Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American inventor and entrepreneur. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors ofthe Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney.Sony VAIO VGN-TZ350N/N Battery In the late 1970s, Jobs—along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula and others—designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential ofXerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface,Sony VAIO VGN-TZ350N/P Battery which led to the creation of the Macintosh.After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets.Sony VAIO VGN-TZ370N/B Battery In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd, which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios.[8] He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer.[9] He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1 percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2006,[10]making Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder at 7 percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.Sony VAIO VGN-TZ37N/G Battery Apple's 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its interim CEO from 1997, then becoming permanent CEO from 2000 onwards. After resigning as CEO in August 2011, Jobs was elected chairman of Apple's board of directors and held that title until his death.Sony VAIO VGN-TZ37N/P Battery On October 5, 2011, Jobs died in California at age 56, seven years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.On his death he was widely described as a visionary, pioneer and genius—perhaps one of the foremost—in the field of business, innovation, and product design, and a man who had profoundly changed the face of the modern world,Sony VAIO VGN-TZ37N/R Battery revolutionized at least six different industries, and who was an "exemplar for all chief executives". His death was widely mourned and considered a loss to the world by commentators across the globe.

Early years

Jobs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by the family of Paul Jobs and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian) who moved to Mountain View, Californiawhen Jobs was five years old.Sony VAIO VGN-TZ37N/X Battery Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, Patti. Paul Jobs, a machinist for a company that made lasers, taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands.[1] His adoptive mother was an accountant.[17] Asked in a 1995 interview what he wanted to pass on to his children, Jobs replied, "Just to try to be as good a father to them as my father was to me. Sony VAIO VGN-TZ38N/X Battery I think about that every day of my life." Paul and Clara Jobs were his "true parents," he told an interviewer when asked about his "adoptive parents." "They were my parents," he told the interviewer emphatically.[17] Jobs' biological parents—Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Syrian Muslim immigrant to the U.S.,Sony VAIO VGN-TZ398U/XC Battery who later became a political science professor at the University of Nevada and is presently a vice president of Boomtown Hotel Casino in Reno, Nevada,[20] and Joanne Schieble (later Simpson), an American graduate student[21] of Swissand German ancestry[22] who went on to become a speech language pathologist[17]—eventually[when?]married. Sony VAIO VGN-TZ50B Battery The marriage produced Jobs's biological sister, novelist Mona Simpson; the two of them first met in 1986 as adults and enjoyed a close relationship, with Jobs regularly visiting Simpson in Manhattan. From Simpson, Jobs learned more about their birth parents and he invited his biological mother Joanne to some events.Sony VAIO VGN-TZ90HS BatteryJandali claims that he didn't want to put Jobs up for adoption but that Simpson's parents did not approve of her marrying a Syrian. Jandali's few attempts to contact Jobs were unsuccessful;Jobs did not contact his biological father either.Jandali gave an interview to The Sun in August 2011 when Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple;Sony VAIO VGN-TZ90NS Battery Jandali also mailed in his medical history after Jobs's pancreatic disorder was made public that year. Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California. He frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto,Sony VAIO VGN-TZ90S Battery California, and was later hired there, working with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee.[29] Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,[30] he continued auditing classes at Reed, Sony VAIO VPC CW2MFX/PU Battery while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.[31] Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that singlecalligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."Sony VAIO VPC S11V9E/B Battery In the fall of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak. He took a job as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India.Sony VAIO VPCB119GJ/B Battery Jobs then traveled to India to visit Neem Karoli Baba[32] at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. He came back a Buddhist with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing.Sony VAIO VPCB11AGJ Battery During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".[35] He later said that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.Sony VAIO VPCB11AVJ Battery Jobs returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little interest in or knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Sony VAIO VPCB11V9E Battery Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. According to Wozniak, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.Sony VAIO VPCB11X9E Battery

Apple Computer

In 1976, Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple, with later funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product-marketing manager and engineer A.C. "Mike" Markkula Jr..Prior to co-founding Apple, Wozniak was an electronics hacker. Sony VAIO VPCCW18FJ/P Battery Jobs and Wozniak met in 1971 when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. Friends for several years, Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling a computer and selling it. As Apple continued to expand, the company began looking for an experienced executive to help manage its expansion.Sony VAIO VPCCW18FJ/R Battery In 1978, Apple recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor to serve as CEO for what turned out to be several turbulent years. In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO, asking, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"Sony VAIO VPCCW18FJ/W Battery Apple president Mike Markkula also wanted to retire and believed that Jobs lacked the discipline and temperament needed to run Apple on a daily basis and that Sculley's conventional business background and recent successes would give a more favorable image.Sony VAIO VPCCW19FJ/W Battery The following year, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled "1984". At Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium".Sony VAIO VPCCW1AFJ Battery The Macintosh became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface. While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. Sony VAIO VPCCW1AHJ Battery An industry-wide sales slump towards the end of 1984 caused a deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley as well as layoffs and disappointing sales performance. An internal power struggle developed between Jobs and Sculley.[42] Jobs kept meetings running past midnight, sent out lengthy faxes, then called new meetings at 7 am.Sony VAIO VPCCW1S1E Battery The Apple board of directors instructed Sculley to "contain" Jobs and limit his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products.Sculley learned that Jobs - believing Sculley to be "bad for Apple" and the wrong person to lead the company - had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup,[42] and on 24 May 1985[42] he called a board meeting to resolve the matter.Sony VAIO VPCCW1S1E/B Battery Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties as head of the Macintosh division. Jobs resigned from Apple 5 months later[42] and founded NeXT Inc. the same year. Sony VAIO VPCCW1S1E/L Battery Jobs later claimed that being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him; "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life."Sony VAIO VPCCW1S1E/P Battery

NeXT Computer

After leaving Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Computer in 1985 with $7 million. A year later, Jobs was running out of money, and with no product on the horizon, he appealed for venture capital. Eventually, he attracted the attention of billionaire Ross Perot who invested heavily in the company.Sony VAIO VPCCW1S1E/R Battery NeXT workstations were first released in 1990, priced at $9,999. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced, but was largely dismissed as cost-prohibitive by the educational sector for which it was designed. The NeXT workstation was known for its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Sony VAIO VPCCW1S1E/W Battery Jobs marketed NeXT products to the financial, scientific, and academic community, highlighting its innovative, experimental new technologies, such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port. The revised, second-generation NeXTcube was released in 1990 also. Jobs touted it as the first "interpersonal" computer that would replace the personal computer. Sony VAIO VPCCW21FX/B Battery With its innovative NeXTMail multimedia email system, NeXTcube could share voice, image, graphics, and video in email for the first time. "Interpersonal computing is going to revolutionise human communications and groupwork", Jobs told reporters.Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by the development of and attention to NeXTcube's magnesium case.Sony VAIO VPCCW21FX/L Battery This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.The company reported its first profit of $1.03 million in 1994.Sony VAIO VPCCW21FX/R Battery In 1996, NeXT Software, Inc. released WebObjects, a framework for web application development. After NeXT was acquired by Apple Inc. in 1997, WebObjects was used to build and run the Apple Store,MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store.

Pixar and Disney

In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital.Sony VAIO VPCCW21FX/W Battery The new company, which was originally based at Lucasfilm's Kerner Studios in San Rafael, California, but has since relocated to Emeryville, California, was initially intended to be a high-end graphics hardware developer. After years of unprofitability selling the Pixar Image Computer,Sony VAIO VPCCW26EC Battery it contracted with Disney to produce a number of computer-animated feature films that Disney would co-finance and distribute. The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next 15 years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits A Bug's Life (1998);Sony VAIO VPCCW26FX/B Battery Toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding Nemo(2003); The Incredibles (2004); Cars (2006); Ratatouille (2007); WALL-E (2008); Up (2009); and Toy Story 3 (2010). Finding Nemo, The Incredibles,Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.Sony VAIO VPCCW28EC Battery In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership, and in early 2004 Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films once its contract with Disney expired.Sony VAIO VPCCW28FJ/P Battery In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. Once the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of the company's stock.Sony VAIO VPCCW28FJ/R Battery Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceed those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and of Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who until his 2009 death held about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner—especially that he soured Disney's relationship with Pixar—accelerated Eisner's ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger. Sony VAIO VPCCW28FJ/W Battery Jobs also helped oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses with a seat on a special six person steering committee.

Return to Apple

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996, bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded.Sony VAIO VPCCW29FJ/W Battery Jobs became de facto chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive in September.In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated a number of projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc.Sony VAIO VPCCW2AFJ Battery In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs's summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company."Sony VAIO VPCCW2AHJ Battery Jobs also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines. With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E Battery Under Jobs's guidance the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO.Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/B Battery Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title 'iCEO.' The company subsequently branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/L Battery On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touchdisplay cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that "real artists ship",Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/P Battery by which he meant that delivering working products on time is as important as innovation and attractive design. Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences.Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/R Battery In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the U.S. by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. A few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. Sony VAIO VPCCW2S1E/W Battery The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read "Steve—Don't be a mini-player recycle all e-waste". In 2006, he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any U.S. customer who buys a new Mac. Sony VAIO VPCCW2S5C CN1 Battery This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems.

Resignation

In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, but remained at the company as chairman of the company's board.Sony VAIO VPCF112FX/B Battery Hours after the announcement, Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares dropped 5% in after-hour trading.[65] The relatively small drop, when considering the importance of Jobs to Apple, was associated with the fact that Jobs's health had been in the news for several years, and he was on medical leave since January 2011.Sony VAIO VPCF115FG/B Battery It was believed, according toForbes, that the impact would be felt in a negative way beyond Apple, including at The Walt Disney Company where Jobs served as director.[67] In after-hour trading on the day of the announcement, Walt Disney Co. (DIS) shares dropped 1.5%.Sony VAIO VPCF116FGBI Battery

Wealth

Even though Jobs earned only $1 a year as CEO of Apple, he held 5.426 million Apple shares, as well as 138 million shares in Disney (which he received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar). Jobs quipped that the $1 per annum he was paid by Apple was based on attending one meeting for 50 cents while the other 50 cents was based on his performance.Sony VAIO VPCF117FJ/W Battery Forbes estimated his net wealth at $8.3 billion in 2010, making him the 42nd wealthiest American.

Stock options backdating issue

In 2001, Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30. It was alleged that the options had beenbackdated, and that the exercise price should have been $21.10.Sony VAIO VPCF117HG/BI Battery It was further alleged that Jobs had thereby incurred taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report, and that Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. As a result, Jobs potentially faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. Sony VAIO VPCF118FJ/W Battery The case is the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations, though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.Sony VAIO VPCF119FC Battery On July 1, 2008, a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.

Management style

Jobs was a demanding perfectionist who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in innovation and style.Sony VAIO VPCF119FC/BI BatteryHe summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007 by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky: There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.Sony VAIO VPCF119FJ/BI Battery Much was made of Jobs's aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune wrote that he was "considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs".Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Mike Moritz's The Little Kingdom,The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; andiCon: Steve Jobs, by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon. Sony VAIO VPCF11AFJ Battery In 1993, Jobs made Fortune's list of America's Toughest Bosses in regard to his leadership of NeXT. Cofounder Dan'l Lewin was quoted in Fortune as saying of that period, "The highs were unbelievable ... But the lows were unimaginable", to which Jobs's office replied that his personality had changed since then.Sony VAIO VPCF11AGJ Battery In 2005, Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.[83] In its 2010 annual earnings report, Wiley said it had "closed a deal ... to make its titles available for the iPad."Sony VAIO VPCF11AHJ Battery Jef Raskin, a former colleague, once said that Jobs "would have made an excellent king of France," alluding to Jobs's compelling and larger-than-life persona.[85] Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a "mature, mellow individual" and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.Sony VAIO VPCF11JFX/B Battery Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting[when?] when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes". On October 6, 1997, in a GartnerSymposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."Sony VAIO VPCF11M1E Battery In 2006, Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. The email read: Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Sony VAIO VPCF11M1E/H Battery Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.

Inventions

Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 338 US patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages.Sony VAIO VPCF11MFX/B Battery

Philanthropy

Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek magazine opined that "Jobs isn't widely known for his association with philanthropic causes", compared to Bill Gates' efforts.[92] After resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs.Sony VAIO VPCF11S1E Battery

Personal life

Jobs married Laurene Powell on March 18, 1991. Presiding over the wedding was the Zen Buddhist monk Kobun Chino Otogawa.[94]The couple have a son and two daughters.[95] Jobs also has a daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs (born 1978), from his relationship with Bay Area painter Chrisann Brennan.Sony VAIO VPCF11S1E/B Battery She briefly raised their daughter on welfare when Jobs denied paternity by claiming he was sterile; he later acknowledged Lisa as his daughter. In the unauthorized biography, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, author Alan Deutschman reports that Jobs once dated Joan Baez.Sony VAIO VPCF11Z1E Battery Deutschman quotes Elizabeth Holmes, a friend of Jobs from his time at Reed College, as saying she "believed that Steve became the lover of Joan Baez in large measure because Baez had been the lover of Bob Dylan" (Dylan was the Apple icon's favorite musician). The biography also notes that Jobs went out with actress Diane Keaton briefly.Sony VAIO VPCF11Z1E/BI Battery In another unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon, the authors suggest that Jobs might have married Baez, but her age at the time (41) meant it was unlikely the couple could have children. Jobs was also a fan of The Beatles. He referred to them on multiple occasions at Keynotes and also was interviewed on a showing of a Paul McCartney concert. Sony VAIO VPCF11ZHJ BatteryWhen asked about his business modelon 60 Minutes, he replied: My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people.Sony VAIO VPCF127HGBI Battery In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment in The San Remo, an apartment building in New York City with a politically progressive reputation, where Demi Moore, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and PrincessYasmin Aga Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth, also had apartments. Sony VAIO VPCF137HG/BI Battery With the help of I.M. Pei, Jobs spent years renovating his apartment in the top two floors of the building's north tower, only to sell it almost two decades later to U2 singer Bono. Jobs never moved in. In 1984, Jobs purchased a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m2), 14-bedroom Spanish Colonial mansion, designed by George Washington Smith, in Woodside, California (also known as Jackling House). Sony VAIO VPCS111FM/S Battery Although it reportedly remained in an almost unfurnished state, Jobs lived in the mansion for almost ten years. According to reports, he kept an old BMW motorcycle in the living room, and let Bill Clinton use it in 1998. From the early 1990s, Jobs lived in a house in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood of Palo Alto. Sony VAIO VPCS115EC Battery President Clinton dined with Jobs and 14 Silicon Valley CEOs there on August 7, 1996, at a meal catered by Greens Restaurant. Clinton returned the favor and Jobs, who was a Democratic donor, slept in the Lincoln bedroom of the White House. Jobs allowed Jackling House to fall into a state of disrepair, planning to demolish the house and build a smaller home on the property; Sony VAIO VPCS115FG Battery but he met with complaints from local preservationists over his plans. In June 2004, the Woodside Town Council gave Jobs approval to demolish the mansion, on the condition that he advertise the property for a year to see if someone would move it to another location and restore it. Sony VAIO VPCS117GG Battery A number of people expressed interest, including several with experience in restoring old property, but no agreements to that effect were reached. Later that same year, a local preservationist group began seeking legal action to prevent demolition. In January 2007 Jobs was denied the right to demolish the property, by a court decision.Sony VAIO VPCS117GGB Battery The court decision was overturned on appeal in March 2010 and the mansion was demolished beginning February 2011. Jobs usually wore a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by St. Croix, Levi's 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers. He was a pescetarian, one whose diet includes fish but no other meat.Sony VAIO VPCS118EC Battery His car was a silver 2008 Mercedes SL 55 AMG, which does not display its license plates.

Health

In mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas.Sony VAIO VPCS119FJ/B Battery The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very poor; Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. Jobs resisted his doctors' recommendations for evidence-based medical intervention for nine months,Sony VAIO VPCS119GC Battery instead consuming a special alternative medicine diet to thwart the disease, before eventually undergoing a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or "Whipple procedure") in July 2004 that appeared to successfully remove the tumor. Jobs apparently did not require nor receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.Sony VAIO VPCS11AFJ Battery During Jobs's absence, Timothy D. Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company. In early August 2006, Jobs delivered the keynote for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. His "thin, almost gaunt" appearance and unusually "listless" delivery, Sony VAIO VPCS11AGJ Battery together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and Internet speculation about his health. In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report,WWDC attendees who saw Jobs in person said he "looked fine".Following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that "Steve's health is robust."Sony VAIO VPCS11AHJ Battery

2008 development

Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs's 2008 WWDC keynote address.Apple officials stated Jobs was victim to a "common bug" and was taking antibiotics,while others surmised hiscachectic appearance was due to the Whipple procedure.Sony VAIO VPCS11AVJ Battery During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Jobs's health by insisting that it was a "private matter". Others, however, voiced the opinion that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs's hands-on approach to running his company.Sony VAIO VPCS11J7E/B Battery The New York Timespublished an article based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, noting that "while his health issues have amounted to a good deal more than 'a common bug,' they weren't life-threatening and he doesn't have a recurrence of cancer."Sony VAIO VPCS11M1E/W Battery On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary of Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. (News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure's untimely death.) Sony VAIO VPCS11V9E Battery Although the error was promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on it,intensifying rumors concerning Jobs's health.Jobs responded at Apple's September 2008 Let's Rock keynote by quoting Mark Twain: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."Sony VAIO VPCS11V9E/B Battery At a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading "110/70", referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health. On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that marketing vice-president Phil Schiller would deliver the company's final keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo 2009, again reviving questions about Jobs's health.Sony VAIO VPCS11X9E/B Battery In a statement given on January 5, 2009 on Apple.com, Jobs said that he had been suffering from a "hormone imbalance" for several months. On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had "learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought" and announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009 to allow him to better focus on his health. Sony VAIO VPCS123FGB Battery Tim Cook, who previously acted as CEO in Jobs's 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple,[135] with Jobs still involved with "major strategic decisions." In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee. Jobs's prognosis was "excellent".Sony VAIO VPCS125EC Battery

2011 medical leave and resignation

On January 17, 2011, a year and a half after Jobs returned from his liver transplant, Apple announced that he had been granted a medical leave of absence. Jobs announced his leave in a letter to employees, stating his decision was made "so he could focus on his health".Sony VAIO VPCS128EC Battery As during his 2009 medical leave, Apple announced that Tim Cook would run day-to-day operations and that Jobs would continue to be involved in major strategic decisions at the company. Despite the leave, he made appearances at the iPad 2 launch event (March 2), the WWDC keynote introducing iCloud (June 6), and before the Cupertino city council (June 7).Sony VAIO VPCS129GC Battery Jobs announced his resignation from his role as Apple's CEO on August 24, 2011. In his resignation letter, Jobs wrote that he could "no longer meet [his] duties and expectations as Apple's CEO".

Death

Jobs died at his home on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a rare form of pancreatic cancer. His death was announced by Apple in a statement which read:Sony VAIO VPCS12C7E/B Battery We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts."Sony VAIO VPCS12L9E/B Battery Jobs is survived by Laurene, his wife of 20 years, their three children and by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, his daughter from a previous relationship.His family released a statement saying that he "died peacefully". Starting October 5, 2011, Apple's corporate website greeted visitors with a simple page showing Jobs's name and lifespan next to his grayscale portrait.Sony VAIO VPCS12V9E/B Battery Clicking on Jobs's image led to an obituary that read "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor.Sony VAIO VPCY115FGS Battery Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple." An email address was also posted for the public to share their memories, condolences, and thoughts. A large number of newspapers carried news of his death on the front pages. Statements reacting to Jobs's death were made by several notable people, including U.S. President Barack Obama, Sony VAIO VPCY115FX/BI Battery Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and The Walt Disney Company's Bob Iger. Wired News collected reactions and posted them in tribute on their homepage.Other statements of condolences were issued by many of Jobs' friends and colleagues, such as Steve Wozniak and George Lucas.A small private funeral was held on October 7, 2011.Sony VAIO VPCY115FXBI Battery

Honors and public recognition

After Apple's founding, Jobs became a symbol of his company and industry. When Time named the computer as the 1982 "Machine of the Year", the magazine published a long profile of Steve as "the most famous maestro of the micro".Sony VAIO VPCY118EC BatteryJobs was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 with Steve Wozniak (among the first people to ever receive the honor), and a Jefferson Award for Public Service in the category "Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under" (also known as the Samuel S. Beard Award) in 1987.Sony VAIO VPCY118GX/BI Battery On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine. On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Jobs into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.Sony VAIO VPCY119FJ/S Battery In August 2009, Jobs was selected as the most admired entrepreneur among teenagers in a survey by Junior Achievement, having previously been named Entrepreneur of the Decade 20 years earlier in 1989 by Inc. magazine. On November 5, 2009, Jobs was named the CEO of the decade by Fortune Magazine.Sony VAIO VPCY11AFJ Battery In September 2011, Jobs was ranked No.17 on Forbes: The World's Most Powerful People.In December 2010, the Financial Times named Jobs its person of the year for 2010, ending its essay by stating, "In his autobiography, John Sculley, the former PepsiCo executive who once ran Apple, said this of the ambitions of the man he had pushed out: Sony VAIO VPCY11AGJ Battery 'Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High-tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.' How wrong can you be". At the time of his resignation, and again after his death, he was widely described as a visionary, pioneer and genius —perhaps one of the foremost—in the field of business,Sony VAIO VPCY11AHJ Battery innovation, and product design, and a man who had profoundly changed the face of the modern world,revolutionized at least six different industries,and who was an "exemplar for all chief executives". His death was widely mourned and considered a loss to the world by commentators across the globe.Sony VAIO VPCY11AVJ Battery After his resignation as Apple's CEO, Jobs was characterized as the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford of his time. Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer, Inc., is a multinational corporation that creates consumer electronics, computer software, and commercial servers. Sony VAIO VPCY11M1E/S Battery Apple's core product lines are the iPad,iPhone, iPod music player, and Macintosh computer line-up. Founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak effectively created Apple Computer on April 1, 1976, with the release of the Apple I, and incorporated the company on January 3, 1977, in Cupertino, California. Sony VAIO VPCY11S1E Battery For more than two decades, Apple Computer was predominantly a manufacturer of personal computers, including the Apple II,Macintosh, and Power Mac lines, but it faced rocky sales and low market share during the 1990s. Jobs, who had been ousted from the company in 1985, Sony VAIO VPCY11V9E/S Battery returned to become Apple's CEO in 1996 after his company NeXT was bought by Apple Inc., and he brought with him a new corporate philosophy of recognizable products and simple design. With the introduction of the successful iPod music player in 2001, Apple established itself as a leader in the consumer electronics industry, dropping "Computer" from its name.Sony VAIO VPCY218EC/BI Battery The latest era of phenomenal success for the company has been in theiOS (Apple) range of products that began with the iPhone, iPod Touch and now iPad. Today, Apple is the largest technology firm in the world, with annual revenues of more than $60 billion. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were outcasts while they were in high school; Sony VAIO VPCY218EC/G Battery by 1975, they had withdrawn from Reed College and UC Berkeley, respectively. Wozniak designed a video teletype that he could use to log on to the minicomputers at Call Computer. Alex Kamradt commissioned the design and sold a small number of them through his firm. Sony VAIO VPCY218EC/L Battery Aside from their interest in up-to-date technology, the impetus for "the two Steves" seems to have had another source. In his essay From Satori to Silicon Valley (published 1986), cultural historian Theodore Roszak made the point that the Apple Computer emerged from within the West Coast counterculture and the need to produce print-outs, Sony VAIO VPCY218EC/P Battery letter labels, and databases. Roszak offers a bit of background on the development of the two Steves’ prototype models. In 1975, Wozniak started attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club. New microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 and the IMSAI inspired him to build a microprocessor into his video teletype and have a complete computer.Sony VAIO VPCY21S1E/L Battery At the time the only microcomputer CPUs generally available were the $179 Intel 8080, and the $170 Motorola 6800. Wozniak preferred the 6800, but both were out of his price range. So he watched, and learned, and designed computers on paper, waiting for the day he could afford a CPU.Sony VAIO VPCY21S1E/P Battery When MOS Technology released its $20 6502 chip in 1976, Wozniak wrote a version of BASIC for it, then began to design a computer for it to run on. The 6502 was designed by the same people who designed the 6800, as many in Silicon Valley left employers to form their own companies. Sony VAIO VPCY21S1E/SI Battery Wozniak's earlier 6800 paper-computer needed only minor changes to run on the new chip. Wozniak completed the machine and took it to Homebrew Computer Club meetings to show it off. At the meeting, Wozniak met his old friend Jobs, who was interested in the commercial potential of the small hobby machines.Sony VAIO VPCCW2S5C CN1 Battery

Apple I

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had been friends for some time, having met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling a machine and selling it.Sony VAIO VPCEA20 Battery Jobs approached a local computer store, The Byte Shop, who said they would be interested in the machine, but only if it came fully assembled. The owner, Paul Terrell, went further, saying he would order 50 of the machines and pay US $500 each on delivery.Sony VAIO VPCEB10 Battery Jobs then took the purchase order that he had been given from the Byte Shop to Cramer Electronics, a national electronic parts distributor, and ordered the components he needed to assemble the Apple I Computer. The local credit manager asked Jobs how he was going to pay for the parts and he replied, Sony VAIO VPCEB11FM Battery"I have this purchase order from the Byte Shop chain of computer stores for 50 of my computers and the payment terms are COD. If you give me the parts on a net 30 day terms I can build and deliver the computers in that time frame, collect my money from Terrell at the Byte Shop and pay you."Sony VAIO VPCEB11FM/BI Battery With that, the credit manager called Paul Terrell who was attending an IEEE computer conference at Asilomar in Pacific Grove and verified the validity of the purchase order. Amazed at the tenacity of Jobs, Terrell assured the credit manager if the computers showed up in his stores Jobs would be paid and would have more than enough money to pay for the parts order. Sony VAIO VPCEB11FM/T Battery The two Steves and their small crew spent day and night building and testing the computers and delivered to Terrell on time to pay his suppliers and have a tidy profit left over for their celebration and next order. Steve Jobs had found a way to finance his soon-to-be multimillion-dollar company without giving away one share of stock or ownership.Sony VAIO VPCEB11FM/WI Battery The machine had only a few notable features. One was the use of a TV as the display system, whereas many machines had no display at all. This was not like the displays of later machines, however; text was displayed at a terribly slow 60 characters per second. However, this was still faster than the teletypes used on contemporary machines of that era.Sony VAIO VPCEB11FX Battery The Apple I also included bootstrap code on ROM, which made it easier to start up. Finally, at the insistence of Paul Terrell, Wozniak also designed a cassette interface for loading and saving programs, at the then-rapid pace of 1200 bit/s. Although the machine was fairly simple, Sony VAIO VPCEB11FX/BI Battery it was nevertheless a masterpiece of design, using far fewer parts than anything in its class, and quickly earning Wozniak a reputation as a master designer. Joined by another friend, Ronald Wayne, the three started to build the machines. Sony VAIO VPCEB11FX/T BatteryUsing a variety of methods, including borrowing space from friends and family, selling various prized items (like calculators and a VW bus) and scrounging, Jobs managed to secure the parts needed while Wozniak and Wayne assembled them. But the owner of the Byte Shop was expecting complete computers, not just printed circuit boards. Sony VAIO VPCEB11FX/WI Battery The boards still being a product for the customers Terrell still paid them. Eventually 200 of the Apple I's were built.

Apple II

But Wozniak had already moved on from the Apple I. Many of the design features of the I were due to the limited amount of money they had to construct the prototype,Sony VAIO VPCEB11GX Battery but with the income from the sales he was able to start construction of a greatly improved machine, the Apple II; it was presented to the public at the first West Coast Computer Faire on April 16 and April 17, 1977. On the first day of exhibition, Jobs introduced Apple II to a Japanese chemist named Toshio Mizushima who became the first authorized Apple dealer in Japan.Sony VAIO VPCEB11GX/BI Battery The main difference internally was a completely redesigned TV interface, which held the display in memory. Now not only useful for simple text display, the Apple II included graphics, and, eventually, color. Jobs meanwhile pressed for a much improved case and keyboard, with the idea that the machine should be complete and ready to run out of the box. Sony VAIO VPCEB11GX/T Battery This was almost the case for the Apple I machines sold to The Byte Shop, but one still needed to plug various parts together and type in the code to run BASIC. Building such a machine was going to be fiscally burdensome. Jobs started looking for cash, but Wayne was somewhat gun shy due to a failed venture four years earlier, and eventually dropped out of the company.Sony VAIO VPCEB11GX/WI Battery Banks were reluctant to lend Jobs money; the idea of a computer for ordinary people seemed absurd at the time. Jobs eventually met "Mike" Markkula who co-signed a bank loan for US$250,000, and the three formed Apple Computer on April 1, 1976. Sony VAIO VPCEB12FX Battery Why Apple? At the time, the company to beat was Atari, and Apple Computer came before Atari alphabetically and thus also in the phone book. Another reason was that Jobs had happy memories of working on an Oregon apple farm one summer.Sony VAIO VPCEB12FX/BI Battery With both cash and a new case design in hand thanks to designer Jerry Manock, the Apple II was released in 1977 and became the computer generally credited with creating the home computermarket. Millions were sold well into the 1980s. A number of different models of the Apple II series were built, including the Apple IIe and Apple IIGS, which could still be found in many schools as late as 2005. Sony VAIO VPCEB12FX/BIC Battery

Apple III

By the early 1980s, Apple Computer faced increasing competition. While the Apple II was already established as a successful business-ready platform because of Visicalc, Apple was not content. The Apple III (Apple 3) was designed to take on the IBM PC in the business environment.Sony VAIO VPCEB12FX/T Battery The Apple III was a relatively conservative design for computers of the era. However, Steve Jobs did not want the computer to have a fan; rather, he wanted the heat generated by the electronics to be dissipated through the chassis of the machine, forgoing the cooling fan.Sony VAIO VPCEB14FX Battery Unfortunately, the physical design of the case was not sufficient to cool the components inside it. By removing the fan from the design, the Apple III was prone to overheating. This caused the integrated circuit chips to disconnect from the motherboard.Sony VAIO VPCEB14FX/BI BatteryCustomers who contacted Apple customer service were told to "drop the computer on the desk", which would cause the ICs to fall back in to place. Thousands of Apple III computers were recalled and, although a new model was introduced in 1983 to rectify the problems, the damage was already done.Sony VAIO VPCEB14FX/T Battery

Apple IPO

On December 12, 1980, Apple launched the Initial Public Offering of its stock to the investing public. When Apple went public, it generated more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956 and instantly created more millionaires (about 300) than any company in history.Sony VAIO VPCEB14FX/WI Battery Several venture capitalists cashed out, reaping billions in long-term capital gains. In January 1981, Apple held its first shareholders meeting as a public company in the Flint Center, a large auditorium at nearby De Anza College, which is often used for symphony concerts.(Previous meetings were held quietly in smaller rooms, because there had only been a few shareholders.) Sony VAIO VPCEB15FM Battery The business of the meeting had been planned (or choreographed) so that the voting could be staged in 15 minutes or less. In most cases, voting proxies are collected by mail and counted days or months before a meeting. In this case, after the IPO, many shares were in new hands.Sony VAIO VPCEB15FM/BI Battery Steve Jobs started his prepared speech, but after being interrupted by voting several times, he dropped his prepared speech and delivered a long, emotionally charged talk about betrayal, lack of respect, and related topics. Sony VAIO VPCEB15FM/T Battery

Xerox PARC and the Lisa

While Apple Computer’s business division was focused on the Apple III, a separate group was focused on a computer that would change the world. While the Apple III was another iteration of the text-based computer, this new machine would feature a completely different interface and introduce the words mouse,icon, and desktop into the lexicon of the computing public.Sony VAIO VPCEB15FM/WI Battery In return for the right to buy US$1,000,000 of pre-IPO stock, Xerox granted Apple Computer three days access to the PARC facilities. After visiting PARC, they came away with new ideas that would complete the foundation for Apple Computer's first GUI computer, the Apple Lisa.Sony VAIO VPCEB15FX Battery (Popular folklore states that "Lisa" was Steve Jobs' first daughter; Apple maintains it means Locally Integrated Software Architecture.) Apple Computer's engineers did not come up with the LISA interface overnight. In fact, the first iteration of the soon-ubiquitous WIMP interface was a poorly-drawn picture of a floppy disk. Sony VAIO VPCEB15FX/BI Battery It was only after months of usability testing and work that Apple settled on the LISA interface of windows and icons. The Lisa was introduced in 1983 at a cost of US$9,995. Because of the high price, Lisa failed to penetrate the market, however it was a useful proof of concept.Sony VAIO VPCEB15FX/T Battery

Macintosh and the "1984" commercial

The Macintosh 128k was announced to the press in October 1983, followed by an 18-page brochure included with various magazines in December.Its debut, however, was announced by a single national broadcast of the now famous US$1.5 million television commercial, "1984". Sony VAIO VPCEB15FX/WI Battery It was directed by Ridley Scott, aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984, and is now considered a "watershed event" and a "masterpiece." 1984 used an unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by her white tank top with a Picasso-style picture of Apple’s Macintosh computer on it) as a means of saving humanity from "conformity" (Big Brother).Sony VAIO VPCEB16FX Battery These images were an allusion to George Orwell's noted novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described a dystopian future ruled by a televised "Big Brother." For a special post-election edition of Newsweek in November 1984, Apple spent more than US$2.5 million to buy all 39 of the advertising pages in the issue.Sony VAIO VPCEB16FX/B Battery Apple also ran a “Test Drive a Macintosh” promotion, in which potential buyers with a credit card could take home a Macintosh for 24 hours and return it to a dealer afterwards. While 200,000 people participated, dealers disliked the promotion, the supply of computers was insufficient for demand, and many were returned in such a bad shape that they could no longer be sold.Sony VAIO VPCEB16FX/G Battery This marketing campaign caused CEO John Sculley to raise the price from US$1,995 to US$2,495 (adjusting for inflation, about US$5,000 in 2007). Two days after the 1984 ad aired, the Macintosh went on sale. It came bundled with two applications designed to show off its interface: MacWrite and MacPaint.Sony VAIO VPCEB16FX/L Battery Although the Mac garnered an immediate, enthusiastic following, it was too radical for some, who labeled it a mere "toy". Because the machine was entirely designed around the GUI, existing text-mode and command-driven applications had to be redesigned and the programming code rewritten; Sony VAIO VPCEB16FX/P Battery this was a challenging undertaking that many software developers shied away from, and resulted in an initial lack of software for the new system. In April 1984 Microsoft's MultiPlan migrated over from MS-DOS, followed by Microsoft Word in January 1985.Sony VAIO VPCEB16FX/W Battery In 1985, Lotus Software introduced Lotus Jazz after the success ofLotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC, although it was largely a flop. Apple introduced Macintosh Office the same year with the lemmings ad, infamous for insulting potential customers. It was not successful.Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX Battery Macintosh also spawned the concept of Mac evangelism which was pioneered by Apple employee, and later Apple Fellow, Guy Kawasaki. Despite initial marketing difficulties, the Macintosh brand was eventually a success for Apple. Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/B Battery This was due to its introduction of desktop publishing (and later computer animation) through Apple's partnership with Adobe Systems which introduced the laser printer and Adobe PageMaker. Indeed, the Macintosh would become known as the de-facto platform for many industries including cinema, music, advertising, publishing and the arts.Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/G Battery While it did briefly license some of its own designs, Apple did not allow other computer makers to "clone" the Mac until the 1990s, long after Microsoft dominated the marketplace with its broad licensing program. By then, it was too late for Apple to reclaim its lost market share and the Macintosh clones achieved limited success before being axed after Steve Jobs returned to Apple Computerin 1997.Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/L Battery

1985: Jobs leaves Apple

After an internal power struggle, the board of directors sided with Sculley and Jobs was asked to resign. Jobs then co-founded the visual effects house, Pixar. He also went on to found NeXT Inc., a computer company that built machines with futuristic designs and ran the UNIX-derived NeXTstep operating system. Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/P Battery NeXTSTEP would eventually be developed into Mac OS X. While not a commercial success, due in part to its high price, the NeXT computer would introduce important concepts to the history of the personal computer (including serving as the initial platform for Tim Berners-Lee as he was developing the World Wide Web).Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/W Battery Under leadership of John Sculley, Apple issued its first corporate stock dividend on May 11, 1987. A month later on June 16, Apple stock split for the first time in a 2:1 split. Apple kept a quarterly dividend with about 0.3% yield until November 21, 1995. Between March 1988 and January 1989, Sony VAIO VPCEB190X Battery Apple undertook five acquisitions, including software companies Network Innovations, Styleware, Nashoba Systems, and Coral Software, as well as satellite communications company Orion Network Systems.

Apple II family of the 1980s

Apple now had two separate, incompatible platforms: the Apple II, an affordable, expandable home computer, and the Apple Macintosh, the closed platform for professionals. Sony VAIO VPCEB19FX Battery John Gruber, among others, has speculated that this platform incompatibility was the main reason the Macintosh did not share the initial commercial success which was experienced by the Apple II in the late 1970s. However, by the mid - 1980s, the Apple II was now competing with the IBM PC and its clones, and a new energy was focused upon marketing the Macintosh.Sony VAIO VPCEB19GX Battery Thus, Apple continued to sell both lines promoting them to different market segments: the Macintosh to colleges, college students, and knowledge workers, and the Apple II to home users and public schools. A few months after introducing the Mac, Apple released a compact version of the Apple II called the Apple IIc. Sony VAIO VPCEB1AFX Battery And in 1986 Apple introduced the Apple IIgs, an Apple II positioned as something of a hybrid product with a mouse-driven, Mac-like operating environment. Apple II computers remained an important part of Apple's business until they were discontinued in the early 1990s.Sony VAIO VPCEB1AFX/B Battery

Mac family

At the same time, the Mac was becoming a product family of its own. The original model evolved into the Mac Plus in 1986 and spawned the Mac SE and the Mac II in 1987 and the Mac Classic andMac LC in 1990. Meanwhile, Apple attempted its first portable Macs:Sony VAIO VPCEB1AGX Battery the failed Macintosh Portable in 1989 and then the more popular PowerBook in 1991, a landmark product that established the modern form and ergonomic layout of the laptop. Popular products and increasing revenues made this a good time for Apple. MacAddict magazine has called 1989 to 1991 the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.Sony VAIO VPCEB1AGX/BI Battery On February 19, 1987, Apple registered the "Apple.com" domain name, making it one of the first hundred companies to register a .com address on the nascent Internet.

Early-mid 1990s

In the late 1980s, Apple's fiercest technological rivals were the Amiga and Atari ST platforms.Sony VAIO VPCEB1BGX Battery But by the 1990s, computers based on the IBM PC had become more popular than all three; they finally had a comparable GUI thanks to Windows 3.0, and were out-competing Apple. Apple's response to the PC threat was a profusion of new Macintosh lines including Quadra, Centris, and Performa.Sony VAIO VPCEB1BGX/BI Battery Unfortunately, these new lines were marketed poorly by what was now "arguably one of the worst-managed companies in the industry". For one, there were too many models, differentiated by very minor graduations in their tech specs. The excess of arbitrary model numbers confused many consumers and hurt Apple's reputation for simplicity. Sony VAIO VPCEB1CGX Battery Apple's retail resellers like Sears and CompUSA often failed to sell or even competently display these Macs. Compounding matters was the fact that, although the machines were cheaper than a comparable PC (when taken into account all the components built-in which had to be added to the 'bare bones PC'), the poor marketing gave the impression that the machines were more expensive.Sony VAIO VPCEB1CGX/BI Battery Inventory grew as Apple consistently underestimated demand for popular models and overestimated demand for others. In 1991, Apple partnered with long-time competitor IBM to form the AIM alliance. The ultimate goal was to create a revolutionary new computing platform, known as PReP, which would use IBM and Motorola hardware and Apple software. Sony VAIO VPCEB1DGX Battery As the first step toward the PReP platform, Apple started the Power Macintosh line in 1994, using IBM's PowerPC processor. These processors used a RISCarchitecture, which differed substantially from the Motorola 680X0 series that were used by all previous Macs.Sony VAIO VPCEB1DGX/BI Battery Parts of Apple's operating system software were rewritten so that most software written for older Macs could run in emulation on the PowerPC series. Apple also refused IBM's offer to purchase the company, but later unsuccessfully sought another offer from IBM, and at one point was "hours away" from an acquisition by Sun Microsystems.Sony VAIO VPCEB1EGX BatteryIn addition to computers, Apple has also produced consumer devices. In 1993, Apple released the Newton, an early PDA. Though it failed commercially, it defined and launched the category and was a forerunner and inspiration of devices such as Palm Pilot and Pocket PC.Sony VAIO VPCEB1EGX/BI Battery

1997: Return of Steve Jobs

In 1996, the struggling NeXT company beat out Be Inc.'s BeOS in its bid to sell its operating system to Apple. Apple purchased Steve Jobs' company, NeXT on December 10, 1996, and its NeXTstep operating system. This would not only bring Steve Jobs back to Apple's management, but NeXT technology would become the foundation of the Mac OS X operating system.Sony VAIO VPCEB1FGX Battery On November 10, 1997, Apple introduced the Apple Store, an online retail store based upon the WebObjects application server the company had acquired in its purchase of NeXT. The new direct sales outlet was also tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing strategy.Sony VAIO VPCEB1FGX/BI Battery

CEO

On July 9, 1997, Gil Amelio was ousted as CEO of Apple by the board of directors after turning the company around from a multibillion loss to a $25 million dollar profit. Jobs stepped in as the interim CEO to begin a critical restructuring of the company's product line. He would eventually become CEO and served in that position until August 2011. Sony VAIO VPCEB1GGX Battery On August 24, 2011 Steve Jobs resigned his position as Chief Executive Officer of Apple before his long battle with pancreatic cancer took his life on October 5th 2011.

Microsoft deal

At the 1997 Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be entering into partnership with Microsoft. Sony VAIO VPCEB1GGX/BI Battery Included in this was a five-year commitment from Microsoft to release Microsoft Officefor Macintosh as well a US$150 million investment in Apple. It was also announced that Internet Explorer would be shipped as the default browser on the Macintosh.Sony VAIO VPCEB1HGX Battery Microsoft chairman Bill Gatesappeared at the expo on-screen, further explaining Microsoft's plans for the software they were developing for Mac, and stating that he was very excited to be helping Apple return to success. After this, Steve Jobs said this to the audience at the expo:Sony VAIO VPCEB1HGX/BI Battery If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX Battery And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and we don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective. If we want Microsoft Office on the Mac, we better treat the company that puts it out with a little bit of gratitude; we like their software.Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/B Battery So, the era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I'm concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry and to get healthy and prosper again.Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/G Battery

iMac, iBook, and Power Mac G4

While discontinuing Apple's licensing of its operating system to third-party computer manufacturers, one of Jobs's first moves as new acting CEO was to develop the iMac, which bought Apple time to restructure. The original iMac integrated a CRT display and CPU into a streamlined, translucent plastic body. Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/L Battery The line became a sales smash, moving about one million units each year. It also helped re-introduce Apple to the media and public, and announced the company's new emphasis on the design and aesthetics of its products. More recent products include the iBook, the Power Mac G4, and the AirPort product series, which helped popularize the use of Wireless LAN technology to connect computers to networks.Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/P Battery In 1999, Apple introduced the Power Mac G4, which utilized the Motorola-made PowerPC 7400 containing a 128-bit instruction unit known as AltiVec, its flagship processor line. Also that year, Apple unveiled the iBook, its first consumer-oriented laptop that was also the first Macintosh to support the use ofWireless LAN via the optional AirPort card that was based on the 802.11b standard.Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/W Battery

Mac OS X

In 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, an operating system based on NeXT's NeXTstep and incorporating parts of the FreeBSD kernel. Aimed at consumers and professionals alike, Mac OS X married the stability, reliability and security of Unix with the ease of a completely overhauled user interface. Sony VAIO VPCEB1KGX Battery To aid users in transitioning their applications from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of Mac OS 9 applications through the Classic environment. Apple'sCarbon API also allowed developers to adapt their Mac OS 9 software to use Mac OS X's features.Sony VAIO VPCEB1KGX/B Battery

Retail stores

In May 2001, after much speculation, Apple announced the opening of a line of Apple retail stores, to be located throughout the major U.S. computer buying markets. The stores were designed for two primary purposes: to stem the tide of Apple's declining share of the computer market, as well as a response to poor marketing of Apple products at third-party retail outlets.Sony VAIO VPCEB1KGX/W Battery

iPod

In October 2001, Apple introduced its first iPod portable digital audio player. The iPod started as a 5 gigabyte player capable of storing around 1000 songs. Since then it has evolved into an array of products including the Mini (now discontinued), the iPod Touch, the Shuffle, the iPod Classic, the Nano, and the iPhone. Sony VAIO VPCEB1LFX Battery As of March 2011, the largest storage capacity for an iPod was 160 gigabytes.

2002 - Present: iTunes/iOS

In early 2002, Apple unveiled a redesigned iMac, using the G4 processor. The new design had a hemispherical base and a flat panel all-digital display supported by a swiveling neck. This model was discontinued in the summer of 2004.Sony VAIO VPCEB1LFX/BI Battery In 2002, Apple also released the Xserve 1U rack mounted server. Originally featuring two G4 chips, the Xserve was unusual for Apple in two ways. It represented an earnest effort to enter the enterprise computer market and it was also relatively cheaper than similar machines released by its competitors.Sony VAIO VPCEB1LFX/WI Battery This was due, in no small part, to Apple's use of Fast ATA drives as opposed to the SCSI hard drives used in traditional rack-mounted servers. Apple later released the Xserve RAID, a 14 drive RAID which was, again, cheaper than competing systems. In mid-2003, Steve Jobs launched the Power Mac G5, based on IBM's G5 processor. Sony VAIO VPCEB1MFX Battery Apple claims this was the first 64-bit computer sold to the general public, but in fact that title actually goes to theAMD Opteron line (Opteron processors were however marketed more directly to the enterprise for use in rackmount servers and in workstations).Sony VAIO VPCEB1MFX/BI Battery Both 64-bit CPUs were pre-dated by the 64-bit Alphaarchitecture, although the Alpha was aimed more at servers and workstations and not at the "general public." The Power Mac G5 was also used by Virginia Tech to build its prototype System Xsupercomputing cluster, which at the time garnered the prestigious recognition of the third fastest supercomputer in the world.Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX Battery It cost only US$5.2 million to build, far less than the previous #3 and other ranking supercomputers. Apple's Xserves were soon updated to use the G5 as well. They replaced the Power Mac G5 machines as the main building block of Virginia Tech's System X, which was ranked in November 2004 as the world's seventh fastest supercomputer.Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX/B Battery A new iMac based on the G5 processor was unveiled August 31, 2004 and was made available in mid-September. This model dispensed with the base altogether, placing the CPU and the rest of the computing hardware behind the flat-panel screen, which is suspended from a streamlined aluminium foot. Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX/L Battery This new iMac, dubbed the iMac G5, was the world's thinnest desktop computer, measuring in at around two inches (around 5 centimeters). 2004, however, was a turning point for Apple. After creating a sizable financial base to work with, the company began experimenting with new parts from new suppliers.Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX/P Battery As a result Apple was able to produce new designs so quickly over a short amount of time, with the release of the iPod Video, then the iPod Classic, and eventually the iPod touch and iPhone. Each Apple product thus far has been under equally high demand.Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX/W Battery Through the 1990s, personal computers based on Microsoft's Windows operating system began to gain a much larger percentage of new computer users than Apple. As a result, Apple fell from controlling 20% of the total personal computer market to 5% by the end of the decade. Sony VAIO VPCEB1PFX Battery The company was struggling financially under then-CEO Gil Amelio when on August 6, 1997 Microsoft bought a US$150 million non-voting share of the company as a result of a court settlement with Apple. Perhaps more significantly, Microsoft simultaneously announced its continued support for Mac versions of its office suite, Microsoft Office, and soon created a Macintosh Business Unit.Sony VAIO VPCEB1PFX/B Battery This reversed the earlier trend within Microsoft that resulted in poor Mac versions of their software and has resulted in several award-winning releases. However, Apple's market share continued to decline, reaching 3% by 2004. Initially, the Apple Stores were only opened in the United States, but in late 2003, Apple opened its first Apple Store abroad, in Tokyo's Ginza district. Sony VAIO VPCEB1QGX Battery Ginza was followed by a store in Osaka, Japan in August 2004. In 2005, Apple opened stores in Nagoya, the Shibuya district of Tokyo, Fukuoka, and Sendai. Another store was opened in Sapporo in 2006. Apple's first European store opened inLondon in November 2004, and is currently the largest store.Sony VAIO VPCEB1QGX/BI Battery A store in the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham opened in April 2005, and the Bluewater shopping centre in Dartford, Kent opened in July 2005. Apple opened its first store in Canada in the middle of 2005 at the Yorkdale Shopping Centre in North York, Toronto. Sony VAIO VPCEB1RGX Battery Later on in 2005 Apple opened the Meadowhall Store in Sheffield and theTrafford Centre Store in Manchester (UK). Recent additions in the London area include the Brent Cross Apple Store (January 2006) and the Apple Store in Westfield in Shepherd's Bush (September 2008).Sony VAIO VPCEB1RGX/BI Battery Also, in an effort to court a broader market, Apple opened several "mini" stores in October 2004 in attempt to capture markets where demand does not necessarily dictate a full scale store. The first of these stores was opened at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California. Sony VAIO VPCEB20 Battery These stores follow in the footsteps of the successful Apple products: iPod mini and Mac mini. These stores are only one half the square footage of the smallest "normal" store and thus can be placed in several smaller markets. On April 29, 2005, Apple released Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" to the general public.Sony VAIO VPCEC20 Battery Apple's wildly successful PowerBook and iBook products relied on Apple's previous generation G4 architecture which were produced by Freescale Semiconductor, a spin off from Motorola. Engineers at IBM had minimal success in making their PowerPC G5 processor consume less power and run cooler but not enough to run in iBook or PowerBook formats. Sony VAIO VPCEE20 Battery As of the week of October 24, 2005. Apple released the Power Mac G5 Dual that features a Dual-Core processor. This processor contains two cores in one rather than have two separate processors. Apple has also developed the Power Mac G5 Quad that uses two of the Dual-Core processors for enhanced workstation power and performance. Sony VAIO VPCEF20 Battery The new Power Mac G5 Dual cores run individually at 2.0 GHz or 2.3 GHz. The Power Mac G5 Quad cores run individually at 2.5 GHz and all variations have a graphics processor that has 256-bit memory bandwidth.

Intel transition

In a keynote address on June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs officially announced that Apple will begin producing Intel-based Macintosh computers beginning in 2006.Sony VAIO VPCF112FX/B Battery Jobs confirmed rumors that the company had secretly been producing versions of its current operating system Mac OS X for both PowerPC and Intel processors over the past 5 years, and that the transition to Intel processor systems would last until the end of 2007. Sony VAIO VPCF115FG/B Battery Rumors of cross-platform compatibility had been spurred by the fact that Mac OS X is based on OPENSTEP, an operating system that was available for many platforms. In fact, Apple's own Darwin, the open source underpinnings of Mac OS X, was also available for Intel's x86 architecture. Sony VAIO VPCF116FGBI Battery On January 10, 2006, the first Intel-based machines, the iMac and MacBook Pro, were introduced. They were based on the Intel Core Duo platform. This introduction came with the news that Apple will complete the transition to Intel processors on all hardware by the end of 2006, a year ahead of the originally quoted schedule.Sony VAIO VPCF117FJ/W Battery In January 2007, Apple Computer, Inc. shortened its name to simply Apple Inc. In his Keynote address, Jobs explained that with their current product mix consisting of the iPod and Apple TV as well as their Macintosh brand, Apple really wasn't just a computer company anymore. Sony VAIO VPCF117HG/BI Battery At the same address, Jobs revealed a product that would revolutionize an industry in which Apple had never previously competed: the Apple iPhone. The iPhone combined Apple's first widescreen iPod with the world's first mobile device boasting visual voicemail, and an internet communicator capable of running a fully functional version of Apple's web browser Safari on the iPhone OS.Sony VAIO VPCF118FJ/W Battery

Apple and "i" Web services

In 2000, Apple introduced its iTools service, a collection of free web-based tools that included an email account, internet greeting cards called iCards, a service called iReview that gave internet users a place to read and write reviews of Web sites, and a tool called KidSafe which promised to prevent children from browsing inappropriate portions of the web. Sony VAIO VPCF119FC BatteryThe latter two services were eventually canceled because of lack of success, while iCards and email became integrated into Apple's .Mac subscription based service introduced in 2002 and discontinued in mid-2008 to make way for the release of the new MobileMe service, coinciding with the iPhone 3G release. Sony VAIO VPCF119FC/BI Battery MobileMe, which carries the same US$99.00 annual subscription price as its .Mac predecessor, features the addition of "push" services to instantly and automatically send emails, contacts and calendar updates directly to user's iPhone devices. Sony VAIO VPCF119FJ/BI Battery Some controversy surrounded the release of MobileMe services to users resulting in expected downtime and a significantly longer release window. As a result of this, Apple extended the subscriptions existing MobileMe subscribers by an additional 30 days free-of-charge.Sony VAIO VPCF11AFJ Battery

iPod and iTunes store

On October 23, 2001, Apple introduced the iPod, a portable digital music player. Its signature features included an LCD, easy to use interface, and a large capacity drive (initially 5 GB) which was enough to hold approximately 1,000 songs. It was quite large when compared to the 20-30 songs of Flash-based players of the time.Sony VAIO VPCF11AGJ Battery Apple has since revised its iPod line several times, introducing a slimmer, more compact design, Windows compatibility (previous iPods only interacted with Macintosh computers), AAC compatibility, storage sizes of up to 160 GB, and easier connectivity with car or home stereo systems. Sony VAIO VPCF11AHJ Battery On October 26, 2004, Apple released a color version of their award winning iPod which can not only play music but also show photos. In early 2005, Apple unveiled a smaller iPod : the iPod Shuffle, which is about the size of a pack of gum. Speaking to software developers on June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs said the company's share of the entire portable music device market stood at 76%.Sony VAIO VPCF11JFX/B Battery Apple has revolutionized the computer and music industry by signing the five major record companies to join its new music download service, the successful iTunes Music Store, now known as iTunes Store. Unlike other fee-based music services, the iTunes Store charges a flat US$0.99 per song (or US$9.99 per album).Sony VAIO VPCF11M1E Battery Users have more flexibility than on previous on-line music services. For example, they can burn CDs including the purchased songs (although a particular playlist containing purchased music may only be burned seven times), share and play the songs on up to five computers, and, of course, download songs onto an iPod.Sony VAIO VPCF11M1E/H Battery The iTunes Music Store commercial model is one-time purchase, which contrasts with other commercial subscription music services where users are required to pay a regular fee to be able to access musical content (but are able to access a larger volume of music during the subscription).Sony VAIO VPCF11MFX/B Battery The iTunes Music Store was launched in 2003 with 2 million downloads in only 16 days; all of which were purchased only on Macintosh computers. Apple has since released a version of iTunes for Windows, allowing Windows users the ability to access the store as well. Sony VAIO VPCF11S1E Battery Initially, the music store was only available in the United States due to licensing restrictions, but there were plans to release the store to many other countries in the future. In January 2004 Apple released a more compact version of their iPod player, the 4 GB iPod Mini. Sony VAIO VPCF11S1E/B Battery Although the Mini held fewer songs than the other iPod models at that time, its smaller size and multiple colours made it popular with consumers on debut with many stores having "sold out" their initial inventories of the devices. In June 2004 Apple opened their iTunes Music Store in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Sony VAIO VPCF11Z1E Battery A European Union version opened October 2004 (actually, a Eurozone version; not initially available in the Republic of Ireland due to the intransigence of the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) but eventually opened Thursday January 6, 2005.) A version for Canada opened in December 2004.Sony VAIO VPCF11Z1E/BI Battery On May 10, 2005, the iTunes Music Store was expanded to Denmark,Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. On December 16, 2004, Apple sold its 200 millionth song on the iTunes Music Store to Ryan Alekman from Belchertown, Massachusetts. The download wasThe Complete U2, by U2.Sony VAIO VPCF11ZHJ Battery Just under three months later Apple sold its 300 millionth song on March 2, 2005.[48] On July 17, 2005, the iTunes Music Store sold its 500 millionth song. At that point, songs were selling at an accelerating annualized rate of more than 500 million.Sony VAIO VPCF127HGBI Battery On January 11, 2005, an even smaller version of the iPod was announced, this one based on flash memory instead of using a miniaturized hard drive. The iPod Shuffle, like its predecessors, proved so popular that it sold out almost immediately, causing delays of up to four weeks in obtaining one within a single week of its debut.Sony VAIO VPCF137HG/BI Battery This is despite the fact that critics had gawked at the lack of LCD screen in the Shuffle, a norm in almost all current flash memory based mp3 players. The iPod is giving an enormous lift to Apple's financial results.Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/B Battery In the quarter ending March 26, 2005, Apple earned US$290 million, or 34¢ a share, on sales of US$3.24 billion. The year before in the same quarter, Apple earned just US$46 million, or 6¢ a share, on revenue of US$1.91 billion. In July 2005, the iPod was given a color screen, merging the iPod and iPod Photo.Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/D Battery On September 7, 2005, Apple replaced the iPod Mini line with the new iPod Nano. While some consumers were put off by the high price tag (US$199 for 2 GB), and easily scratchable surface, the Nano had sold 1 million units in the first 17 days. A month later, on October 12, 2005 Apple introduced the new 5th generation iPod with video playback capabilities. The device is also 40% thinner than a 4th generation iPod and has a larger screen.Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/G Battery On October 25, 2005, the iTunes Store went live in Australia, with songs selling for A$1.69 each, albums at (generally) A$16.99 and music videos and Pixar short films at A$3.39. Briefly, people in New Zealand were able to buy music off the Australian store. However, that loophole was quickly closed.Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/P Battery On February 23, 2006, the iTunes Music Store sold its 1 billionth song. The iTunes Music Store changed its name to iTunes Store on September 12, 2006 when it began offering video content (TV shows and movies) for sale. Since iTunes inception it has sold over 2 billion songs, 1.2 billion of which were sold in 2006. Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/W Battery Since downloadable TV and movie content was added 50 million TV episodes and 1.3 million movies have been downloaded. In early 2010, Apple celebrated the 10 billionth song downloaded from the iTunes Music Store.

iOS Evolution - iPhone & iPad

First announced on January 9, 2007, Apple introduced the first version of the iPhone being publicly available on June 29 that same year in selected countries/markets. Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/B Battery It was another 12 months before the iPhone 3G became available on July 11, 2008. Apple announced the iPhone 3GS on June 8, 2009, along with plans to release it later in June, July, and August, starting with the U.S., Canada and major European countries on June 19. Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/D Battery This 12-month iteration cycle has continued with the iPhone4 model arriving in similar fashion in 2010. A Verizon model was released in February 2011. The Macs that are available as of February 2011 are the iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini.Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/G Battery The latest version of Mac OS X is Lion (10.7). On February 10, 2011, the iPhone 4 was made available on both Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Now two iPod types are multi-touch: the iPod nano and the iPod touch, a big advance in technology. Apple TV currently has a 2nd generation model, which is 4 times smaller than the original Apple TV. Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/P Battery Apple has also gone wireless, selling a wireless trackpad, keyboard, mouse, and external hard drive. Wired accessories are, however, still available. The Apple iPad was announced on January 27, 2010 with retail availability commencing in April and systematically growing in markets throughout 2010. Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/W Battery The iPad fits into Apple iOS product line, being twice the screen size of an iPhone without the phone capabilities. While there were initial fears of product cannibalisation the FY2010 financial results released in Jan 2011 included commentary of a reverse 'halo' effect, where iPad sales were leading to increased sales of iMacs and MacBooks.Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/B Battery On March 2, 2011, Apple unveiled the iPad's second generation model, the iPad 2. Like the 4th generation iPod Touch and iPhone, the iPad 2 comes with a front-facing camera as well as a rear-facing camera, along with three new apps that utilize these new features: Camera, FaceTime, and Photobooth (only on iPad2).Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/B Battery

Resurgence compared to Microsoft

Since 2005, Apple's revenues, profits, and stock price have grown significantly. On May 26, 2010 Apple's stock market value overtook Microsoft's, and Apple's revenues surpassed those of Microsoft in the third quarter of 2010.Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/D Battery After giving their results for the first quarter of 2011 Microsoft's net profits of $5.2 billion were lower for the quarter than those of Apple Inc., which earned $6 billion in net profit for the quarter. The late April announcement of profits by the two companies marks the first time in twenty years that Microsoft's profits have been lower than Apple's.,Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/D Battery and according to Arstechnica "this would have been 'unimaginable' 10 years before." The Guardian reported that one of the reasons for the change is because PC software, where Microsoft dominates, has become less important compared to the tablet PC and smartphone market's, where Apple has a strong presence.Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/G Battery One reason for this was a surprise drop in PC sales in the quarter.Another issue for Microsoft is that their online search business has lost a lot of money, with a loss of $700 million in the first quarter of 2010. Although Microsoft's online division losses were high, even if they had made no loss Apple's profits would have been slightly higher.Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/G Battery,Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/P Battery,Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/P Battery,Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/W Battery,Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/W Battery