Launched on a shoestring budget in a Silicon Valley garage more than four decades ago, Apple survived a near-miss with bankruptcy before soaring to a trillion-dollar market value on Thursday.
The California-based company born of a friendship between Steve Wozniak and the late Steve Jobs is credited with giving rise to smartphone lifestyles and “apps” for nearly everything.
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Here are some of the milestones in Apple’s history:
April 1976: Jobs, Wozniak and Ronald Wayne create Apple Computer to sell an eponymous computer hand-built by Wozniak. The company is incorporated the following year.
January 1984: Apple heralds the arrival of its first Macintosh computer with a “1984” television commercial directed by Ridley Scott portraying a bold blow struck against an Orwellian computer culture.
September 1985: Jobs leaves Apple after a power struggle with chief executive John Sculley. Wozniak also departs.
1990s: Competitive pressure from lower-priced personal computers from Microsoft running on Windows software, and some failed products, puts a financial squeeze on Apple, which cuts staff and changes top executives.
September 1997: Jobs returns as chief executive as the company teeters near bankruptcy. Microsoft helps Apple survive with a $150 million investment.
August 1998: Apple releases the all-in-one iMac computer.
October 2001: Apple unveils the iPod and opens its first real-world shops.
April 2003: Apple opens its online iTunes store for digital content, pricing music at 99 cents per song for iPods.
June 2007: Apple unveils the iPhone.
July 2008: Apple launches the online App Store to sell applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
January 2010: Apple introduces the iPad.
October 2011: Jobs, 56, dies after battling pancreatic cancer, having turned over command of Apple to Tim Cook earlier in the year.
September 2014: Apple introduces the Apple Watch.
June 2015: Apple Music streaming service launches including internet radio from Beats, a startup Apple bought the prior year in a deal valued at $3 billion.
January 2016: Apple announces that more than a billion of its devices are in use around the world.
August 2018: Apple surpasses $1 trillion in stock market value.
