VOL 38: Apple Inc. History, Facts & Products-1

Introduction: The story of Steve Jobs and the company he founded

Hey Friends 🤓,

Trust you all had a great week 🤗?

I'll be sharing the early days’ stories of some of the Big Tech companies in a blog series over the next few weeks. So, for today, I'll begin with Apple Inc.

Today at a Glance:

• Quote of the Week

• Apple

• Company’s Timeline

• In Other News 🔥…

• Face of the Week

• Business & Startups

• Random Facts

• Tweet of the Week

Quote of The Week

Don’t rush. Grow at your own pace. ☺️

—

Unknown

Apple

Over the last several years, today's society has greatly expanded its use of technology. It is difficult to keep up with the constant emergence of new technologies such as smart watches, tablets, and wireless headphones. One multi-billion dollar corporation, spread across the globe has been able to keep up with these outrageously spiking trends.

Apple Computers Inc. was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. The two Steve’s brought to the new company a vision of changing the way people viewed computers. Their original goal was to invent a device that could be used in households that were user-friendly.

Apple Computer, Inc. as it was formerly called until January 2007, when one of the founders Steve Jobs announced during his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo, that it would thereafter be known as Apple Inc. because the company had shifted its emphasis from computers to consumer electronics. This event also saw the announcement of the iPhone and the Apple TV.

Whether Apple was actually started by three guys in a California garage may be debatable, but one thing is certain: the pioneering computer company that has evolved into a consumer electronics behemoth, has come a long way. It’s been 46 years since the company was formally founded, Apple is now a multinational cooperation that creates:

• Consumer Electronics

• Computer Softwares

• Commercial Servers

Forty-six years after Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set out to turn computers into a tool that anyone could use, Apple has become one of the most valuable brands in the world, with some of the most successful products ever made.

Apple has influenced a wide range of industries, from computing to music. Since its inception in 1976;

• Apple has evolved into one of the biggest computer companies in the world.

• They produce the world's most popular phones and music players.

• Sell millions of songs and videos.

• Produce the world’s best engineered and most elegantly designed computers, all running on the world’s most advanced operating system.

• Became the first company to hit $1 trillion, $2 trillion and $3 trillion market value and its former employees have gone on to build and launch new digital industries.

Apple is undergoing yet another transformation. With its initial TV streaming, game streaming, news subscription, and credit card offers, the corporation is putting a stronger emphasis on services.

Apple's core mission has always been to create beautiful, simple-to-use products that we didn't even realize we needed.

"We made a lot of assumptions, such as about how many houses would have a personal computer," said Steve Jobs, this was the year 1976, nothing like that exist. "He talked about introducing the computer to regular people in regular homes," Wozniak recalled.

For the rest of Jobs's career, he would understand the needs and desires of customers better than any other business leader, he would focus on a handful of core products, and he would care, sometimes obsessively, about marketing and image and even the details of packaging.

N.B: Some of these texts and quotes are from Steve Jobs's biography by Walter Isaacson.

Company’s Timeline

Pre-foundation

1976-1980

• Apple was born

• Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs created the Apple 1

• Apple exceeds $1 million in sales and goes public

1980-1984

• Enters Fortune 500.

• John Sculley becomes president and CEO

• Apple airs “1984” during Super Bowl

• Macintosh is introduced

1985-1996

• Jobs forced put of company

• Apple had mixed success but Microsoft overtook them with its Windows OS

• Sculley forced out

1997-2007

• Apple purchases NeXT (Jobs's second company)

• Steve Jobs returns to Apple

• Apple introduced the iMac which help them begin to turn the corner

• Apple changes name to Apple Inc.

2007-Till date

Throughout this Apple series, I’ll be writing from their first product, “APPLE 1” to how the company has evolved over the years. So be my guest as we unravel the history, facts, products and lessons to be learned from this great company and its builders.

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In Other News 🔥…

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority has opened a new investigation into Google’s ad business.

Dell said its quarterly revenue rose 16% to $26.1 billion, boosted by sales of business PCs.

A Profile of Stripe’s Founders by Forbes 

Q&A With Epic CEO Tim Sweeney

FACE OF THE WEEK

JOHANNES KEPLER (1571–1630)

Johannes Kepler, popularly revered as God’s mathematician, he was a pioneer in the field of astronomy, he founded the theory of celestial mechanics and was the first astronomer to explain planetary motions. The publication of these theories gained him a friendship with Galileo and Tycho, who were the greatest astronomers of their days.

He was also a great mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, and his books provided one of the foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation.

He founded the three laws of planetary motion, his best discovery in astronomy was that the earth and other planets travelled in an elliptical orbit around the sun which changed the face of astronomy forever as well as our understanding of the structure of the universe.

He defended heliocentrism from both a theoretical and theological perspective, maintaining that the sun was the principal source of motive power in the universe. He believes the secrets of God’s creation could be deciphered by anyone willing to use mathematics to look for them.

A Christian, Kepler incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason.

Kepler sees the universe as a book containing hidden divine messages from his creator, if you’re studying the universe, you are simply studying its creator.

Business & Startups

Traction

Traction provides users with all the needed tools to run and grow their businesses. You can accept payments, manage sales, send invoices, manage inventory, and a lot more
on Traction.

A Nigerian startup that is building the next generation of payment solutions and business tools to help power the growth and operations of merchants and SMEs in Africa.

With its seamless and simplified onboarding process, Traction empowers vendors, merchants and retailers to

• accept payment solution offerings via POS, USSD and Bank Transfer.

• obtain POS terminals at zero initial cost, to be repaid only through flexible repayment options.

• manage all inventory and stock in-app.

• gain access to a suite of business management tools such as invoices, sales management, analytics and reports, customer management.

Random Facts

The name ‘Apple’ came from founder Steve Jobs’ like of the fruit. Mystery surrounded the reason for the name Apple, but in truth, it was just the fruit that Jobs’ liked and named the company after that.

Tweet of The Week

Ryan Hoover @rrhoover

Founder DM’d me asking: “We’re seeing a lot of traction (currently bootstrapped and profitable), but we’ve been getting rejected by VCs because our product is not defensible. What does it mean to be defensible?” Sharing my response. Hope it’s useful for others.

May 27th 2022

65 Retweets614 Likes

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Enjoy your weekend.