Apple
More info
- Founded
- Founders
- Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne
- Headquarters
- Cupertino, California
- Type
- Technology corporation
- Website
- apple.com
Has reinvented itself three times — the home computer, the graphical computer, and the phone that became the computer — and now controls the whole chain from silicon to shop floor.
The Apple II in 1977 made the home computer a product you could buy and use straight away. The Macintosh in 1984 brought the graphical interface out of Xerox PARC and into the market. After Jobs returned in 1997 came the iMac, the iPod, and in 2007 the iPhone, which redefined what a phone is and made the app economy possible.
The underrated part is vertical integration. The 2020 move to its own ARM-based processors delivered performance per watt the x86 vendors could not match, and the company also controls the operating system, the store and the payment flow — which is the heart of the ongoing competition cases.