Apple has officially become the first $1 trillion company in history! It must ggcome as no surprise as Apple continues to astonish the world with its innovative products and services.
The company had to go through years of struggle, various failures and accomplishments which finally led to the way it stands today – the first ever company to be valued $1 trillion.
Join us on this memory lane as we go back in time to explore the history of Apple from the days when Apple was limited to only a garage in California to the present when it is the most successful company in history.
How did Apple rise through the ranks to become the world's most profitable tech company? As it turns out, good timing and shrewd planning have played as much of a role as innovative thinking for the Silicon Valley juggernaut.

The Foundation Of Apple

In 1976, Apple was founded by three men: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne with the intention of selling Wozniak’s hand-built Personal Computer named Apple 1.
The Apple 1 was sold as a motherboard with CPU, RAM and basic textual-video chips. It then lacked a built-in keyboard, monitor, case or any other Human Interface Devices (which was later added in 1977).
In July 1976, the Apple 1 went on sale and was sold for $666.66. Steve Wozniak took a special liking for repeated numbers and hence the fancy number as the price.


The Apple II and III

It was in 1977 that the Apple II was introduced, also by Wozniak. VisiCalc (the world’s first ‘killer-app’), a ground-breaking spreadsheet and calculating software helped the Apple II computers to stand ahead of market leaders Tandy and Commodore PET. VisiCalc gave users an additional reason to buy the Apple II because of its office compatibility. With the introduction of colour graphics, the Apple II was able to revolutionize the computer industry.
By 1978, Apple had a real office with several employees and an Apple II production line.
1. Why Apple?
Steve Jobs chose the name Apple Computer for a few reasons. He was on a fruitarian diet at the time and thought the name would make computers sound less intimidating and more fun. Additionally, he wanted Apple's name to be ahead of Atari -- the game company at which Jobs previously worked -- in the phone book.
2. Apple's archrival helped it survive
Microsoft  invested $150 million in Apple in August 1997 shortly after Jobs' return. The two companies signed a patent cross-licensing agreement, Microsoft promised to support Microsoft Office for the Mac, and Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default web browser on its computers. Most importantly, Apple received the cash it needed to avoid bankruptcy.
Microsoft would go on to earn a tidy profit on the Apple shares it received as part of the agreement. But it was Apple that ultimately benefited most from the deal: It became the world's most valuable technology company when its market cap exceeded that of Microsoft's in 2010.
3. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were not Apple's only founders
Ronald Wayne was the third co-founder, and he has the unfortunate distinction of selling his 10% share of the company back in 1976 for only $800. It's unclear as to whether Wayne's stake would have subsequently been diluted if he'd held onto it, but 10% of Apple would be worth more than $80 billion today. Perhaps most surprisingly, Wayne claims he has no regrets about selling his Apple stake.
4. It's incredible how much things have changed for Apple in the past two decades
In October 1997, just months after Steve Jobs had rejoined Apple, Michael Dell of rival computer company Dell said that if he were running Apple, he would "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." 
Twenty years later, Apple is now the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than $800 billion. Incredibly, even more good times likely lie ahead for Apple and its shareholders.
5. Apple was nearly acquired
In early 1996, Apple was almost bought by Sun Microsystems, the computer systems and software maker that designed Java. Sun's former president, Ed Zander, later said the companies were "literally hours away" from completing a deal. However, the deal fell apart. Apple would go on to buy Steve Jobs' NeXT Software within the next year, and it was Sun that was later acquired by Oracle in 2010.

Apple without Steve Jobs

In 1985, as friction grew between Jobs and Sculley, Jobs attempted to oust Sculley by staging a coup which then backfired. The Apple’s board took Sculley’s side and removed Jobs from his managerial duties. Jobs then quit his job and founded a new company making advanced workstations name NeXT. Steve Wozniak too left around the same time selling most of his shares saying the company was going in the wrong direction.
The only things more impressive than Apple’s financial numbers are the products that generated them.
For a company routinely slagged for not having had a hit since 2010’s iPad, Apple, which as of mid-January was valued at more than $900 billion, had a heckuva 2017: Its wireless AirPods became ubiquitous from Brooklyn to Boise, and can now be paired with the best-selling Apple Watch Series 3, which has GPS and cellular connectivity, for a meaningful, new consumer experience.
Developers embraced ARKit, Apple’s augmented-reality framework, like nothing since 2008’s App Store (which paid out $26.5 billion last year). After a year of whining about what the new iPhone might offer, most skeptics were blown away by the iPhone X, with its facial recognition, camera quality, bezel-to-bezel screen, and new user interface.
Now, HomePod, first announced last June, offers a fresh take on the intelligent speaker. These category-redefining products don’t just defy the adage that scale hampers agility and creativity–they obliterate it.
During a January 10, 2018, conversation at the newly opened Apple Park (itself an impressive product launch), Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with Fast Company to discuss the overarching philosophy behind Apple’s ever-evolving universe and what unites its ambitions and endeavors.


For example, take the first MP3 player — MPMan, produced by South Korea-based SaeHan Information Systems. MPMan appeared in 1998, three years before the first iPods were released. As the original pioneer of portable MP3 player technology, SaeHan spent a good deal of time in court negotiating terms of use with various record companies. By 2001, a clear legal precedent was set for MP3 access — allowing Apple to focus less on courtroom proceedings and more on cutting-edge marketing campaigns for their new product.

Apple also exercised a great deal of patience when it came to smartphone technology. The world's first smartphone, the Symbian from Nokia, appeared in 2000 — seven years before the iPhone — and was equipped with features considered revolutionary at the time, such as a touchscreen and built-in camera. A few years later, Blackberry introduced the concept of email accessibility via one's cell phone. By the time Apple released the first iPhone in 2007, the market was well-established and software developers had fine-tuned many of the technical kinks related to smartphone functionality.
In some cases, Apple has gained an edge over competitors by purchasing innovative software developed by smaller firms. That was the case with Delaware-based tech firm FingerWorks, whose brainchild, the TouchStream, was one of the first models of 'gesture recognition' technology.
Apple purchased FingerWorks in 2005, two years before the release of the first iPhone; TouchStream's technology and functionality heavily influenced the touchscreen features later implemented for Apple's smartphone and tablet devices.

The iPhone

The iPhone was announced at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007. Jobs also announced that Apple Computer, Inc would thereafter be called Apple Inc. as the company had widened its emphasis to consumer electronics as well. 270,000 iPhones were sold during the first 30 hours of its sales and it came out to be known as a “game changer for the industry”. Widespread success was achieved with the introduction of iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad products.