Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne founded Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976. Its Apple I was a circuit-board computer; the Apple II followed in 1977 with color graphics and expansion slots. The Macintosh arrived in 1984 with a graphical interface and mouse. The Computer History Museum records these early milestones.
Jobs left Apple in 1985 and returned in 1997 after the company acquired NeXT. NeXT technology underpinned Mac OS X, released in 2001. That year Apple also introduced the iPod portable music player. Computers remained central to the business while iTunes, music players and the later iTunes Music Store expanded its consumer products.
Apple introduced iPhone in 2007 and opened the App Store in July 2008, giving third-party developers a distribution channel on the phone. The iPad followed in 2010, while iCloud arrived in 2011 to synchronize content across devices. In 2020, M1 began the Mac’s transition from Intel processors to Apple-designed silicon.
Apple milestones
- 1976Apple foundedApple I circuit-board computer
- 1984MacintoshGraphical interface and mouse
- 1997Jobs returnsApple acquires NeXT
- 2001Mac OS X and iPodNew operating system and music player
- 2007-2008iPhone and App StorePhone hardware and third-party apps
- 2020M1 MacsTransition to Apple silicon