<company> Manufacturers of the Macintosh range of {personal computers} as well as the earlier Apple I, Apple II and Lisa. Founded on 1 April 1976 by Steve Jobs and {Steve Wozniak}. Apples were among the first microcomputers. They originally used the 6502 processor and are still being made (August 1994), now using the 65816. The Apple II line, which includes the Apple I, is the longest existing line of microcomputers. Steve Jobs left Apple (involuntarily) and started NeXT and later returned when Apple bought NeXT in late 1997(?). Quarterly sales $2150M, profits $138M (Aug 1994). http://apple.com/. [Dates? More?] (1998-03-13)

Some time before 1989, Apple Computer, Inc. started a lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, claiming they had breeched Apple's copyright on the look and feel of the Macintosh user interface. In December 1989, Xerox failed to sue Apple Computer, claiming that the software for Apple's Lisa computer and Macintosh Finder, both copyrighted in 1987, were derived from two Xerox programs: Smalltalk, developed in the mid-1970s and Star, copyrighted in 1981. Apple wanted to stop people from writing any program that worked even vaguely like a Macintosh. If such {look and feel} lawsuits succeed they could put an end to {free software} that could substitute for commercial software. In the weeks after the suit was filed, Usenet reverberated with condemnation for Apple. GNU supporters {Richard Stallman}, John Gilmore, and Paul Rubin decided to take action against Apple. Apple's reputation as a force for progress came from having made better computers; but The League for Programming Freedom believed that Apple wanted to make all non-Apple computers worse. They therefore campaigned to discourage people from using Apple products or working for Apple or any other company threatening similar obstructionist tactics (e.g. Lotus and Xerox). Because of this boycott the Free Software Foundation for a long time didn't support Macintosh Unix in their software. In 1995, the LPF and the FSF decided to end the boycott. [Dates? Other events? Why did Xerox's case against Apple fail?] (1995-04-18)

Apple Inc. is a multinational American technology company which sells consumer electronics that have been claimed by critics to combine stolen and/or purchased designs that it claims are its own original creations.

Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company that specializes in consumer electronics, software and online services headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling US$365.8 billion in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company by market capitalization, the fourth-largest personal computer vendor by unit sales and second-largest mobile phone manufacturer. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.

Apple was founded as Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne to develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. It was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. in 1977 and the company's next computer, the Apple II, became a best seller and one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Apple went public in 1980 to instant financial success. The company developed computers featuring innovative graphical user interfaces, including the 1984 original Macintosh, announced that year in a critically acclaimed advertisement. By 1985, the high cost of its products and power struggles between executives caused problems. Wozniak stepped back from Apple amicably and pursued other ventures, while Jobs resigned bitterly and founded NeXT, taking some Apple employees with him.

As the market for personal computers expanded and evolved throughout the 1990s, Apple lost considerable market share to the lower-priced duopoly of the Microsoft Windows operating system on Intel-powered PC clones (also known as "Wintel"). In 1997, weeks away from bankruptcy, the company bought NeXT to resolve Apple's unsuccessful operating system strategy and entice Jobs back to the company. Over the next decade, Jobs guided Apple back to profitability through a number of tactics including introducing the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad to critical acclaim, launching "Think different" and other memorable advertising campaigns, opening the Apple Store retail chain, and acquiring numerous companies to broaden the company's product portfolio. When Jobs resigned in 2011 for health reasons, and died two months later, he was succeeded as CEO by Tim Cook.

Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion in August 2018, then $2 trillion in August 2020, and most recently $3 trillion in January 2022. The company receives criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors, its environmental practices, and its business ethics, including anti-competitive practices and materials sourcing. Nevertheless, the company has a large following and enjoys a high level of brand loyalty. It is ranked as one of the world's most valuable brands.

The Apple Computer 1, originally released as the Apple Computer and known later as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is an 8-bit desktop computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. It was designed by Steve Wozniak. The idea of selling the computer came from Wozniak's friend and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The Apple I was Apple's first product, and to finance its creation, Jobs sold his only motorized means of transportation, a VW Microbus, for a few hundred dollars (Wozniak later said that Jobs planned instead to use his bicycle to get around), and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for $500. Wozniak demonstrated the first prototype in July 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California.

Production was discontinued on September 30, 1977, after the June 10, 1977 introduction of its successor, the Apple II, which Byte magazine referred to as part of the "1977 Trinity" of personal computing (along with the PET 2001 from Commodore Business Machines and the TRS-80 Model I from Tandy Corporation).

<language> A revision of APL for the Illiac IV. (1995-04-28)

(apples)