Apple Inc.
Based in Cupertino, California, Apple Inc. is the most recent incarnation of the company founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne to market Wozniak's Apple I computer. Jobs and Wozniak incorporated the company as Apple Computer, Inc. the following year. The current name — adopted in 2007 — reflects a change in focus from computers to consumer electronics, software, and online services.
After the Apple II became one of the first successful mass-produced personal computers, Apple introduced the Lisa (1983) and the Macintosh (1984), triggering a near-universal shift from command-line interfaces to graphical user interfaces navigated by a mouse.
Internal conflicts prompted Jobs to leave the company in 1985 while Wozniak stepped back from active employment. While Apple lost considerable market share to lower-priced Intel-powered PC clones running Windows in the early 1990s, Jobs' return delivered a modernised operating system and a series of 'iProducts' — the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad — and a move into retailing through the (online) iTunes Store and a chain of Apple Stores restored the company's profits.
Although Jobs resigned for health reasons in 2011 and died later that year, Apple became the world's largest company by market capitalisation, the largest manufacturing company by revenue, the largest vendor of tablet computers and mobile phones and the fourth-largest PC vendor.
Apple's current product range includes portable and home hardware, operating systems and software, and financial and multimedia streaming services. A large following and high customer loyalty have helped keep Apple among the world's most valuable brands.
