Apple: A history of one of the world’s most valuable companies

The tech giant unveiled the third generation of its popular tablet computer, the iPad, in March. Here’s a look back some key moments Apple’s evolution.

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Apple was founded in a garage by Steve Jobs, pictured here, and Steve Wozniak. The young entrepreneurs brought different strengths to their fledgling company: Jobs had a flair for conceptualizing products, while Wozniak had the technical know-how to make them happen. In this 1977 photo, Steve Jobs introduces the Apple II, one of the company's early successes.

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This is an undated file photo of an advertisement for the Apple II computer. Despite the gadget's success, Newsweek reported in 1985 that Jobs "has long been known to hate the Apple II, which he considers a 'boring' and technologically clumsy machine."

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The first Apple Lisa was released in 1983. The computer wasn't well received. The price of nearly $10,000 was seen as too high, and the system ran slowly. A year later the computer was discontinued and replaced with the Lisa II (pictured), which also suffered a short shelf life. Apple ended up dumping unsold Lisas in a Utah landfill, according to reports.

Noah Berger / Bloomberg News

Steve Jobs shows off his company's new Macintosh computer following a shareholders meeting in Cupertino, Calif. When the device was unveiled in January 1984, The Washington Post wrote that it was "the most important new product in Apple's history and, says the company, the foundation for its future as a force in the computer industry." Apple spent more than $30 million on advertising for the product, including a now-famous television spot that aired during the SuperBowl that played off the George Orwell novel "1984." Apple was facing stiff competition from IBM at the time, and Macintosh was the firm's answer. This first line of Macintoshs sold for $2,495 each.

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Macintosh computers are shown at an Apple manufacturing plant in Milpitas, Calif., in 1984. In describing the conception of the device, Steve Jobs told Newsweek in 1985, "The Macintosh team was what is commonly known now as intrapreneurship. A group of people going in essence back to the garage, but in a large company."

Paul Sakuma / AP

$Steve Jobs, left, John Sculley, president and CEO of Apple, and Steve Wozniak unveil the new Apple IIc computer in San Francisco on April 24, 1984. About a year after this photo was taken, the leadership of Apple would undergo a massive shift. Wozniak had left the company once from 1981-1983, but left for good in February 1985 to start another firm called CL-9. Meanwhile, the once close bond between Sculley and Jobs was starting to fracture. The pair became involved in a power struggle, with Sculley concerned that Jobs didn't have the right vision for the company's operations. Jobs's role at the company was minimalized, a move he deeply resented. In fact, he later compared it to a punch in the gut. Jobs resigned in 1985 over the matter. He was just 30 at the time.$

Steve Jobs, left, John Sculley, president and CEO of Apple, and Steve Wozniak unveil the new Apple IIc computer in San Francisco on April 24, 1984. About a year after this photo was taken, the leadership of Apple would undergo a massive shift. Wozniak had left the company once from 1981-1983, but left for good in February 1985 to start another firm called CL-9. Meanwhile, the once close bond between Sculley and Jobs was starting to fracture. The pair became involved in a power struggle, with Sculley concerned that Jobs didn't have the right vision for the company's operations. Jobs's role at the company was minimalized, a move he deeply resented. In fact, he later compared it to a punch in the gut. Jobs resigned in 1985 over the matter. He was just 30 at the time.

Sal Veder / AP

Wozniak once described the dynamic between him and his Apple co-founder this way: "My motivation was to make a showoff product to take down to the computer club. Jobs's was to make a product and sell it." Here, Wozniak sits beside the new Apple IIgs on Sept. 16, 1986.

Steve Castillo / AP

After the dust-up that led to his resignation, Jobs started a new venture called Next Computer. In this 1993 photo, he is being interviewed in the start-up company's headquarters in Redwood City, Calif.

Krist MacDonald / AP

After the early successes of the Apple II and the Macintosh, Apple struggled to keep pace with competitors, most notably IBM and Microsoft. As the company foundered, it went through some major leadership changes. Michael Spindler, pictured here, served as chief executive beginning in 1993 after John Scully was ousted. But under Spindler's tenure, Apple's stock sank and Sun Microsystems tried to buy the firm on the cheap. Since he failed to turn the company around, Spindler was voted out of office at a secret meeting of Apple's board on Jan. 31, 1996.

Paul Sakuma / AP

When Spindler was shown the door, he was replaced by Gil Amelio, left, a tech executive at National Semiconductor. However, after just 18 months on the job, Amelio left Apple, having been unable to lift the company's tumbling stock or boost sales of its gadgets. While Amelio was still at Apple's helm, Jobs was brought back to serve as an adviser. But when Amelio left, Apple said its co-founder would step into the role of interim chief executive. Around this time, Apple also purchased Jobs's company, Next Computers. Here, the pair appear together at the 1997 MacWorld exposition.

Eric Risberg / AP

Vendors and workers busy themselves near the Apple booth at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco in 1997. Since the first MacWorld in 1985, the events have become important showcases for Apple's products and designs.

Sam Morris / AP

With the reins back in Jobs's hands, things started looking up for the electronics company. The AP reported that Apple finished its 1997 fiscal year with a loss of $1.04 billion. Just two years later, it turned a yearly profit of $601 million and its stock price hit what was then an all-time high. Jobs narrowed the company's focus to a few flagship devices and ousted many employees and board members. This photo shows Apple's corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

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In 1997, Jobs also announced a new alliance between Apple and its rival Microsoft. The latter would purchase $150 million in non-voting stock in Apple. At the time, the New York Times called the deal "a stunning alliance that could alter the map of the computer industry." The partnership was announced on Aug. 6 at Apple's annual MacWorld event. Here, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates addresses the audience via phone link (his appearance initially drew boos from the Apple devotees in the audience). Jobs stands on stage beneath screen. Jobs later said he thought that set up was a mistake, as it made Gates look important and made him look meager. Still, by the time stock markets closed that day, Apple's stock rose 33 percent to $26.31.

John Mottern / Agence France-Presse

On May 6, 1998, Steve Jobs unveiled the iMac, a desktop computer whose translucent, brightly colored shell made instantly distinctive from other PCs on the market. Also, competitors' desktop computers featured a monitor and a separate processing unit, but the iMac combined both of those functions into one space-saving entity. Priced at $1,299, the computer was considered a good buy at the time. The iMac was one of the first products Apple launched after Jobs's return to the firm, and its success was critical in reviving the company's fortunes.

Terry Hefferman / Apple

On the heels of the successful iMac launch, Apple rolled out the iBook laptop computer at its semiannual MacWorld event on July 2, 1999.

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In an attempt to build consumers' appetite for its products, Apple opened its first brick-and-mortar retail outlet on May 19, 2001, in Virginia's Tysons Corner Center mall. From the beginning, the stores were carefully designed minimalist enclaves. Today, hundreds of Apple stores dot the globe and they frequently play host to long lines and frenzied customers on the day a new product launches.

Michael Temchine / For The Washington Post

Apple began selling its MP3 player, the iPod, on Nov. 10, 2001. Thanks to its sleek, simple interface and the fact it allowed users to tote their entire music library in one device in their pocket, the iPod transformed how we buy and listen to music. The iPod faced competition from products such as the Microsoft Zune, but none gained any traction.

/ Apple

A companion to the success of the iPod is iTunes, an online shop that began in 2003 as a music store and eventually expanded to hawk movies, TV shows, podcasts and other media. When it first launched, iTunes made digital tracks available for a la carte purchase at just 99 cents a song. With the service, Apple — like Napster before it — upended the record industry, forcing that business to rethink its sales model.

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Over the years, Apple updated its popular MP3 player. It added memory, offered size options and provided a greater variety of functionalities, such as a radio tuner, a built-in pedometer and the ability to view video and photos. Clockwise from top are iPod nanos, an iPod nano with a touch screen, the iPod touch and the ultra-tiny iPod shuffle.

/ Apple

In August 2004, Jobs announced that he had had surgery for a treatable form of pancreatic cancer. He took a brief medical leave but was back at work in time for this Oct. 26, 2004, Apple event at which he unveiled a special-edition black version of the iPod with a red tracking wheel. The band U2 was on hand for the announcement. This would not be Jobs's only period of medical leave before his eventual resignation in 2011.

Noah Berger / Bloomberg News

In 2005, Jobs said the company would switch its computers to Intel chips, a sign he planned to sell cheaper laptops. Here, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini hugs Jobs onstage at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at which the announcement was made.

Noah Berger / Bloomberg News

Like the "1984"-themed Super Bowl commercial before it, Apple in 2006 launched a series of TV commercials that gave the brand a boost. The commercials pitted the Mac vs. the PC, with actor John Hodgman playing the hapless, staid PC and actor Justin Long playing the hip, fresh Mac. The commercials helped seal Apple's reputation as a cooler, trendy alternative to Microsoft and other competitors. Pictured here is an Apple store in London.

Andy Shaw / Bloomberg News

Apple made the leap into the smartphone industry when it unveiled the iPhone on Jan. 9, 2007. The gadget was different than other early smartphones, most notably because it relied on a touchscreen instead of a keyboard. The announcement drove Apple's stock to what was at the time an all-time-high close of $92.57. Here, journalists at the media event examine the device.

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The iPhone may have been the most attention-grabbing product launched at the January 2007 media event, but it wasn't the only one. Apple TV allows users to play iTunes content, including movies, music and TV shows, on their television. The product is widely considered to be a flop because it never gained the traction with consumers that some other recent Apple products did. In 2010, the company revamped the device in an attempt to capture a wider audience. The new version is smaller and lets users watch the contents of their Netflix queue instantly. In a 2011 biography of Steve Jobs, the innovator was quoted as saying, "I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. ... It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it." Those comments led to a flurry of rumors that Apple has plans to launch a different kind of Apple TV product.

Mario Tama / Getty Images

On June 29, 2007, the day the iPhone hit shelves, customers queued up hours before the store opened to purchase the device. (The line outside New York's Fifth Avenue Apple store is pictured here.) Long lines have become a typical sight at Apple stores before the launch of a new product.

/ Bloomberg News

For a company that typically enjoys cultish devotion from its customers, Apple experienced a rare consumer backlash in a kerfuffle that came to be dubbed “Antennae-gate.” After the release of its iPhone 4, pictured here, users began complaining that the device was dropping phone calls when it was held a certain way. Famously, one user who wrote to Jobs about the problem got a terse response from the chief executive: "Just avoid holding it that way." As customer furor grew, Apple released a statement saying that the problem was more about a miscalculation of signal strength than it was about a problem with the device itself. But that didn't make the problem go away. Consumer Reports magazine refused to bestow the smartphone with its seal of approval. Eventually, Apple was forced to offer refunds to customers who weren't satisfied with the device. Despite the rare spate of bad publicity, iPhone 4 remained a popular gadget and was purchased by millions of users.

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The iPad, the world's first tablet computer, made its debut at a media event on Jan. 27, 2010. During his presentation in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Jobs said, "Everybody uses a laptop and/or a smartphone. The question has arisen lately: Is there room for a third category of device in the middle?" As Apple would soon find out, the answer was a resounding yes.

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iPads first hit store shelves on April 3, 2010. Within a month of launch, Apple said it had sold 1 million of the devices. That means it was selling more than twice as fast as the iPhone did when it first hit the market. Today, it faces increasing competition from Android- and Windows-based tablets as well as Amazon's low-priced Kindle Fire. However, it still hangs on as the top-selling device of its kind.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Though the iPad may have been the buzziest product Apple launched in 2010, it also debuted the latest version of its MacBook Air laptop. The device, priced at $999, came in 11- and 13-inch models.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

A testament to the enormous success of Apple's personal electronics products, the tech giant for the first time became more valuable than Exxon Mobil on Aug. 9, 2011. In ensuing months, the companies continued to battle back and forth for the crown.

Jason Lee / Reuters

On Aug. 24, 2011, Apple announced that Steve Jobs would resign as the leader of the company he had co-founded in his parents' garage. The company did not indicate whether the leadership shake-up was due to Jobs's health struggles, but his death a little over a month later suggests it was the reason for his departure.

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Tim Cook, longtime No. 2 executive and the company’s chief operating officer, was appointed as Jobs's successor. Cook had run Apple’s day-to-day operations during Jobs’s health-related absences.

David Paul Morris / Bloomberg News

On Oct. 5, 2011, Apple announced that Steve Jobs had died. For his role in developing and marketing transformative products such as iTunes, the iPhone and iPad, Jobs was lauded by politicians, colleagues and competitors for being a true visionary. Around the world, makeshift memorials like this one cropped up as consumers showed their affection and appreciation for one of the era's greatest innovators.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Apple's iPhone 4S debuted just a day before Jobs's death and hit stores on Oct. 14, 2011. One of its most popular new features is Siri, a voice-activated personal assistant.

Oli Scarff / Getty Images

Steve Jobs's biography, authored by Walter Isaacson, was released weeks after the Apple co-founder's death. One anecdote that garnered great attention was Jobs's statement that he was “willing to go thermonuclear war” with Google over the latter company's Android operating system, which Jobs said was a ripoff of his company's products.

Scott Eells / Bloomberg News

In recent months, Apple has come under scrutiny for its partnership with Chinese manufacturing supplier Foxconn over allegations of unfair labor practices. Here, Chinese university students, dressed as Foxconn workers, hold mock iPads at a protest over Foxconn's working conditions.

Kin Cheung / AP

On March 7, 2012, chief executive Tim Cook introduced the third version of the iPad and an updated Apple TV.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

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