Today Apple Computers is 32 Years old

Apple Incorporation a company which develops, sells, and supports a series of personal computers, portable media players, mobile phones, computer software, and computer hardware and hardware accessories, was launched on April 1st 1976, by Steve jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Today Apple computers is 32 years old.

The company started with the launch of Apple I, it was a computer kit. They were hand-built by Steve Wozniak, and the Apple I was first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. Eventually 200 computers were built. The Apple I was sold without a monitor and the user had to wire the video output pins to an RF modulator, in order to connect it to a TV set. The initial price of Apple I was $666.66.Wozniak came up with the $666.66 price because he liked repeating digits.

The Apple II was introduced on April 16, 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Faire.

While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, Apple II used 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive known as the Disk II and color graphics.

In 1983, Apple launched Lisa first personal computer to be sold to the public with a GUI. But, Lisa was a commercial failure due to high price (US$9,995) and limited software titles.

In 1984, drawing upon its experience with the Lisa, Apple next launched the Macintosh. The machine’s fortunes changed with the introduction of the LaserWriter, the first laser printer to be offered at a reasonable price point, and PageMaker, an early desktop publishing (DTP) package.

Having learned several painful lessons after introducing the bulky Macintosh Portable in 1989, Apple introduced the PowerBook in 1991, which established the modern form and ergonomic layout of the laptop computer.

The same year, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the operating system which added color to the interface, and introduced a number of new networking capabilities.

In 1993 “Personal digital assistant” or “PDA” was launched by Apple Computers. Though it failed commercially, it defined and launched a new category of computing and was a forerunner of devices such as Palm Pilot, PocketPC, and eventually the iPhone.

In 1994 Apple Computers launched the first consumer digital cameras the Apple QuickTake .
Apple develops its own operating system to run on Macs, Mac OS X. Much of the software Apple develops is bundled with its computers. An example of this is the consumer-oriented iLife software package which bundles iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, GarageBand, and iWeb.

Announced in October 2001, the iPod represented Apple’s first strike into the digital music market. The iPod was a hard disk based digital music player that was smaller than most portable tape decks. The product has proven phenomenally successful; over 100 million units have been sold in the six years since its introduction. In 2003, Apple’s iTunes Store was introduced, offering online music downloads and integration with the iPod. The service quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 3 billion downloads by August 2007. Steve Jobs announced that iTunes had reached 4 billion downloads during his keynote address at the 2008 Macworld Conference & Expo.

On January 10, 2006, Apple released its first Intel chip computers, a new notebook computer known as the Mac Book Pro with a 15.4″ screen and a new iMac two to three times faster performance compared with its predecessor.

Apple also introduced a new piece of software called Boot Camp that helps users install Windows XP on their Intel Mac alongside Mac OSX.

On September 5, 2007 Apple launched the iPod touch. IPod touch is a portable media player and Wi-Fi mobile platform designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod touch adds the graphical user interfaces Cover Flow and Multi-Touch to the iPod line and is available with 8, 16 or 32 GB of flash memory. It includes Apple’s Safari web browser and is the first iPod enabling wireless access to the iTunes Store.
According to surveys by J. D. Power, Apple has the highest brand and repurchases loyalty of any computer manufacturer.

Mac users meet at the European Apple Expo and the San Francisco Macworld Conference & Expo trade shows, where Apple introduces new products each year to the industry and public. Mac developers in turn gather at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.

Apple Store openings can draw crowds of thousands, with some waiting in line as much as a day before the opening or flying in from other countries for the event. The New York City Fifth Avenue “Cube” store had a line as long as half a mile. The Ginza opening in Tokyo was estimated in the thousands with a line exceeding eight city blocks.

Market research indicates that Apple draws its customer base from an unusually artistic, creative, and well-educated population, which may explain the platform’s visibility within certain youthful, avant-garde subcultures.