The bitten apple is the most recognized brand by consumers in the world, and its co-creator, Steve Jobs, one of the most recognized celebrities and that arouses the greatest inspiration among entrepreneurs.
The legend of its conception
Founded in 1976, curiously Apple Computer was preceded by the first Apple computer , the Apple I, built by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak ( Woz ), and a small team of developers.
This diverse set needed business support that would allow them to focus on development and provide them with the sales and entrepreneurial flair they lacked. And they found it in Mike Markkula, who invested money in the fledgling company as well as trusting those who formed it.
For the Apple II, designed by Wozniak, Steve Jobs had the idea of offering a fully assembled and finished computer, unlike most computers of the time that were offered as a mounting kit, which had to be assembled or soldered.
It is also at this point that the personalities of the two Steve, Wozniak and Jobs, each orient themselves to their particular focus (Woz in the mechanical part and in the design of the machine, and Jobs in all aspects of the strategic direction of the business. and product design), and also when their differences and the legend of Jobs, largely forged by himself, begin.
The Apple II hit very hard in the industry, becoming a reference, something that did not happen with its successor the Apple III, which was practically a failure. However, between the two successors of the latter, the future of the company was brewing: the Lisa and the Macintosh, also known simply as Mac.
The era of the Mac begins
The Apple Lisa was the first computer to replace the command line with a graphical environment, which was used by means of a mouse. This was the fruit of Steve Jobs' visit to the Xerox PARC research center .
Later, jobs would refer to the accusations that he had stolen the idea of the graphic environment by resorting to the phrase coined by Pablo Picasso: " Great artists copy, geniuses steal ." In addition, Xerox had dismissed the use of the graphical environment in computers as not serious.
The Lisa sold poorly, and this caused an internal crisis at Apple, including the resignation of Markkula, a crisis that was to solve the Mac and the hiring of John Sculley, who had led Pepsi to overtake Coca-Cola.
Jobs hired Sculley by posing a dilemma that became famous: “ Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water, or do you want the opportunity to change the world? ”.
It was Sculley who, precisely, forced the departure of Steve Jobs from the company he had founded, responding to an attempt by Jobs himself to unseat him in his turn from power. Apple's board of directors voted against Jobs
He left, but he did so by founding a new company, NeXT Computers, with which he put his ideas into practice. The NeXT machines and operating system became, over time, also mythical.
Meanwhile, Apple had already become a benchmark company, launching new product lines, in accordance with industry trends. Among these, PowerBook laptops.
However, the pricing policy of its products (which had earned Apple the status of an elite company) was a handicap that led to the worst results in its history.
Worse still: Apple opened the door to license its operating system, in a movement with which it wanted to emulate the PC world, thinking that a new batch of clones would eat up part of the PC market and enlarge, however little, the market from the apple company.
This was a big mistake, since what the clones did was cannibalize part of the market for Apple itself.
After several CEO changes , Gil Amelio found himself, in 1996, in the position that John Sculley had occupied a few years earlier, and with a big problem on his hands: the apple company's products were technologically backward, and there was no own future solutions.
It was necessary to buy, but what exactly? So Amelio made a bet: acquire NeXT (at that time, Steve Jobs's company was not having its best moment either) and return the founder to his origins.
The return of Jobs started Apple's new golden age
The iMac and iPod first, and the iPhone later brought Apple out of the hole it was in, with a modernized Mac OS X replacing the classic operating system. But the first thing he did was destroy the nefarious clones, thus closing a very negative episode in the company's history.
The new software platform drew, basically, from NeXTSTEP sources, which in turn was powered by UNIX. This is how Apple went from having its own operating system to a proprietary one based on UNIX.
Jobs soon took control of the company, purging all those who were left when they made him leave and anyone who could pose a threat to his leadership .
At that initial time of the return of Jobs we owe concepts such as the application store (App Store), or the current form of a smartphone thanks to the original iPhone. It was also the time when Apple began opening its now famous Apple Stores in select cities and locations around the world.
From now on, Apple TV, iPad and Apple Watch would expand the product portfolio of an Apple that, in October 2011, lost Steve Jobs forever.
Apple's creative genius had handed over his duties as the company's chief executive officer in August 2011.
Apple is, today, the reference that Jobs wanted, the best known and most recognized brand in the world, and not only in its sector, but among all brands
It is a reference of the design and quality of its products, and the iPhone and iPad continue to be a reference as a smartphone and tablet respectively.
Thanks to these products, Apple has also increased its presence in the field of computers and desktop systems, and has become a very healthy company economically, with which its continuity and its future are more than guaranteed.