Apple Inc.
Company History
Apple History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 1976 in Los Altos, United States
When was Apple founded?
Apple was founded in 1976 in Los Altos, United States by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, making it 50 years old.
- Founded
- 1976
- Founding place
- Los Altos, United States
- Founders
- Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne
- Headquarters today
- Cupertino, California
- Milestones documented
- 13 (1976–2026)
- Current CEO
- John Ternus
- Acquisitions
- 4
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2026 | John Ternus Becomes CEO |
| 2024 | Vision Pro Launches Spatial Computing Push |
| 2020 | Apple Silicon Mac Transition |
| 2014 | Beats Electronics Acquisition |
| 2011 | Tim Cook Becomes CEO |
| 2008 | App Store Opens |
| 2007 | iPhone Launch |
| 2001 | iPod Launch |
| 1997 | Steve Jobs Returns Through NeXT |
| 1984 | Macintosh Launch |
| 1980 | Apple Goes Public |
| 1977 | Apple II Launch |
| 1976 | Apple Inc. Founded |
- Who founded Apple?
- Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.
- When did Apple start?
- Apple was founded in 1976.
- How old is Apple?
- Apple is 50 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
In 1976 Steve Wozniak, a self-taught engineer, hand-built a computer circuit board and showed it at the Homebrew Computer Club. His friend Steve Jobs saw that ordinary people would buy it if it was sold as a finished product. They sold Jobs' VW Microbus and Wozniak's HP calculator to fund the first batch and founded Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs' parents' house in Los Altos, California. Their aim was to take computers out of large corporations and put them on the desks of ordinary people.
Founders
Steve Jobs
Apple Computer was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, who sold his 10% stake back to his partners for $800 twelve days later. Two college dropouts built circuit boards in the garage of Jobs' childhood home in Los Altos, California. The engineering came from Wozniak, who designed the Apple I and then the Apple II, a machine with color graphics and an integrated keyboard that made the personal computer accessible to people outside the hobbyist world. Jobs supplied the commercial drive and the conviction that computers should be designed for ordinary users rather than for corporations, a view that produced the Macintosh in 1984, the first mass-market computer sold with a graphical interface and a mouse. His management style brought him into conflict with then-CEO John Sculley, and he was pushed out of Apple in 1985. The second chapter matters as much as the first. Without Jobs the product line lost focus and the company came close to failing in the late 1990s, so Apple bought his company NeXT in 1997 and he returned as chief executive. He cut the product lineup, took a $150 million investment from Microsoft, and worked closely with designer Jony Ive on the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, the sequence that turned Apple into the most valuable company in the industry. Steve Jobs was born in 1955 in San Francisco. Education: Homestead High School; De Anza College.
Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple and supplied the engineering foundation for its early success. He designed the Apple I as a working personal-computer board and then created the Apple II, the product that transformed Apple into a real company. Wozniak's style was different from Jobs's: he valued openness, technical elegance, and the joy of building useful machines. After a 1981 plane crash and later changes in Apple's direction, he stepped back from day-to-day influence, though he remained permanently associated with the company's founding identity. His lasting contribution is the proof that technical simplicity can be a strategic advantage. Apple's later obsession with performance, efficiency, and integrated design still traces back to Wozniak's engineering discipline. Steve Wozniak was born in 1950 in San Jose. Education: University of California, Berkeley; De Anza College; Homestead High School.
Ronald Wayne
Ronald Wayne co-founded Apple in 1976 but exited the partnership after only days, selling his stake back to Jobs and Wozniak. His departure has become famous because that stake would later have been worth a large amount, but the decision made sense from his perspective at the time. Wayne had personal financial obligations and did not want unlimited liability if the young company failed to pay suppliers. Although he did not shape Apple's product strategy, his early paperwork and logo work helped formalize the company at the start. Wayne's story remains a reminder that Apple's founding was not inevitable mythology. It was a risky small business before it became Silicon Valley legend. Ronald Wayne was born in 1934 in Cleveland. Education: High School of Art and Design.
Key Milestones
John Ternus Becomes CEO
John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, became chief executive on September 1, 2026, and Tim Cook became executive chairman after 15 years as CEO. Apple announced the unanimous board decision on April 20, 2026, and Ternus joined the board on the same date.
Source: apple.comVision Pro Launches Spatial Computing Push
Vision Pro gave Apple a live platform for spatial interfaces, eye and hand input, high-resolution displays and custom chips. Early adoption stayed limited by the $3,499 price and the maturity of use cases, but the product created an option on a computing layer beyond phones and flat screens.
Source: apple.comApple Silicon Mac Transition
Apple began moving Mac computers off Intel processors and onto its own M-series chips in 2020. The shift improved control over performance, battery life and software optimization, and showed that vertical integration could still reshape a mature product category.
Source: apple.comBeats Electronics Acquisition
Apple agreed to buy Beats Music and Beats Electronics for a total of $3 billion, about $2.6 billion in purchase price plus roughly $400 million vesting over time, and brought in founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. The deal supplied the subscription-music foundation for Apple Music and a premium audio brand alongside AirPods.
Source: apple.comTim Cook Becomes CEO
Apple's board named Tim Cook chief executive on August 24, 2011, when Steve Jobs resigned and recommended the succession plan be carried out. Cook, previously chief operating officer, ran the company for 15 years and pushed it toward services, custom silicon and capital returns.
Source: apple.comApp Store Opens
The App Store launched with 500 apps and gave iPhone owners a single, controlled way to install third-party software. That turned the iPhone from a premium device into a platform, created a large services business, and set up the regulatory fights that continue today.
Source: apple.comiPhone Launch
The iPhone moved Apple into mobile computing and shifted the company's center of gravity away from the Mac. It also created the hardware base that later supported services, accessories and developer economics.
Source: apple.comiPod Launch
The iPod put a hard-drive music library in a pocket at $399 and went on sale on November 10, 2001. Paired with iTunes and later the iTunes Store, it moved Apple beyond computers into consumer electronics and paid digital media, and it brought Windows households into Apple retail.
Source: apple.comSteve Jobs Returns Through NeXT
Apple's NeXT acquisition brought Steve Jobs back when the company was financially weak and unfocused. NeXTSTEP technology became the basis of the modern operating-system line, and Jobs restored the integrated hardware and software discipline that later shaped iMac, iPod, iPhone, and the App Store.
Source: tech-insider.orgMacintosh Launch
The Macintosh brought a graphical interface and a mouse to a mass-market computer and defined Apple's design identity. Adoption was limited by the $2,495 price and a thin software catalogue, which left the platform exposed as cheaper IBM-compatible machines scaled.
Source: britannica.comApple Goes Public
The December 1980 IPO gave Apple public-market capital and made personal computing look like a serious commercial category. It also raised the pressure to professionalize management, distribution and product planning as the company outgrew its founding team.
Source: britannica.comApple II Launch
The Apple II turned a garage project into a business. Color graphics, expansion slots and a consumer-friendly design carried it into schools, homes and small offices, giving Apple a revenue base years before the Macintosh.
Source: britannica.comApple Inc. Founded
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple in 1976, when personal computing was still a hobbyist market. The Apple I showed that a small team could package microcomputer technology for real buyers, and Wayne sold his stake back to his partners within two weeks.
Source: britannica.comMajor Acquisitions
NeXT
1997Apple acquired NeXT to obtain a modern operating-system foundation and bring Steve Jobs back into the company. NeXTSTEP technology became a foundation for future Apple software platforms.
Siri
2010Apple acquired Siri to add voice-assistant technology to iPhone and broaden the ways users could interact with devices. The technology later became integrated across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, HomePod, and CarPlay.
Beats Electronics
2014Apple acquired Beats Electronics and Beats Music in May 2014 for a total of $3 billion, about $2.6 billion in purchase price plus roughly $400 million vesting over time, and brought in founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. The deal supplied a subscription-music base, audio hardware and a music-culture brand to sit beside AirPods and Apple Music.
Shazam
2018Apple acquired Shazam to strengthen music discovery and deepen engagement with Apple Music. The app's recognition technology fit naturally into iOS, Siri, and music recommendations.
Keep researching Apple
Apple Company History FAQ
What were the major milestones in Apple's founding and 1980 Initial Public Offering?
Founded in 1976 with the Apple I, Apple released the Apple II in 1977 and completed its initial public offering on December 12, 1980, raising more capital ($100M+) than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956 and creating over 300 instant millionaires.
How did the 1984 Macintosh and Ridley Scott's '1984' Super Bowl commercial change computing?
Launched on January 24, 1984, the original Macintosh popularized the graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse, introduced with Ridley Scott's well-known '1984' Super Bowl commercial that positioned Apple as a rebel against corporate conformity (IBM).
What occurred during Steve Jobs's ouster in 1985 and the wilderness years?
Following a boardroom power struggle with then-CEO John Sculley in May 1985, Steve Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT and Pixar; without Jobs, Apple struggled with product proliferation (Performa, Newton) and drifted toward bankruptcy by 1996.
How did Steve Jobs execute the great turnaround beginning in 1997?
Upon returning in 1997, Jobs slashed Apple's 350-product lineup down to a 2x2 grid (Consumer/Pro, Desktop/Portable), secured a $150M investment from Microsoft, launched the 'Think Different' campaign, and released the colorful iMac G3 in 1998.
How did the 2001 iPod and iTunes transform the music industry?
Launched in October 2001 with the slogan '1,000 songs in your pocket', the iPod paired with the iTunes Store in 2003 transformed Apple into a consumer electronics leader and established legal, 99-cent digital music downloads.
When did Steve Jobs unveil the original iPhone and how did it redefine smartphones?
On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone as 'a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a major mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communicator', eliminating physical keyboards in favor of multi-touch capacitive glass.
When did Apple become the first $1 trillion, $2 trillion, and $3 trillion public company?
Under CEO Tim Cook, Apple reached a $1 trillion market cap in August 2018, passed $2 trillion in August 2020 and $3 trillion in January 2022, and the stock briefly touched a $5 trillion market value on July 28, 2026, the second company to do so after Nvidia.
What are Apple's product and platform priorities in 2026?
Apple's roadmap centers on Apple Intelligence and the rebuilt Siri that shipped with iOS 27 in September 2026, the iPhone 18 Pro generation on the A20 Pro chip, spatial computing through visionOS, its own modem and silicon work, and expanding assembly in India, where Bloomberg reported about a quarter of iPhones are now made.
Where was Apple founded?
Apple was founded in 1976 in the suburban garage of Steve Jobs' childhood home in Los Altos, California.
Related Strategic History
Compare founding milestones and corporate evolution
Explore Apple
Core profile pages, founders and related research hubs for this company.