just Apple Inc,
since the focus was now on the entirety of consumer electronics.
Following the iPod came the iPhone, which also has become a powerhouse among its competition.
It was 2011 when Steve Jobs passed away due to complications from pancreatic cancer.
A few movies were made about the life of Steve Jobs, including the Ashton Kutcher film Jobs
which covered his entire career and then the Michael Fassbender film Steve Jobs, which
focused on three specific moments from his life.
"You can't write code... You're not an engineer, you're not a designer."
"You can't put a hammer to a nail. I built the circuit board, the graphical interface was stolen from Xerox Park!"
"Jef Raskin was the leader of the Mac team before you threw him off his own project!"
"Someone else designed the box!"
"So how come 10 times in a day, I read 'Steve Jobs is a genius?' What do you DO?"
"I play the orchestra."
"And you're a good musician, you sit right there, you're the best in your row."
Apple is now run by CEO Tim Cook, who has been with Jobs at Apple since 1998 in various
leadership positions.
"He stood for the simple, not the complex."
"He knew that Apple should only enter areas where we could control the primary technology."
"All of these things are still deep in our company."
In case you were wondering about Steve Wozniak,
he still receives a paycheck from Apple and is considered a lifelong Apple employee, receiving
about $120,000 a year from that alone, plus any stock he still retains.
In general, the future looks bright for Apple.
They’ve introduced new products like the Apple Watch and they’re diving into the
electronic vehicle arena, wanting to create a self-driving automobile by 2020.
They’re also investing in solar and renewable energies with a subsidiary called Apple Energy.
Apple Stores selling all of their products have popped up all over the world, with almost
500 locations across 17 countries.
Are you an Apple loyalist?
What are your favorite products?
Let me know in the comments and hopefully you found this interesting.
We’ll see you next Wednesday for another What Is.
"Despite this table being so small, that you and I are sitting at,
You could put every Apple product on it... Every single one that we ship today. And yet this year, our revenues will be approximately $180 billion.
There's probably no other company on the face of the Earth that could say that."