Apple's first logo was a portrait of Isaac Newton sitting under a tree

Read about the time Apple tried to trademark an actual apple in Switzerland

In 2017, tech company Apple filed for the trademark to a black-and-white image of a Granny Smith apple in Switzerland—a request that was only partially granted. Apple wanted full control over the image, but many worried that granting the trademark would open up too many opportunities for the company to own the rights to the mere shape of an apple.

Apple, the tech giant renowned for products like the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, started out in a garage in 1976.

Apple’s '1984' ad aired once during the game and permanently shaped their advertising

During Super Bowl XVIII, Apple aired its dystopian “1984” commercial once to a mass audience, introducing the Macintosh and positioning Apple as a challenger to IBM’s dominance in personal computing.

Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s 'Think Different' marketing campaign

Jobs introduced the now-iconic “Think Different” marketing campaign. It won numerous awards, symbolized Apple’s new era under Jobs, and showed off his understanding of branding.

In 2018, Apple became the world's first publicly traded trillion-dollar company

The valuation was made possible by Steve Jobs' return to the company in 1997, who implemented a simplification strategy by cutting the majority of Apple's existing product line. His promotion of Jony Ive to SVP of industrial design would help popularize Apple through colorful products and marketing.

See Don Valentine's original 1977 memo for Sequoia's investment into Apple Computer

In honor of Apple's 50-year anniversary, Sequoia Capital recently posted a tweet on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) with a photo of the original 1977 memo for Sequoia's investment in Apple.

Jony Ive helped popularize Apple with iconic product form factors

Appointed SVP of industrial design in 1997 and chief design officer in 2015, Ive was responsible for the translucent plastic shells found on early iMacs and the iBook G3. He also oversaw the construction of Apple Park—the company's headquarters.

Explore an online gallery highlighting the importance of graphical user interfaces

Before the Macintosh, computers were primarily used in offices and required users to type complex commands to perform tasks. Apple followed the device with the LaserWriter printer, bringing graphic production to at-home artists and designers.

Lessons learned from Steve Jobs

From predicting our screen-filled future in 1983 to slashing Apple's product line in 1997, Steve Jobs believed in focus, simplicity, and the fusion of technology and art. His philosophies still influence how products are built and marketed today.

One of Apple's first computers sold for $375K at an auction

An operational Apple I, the first model of personal computer made by Apple, sold for $375K at an auction. The machine was first sold in 1976 and has a handwritten serial number by Steve Jobs himself. The auction, provided rare insight into the beginnings of the influential tech company.

Mac settings have evolved from minimalism to chaotic clutter

The 1984 Mac control panel featured wordless icons, sliders, and desktop pattern editors, highlighting early experimentation in graphical user interface design. This software charm and personality gradually disappeared as Apple enforced visual and functional consistency over time.

When Steve Jobs Spent All His Money To See Neem Karoli Baba

In 1974, Steve Jobs traveled to India after reading a book by the famous American psychologist Ram Dass. Jobs visited the temple of one of Dass’s influences, Neem Karoli Baba. He stayed in India for seven months before returning to the US to found Apple. Jobs’s trip to India helped shape the tech leader’s vision for Apple.

In 1984, Apple ran an award-winning Super Bowl commercial

Directed by Ridley Scott and a winner at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the clip features a heroine flinging a sledgehammer at a Big Brother-style figure delivering a speech. As the screen shatters, a voiceover proclaims that Apple's release of the Macintosh will ensure, "1984 won't be like '1984.'"

Steve Jobs founded NeXT while on a break from Apple

While Steve Jobs was on a hiatus from working at Apple, he founded a company called NeXT and helped lead the release of its operating system NeXTSTEP. The operating system was used to create the first app store of sorts, as well as the first web browser.

Before starting Apple, Steve Jobs cold-called HP at 12 years old and got a summer job.

Listen to Steve Jobs explain his 'rock tumbler' metaphor for teamwork.

Steve Jobs changed the world with Apple and Pixar

The devices Jobs introduced during his time at Apple, including the iPad and iPhone, were imitated by competitors, ultimately helping to create the numerous options consumers have today. In addition to leading Apple, Jobs also helped turn Pixar and the software startup NeXT into success stories.

Apple's first backer recruited his own CEO to help manage the company

Wanting Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to focus on developing Apple computers, Mike Markkula brought in his colleague from Fairchild Semiconductor, Michael Scott. As employee number five, Scott helped professionalize the fledgling computer company and getting manufacturing off the ground. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

'My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others' negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.'

-Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Why Steve Jobs always wore the same outfit

Steve Jobs is well-known for his signature outfit: a black mock turtleneck and denim jeans. The outfit originated in Japan, where Jobs observed Sony employees all wearing matching uniforms. He proposed Apple employees do the same, but that idea was rejected. However, he still decided to create his own uniform.

Apple’s third cofounder was its angel investor

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are well-known for cofounding Apple, but the company had a third founder who acted as an angel investor: Mike Markkula, who invested $250K in 1977.

Watch Steve Jobs unveil the first iPhone in 2007

During his Macworld San Francisco 2007 keynote address, Jobs claimed Apple had reinvented the phone by integrating phone capabilities with internet access and music playback from its iPod product line. The multitouch display eliminated the need for a stylus or keyboard hardware typically found on other smartphones.

Watch Steve Jobs introduce the first iPad

Apple's cofounder debuted the first iPad in 2010, framing it as a third category of personal electronics between the laptop and the smartphone. Steve Jobs showed off how thin the device was (for the time) and explained how it was better than smartphones and laptops for browsing the web.

Watch 4-plus decades of Pixar's opening logos.

Apple’s ‘1984’ ad won big at Cannes Lions

One of Cannes Lions’ most legendary winners, Apple’s “1984” ad was conceived by Chiat/Day and directed by Ridley Scott, fresh off his iconic film “Blade Runner.”

The Macintosh popularized GUI and mouse navigation for personal computing

A graphical user interface that utilized windows, icons, and pull-down menus, rather than text-based commands, contributed to the device's success after its January 1984 launch. Its original sound system—capable of playing four voices—was developed after non-technical staff suggested the machine should play music.

X's bird logo cost just $15 and wasn't added until four years after launch

When Twitter launched in 2006, it featured green, slimy lettering and lacked the now-famous bird icon. The bird was adopted in 2010 and eventually became the platform's official logo—unofficially named Larry after NBA legend Larry Bird.

Steve Jobs saved a nearly bankrupt Apple

Apple nearly went bankrupt in 1997, when the tech company had only three months of operational cash left. Apple's board ousted cofounder Steve Jobs in 1985, but he was brought back as interim CEO to revive the company when Apple purchased Jobs' company, NeXT.

Nike is one of the world's most recognizable brands, partly due to its 'swoosh' logo.

The Beatles sued technology company Apple in 1978 to defend naming rights to their record label, Apple Corps.

A short biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs led Apple for almost a quarter century, first from 1976 through 1985 and then from 1997 through just before his death in 2011. A brief synopsis of his career underscores the impact he made during that timespan, across everything from technology to smartphones, moviemaking, retail and much more.

When Steve Jobs recruited former CEO Tim Cook to work at Apple in 1998, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy—and many of Cook's friends advised him not to take the job.

Explore a breakdown of 18 influential Apple products

The launch of the MacBook Air in 2008 popularized the ultrabook category of laptops, while the iPad (2010) made large-screen mobile devices a technological norm. The iPhoneX (2017) introduced the notch, which has become a staple at the top of many smartphone displays.

Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer

Steve Wozniak's Apple I and Apple II computers launched the personal computer industry, influencing the future of consumer electronics. He was also awarded the National Medal of Technology and the Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy, and Employment because of his invention.

Unsatisfied with the designs provided by an Apple engineer, Steve Jobs designed the original Mac calculator in about 10 minutes.

Nike only paid $35 for its famous swoosh logo—and cofounder Phil Knight didn't like it at first.

Completed in 2017, Apple's headquarters cost $5 billion dollars

Apple Park features a ring-shaped main building that accommodates over 12,000 employees, situated above a two-story underground parking garage equipped with its own traffic light system. Inspired by Stanford University's foliage, Steve Jobs hired one of their arborists to oversee the planting of over 9,000 indigenous trees.

View the evolution of the National Science Foundation logo

When the agency was established in 1950, the logo featured an eagle holding a shield with symbols of a pyramid, a test tube, a microscope, and a lamp from which light radiated. Subsequent logos featured variations of a ring composed of people holding hands, which would eventually be redesigned to enclose a globe bearing the "NSF" abbreviation.

'Johnny Appleseed' was the itinerant horticulturalist John Chapman

Born in 1774 in Massachusetts, Chapman planted apple orchards for pioneers across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, to be sold to locals to produce hard cider. He became famous through a 'Harper's Weekly' profile in the late 1800s, cultivating the modern legend.

Your iPhone started with a Cold War secret

Silicon Valley wasn't supposed to happen. A stretch of California orchard land somehow became the place that built the modern world: chips, PCs, the internet, the smartphone, and now AI. But the real story isn't the garage myth. It's a series of contradictions hiding in plain sight.

Steve Jobs revolutionized animated filmmaking

Steve Jobs left his mark beyond Apple with Pixar, the animated studio he acquired in 1986. In addition to pushing Pixar to focus on storytelling, Jobs led the studio to revolutionize animation via computer-generated imagery.

Apple's board fired Steve Jobs in 1985

Apple's board fired cofounder Steve Jobs after he clashed with then-CEO John Sculley about Apple's goals and vision, as well as how to run the company. Apple later rehired Steve Jobs as interim CEO, a role he held until he died in 2011.

Throughout the 1980s, the Times Square ball was a giant apple

From 1981 to 1988, the sparkling ball was replaced by a “big apple” to promote the city’s “I Love New York” tourism campaign. This broadcast is from the apple’s first year, where one announcer proclaims, “It’s great! It’s beautiful!”

Apple's latest invention

Apple may be working on a robotic smart lamp. Internally called ELEGNT, it's designed to respond to music, display emotion through movement, and even serve up reminders. A new research paper details how it could work—though Apple hasn't officially confirmed a release.

William Blake may be best known as a poet, but he was also a painter

The author of "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" was a romantic poet and painter. "Newton," one of his better-known pieces, satirizes Isaac Newton, whom he saw as too concerned with the empiricism of science and, as a result, lacking an understanding of nature.

Explore an illustrated history of the iPod, the Apple music player that entered listeners' pockets in 2001 and underwent several hardware redesigns before being discontinued in 2022 in favor of the iPhone.

Creating the iPhone ended the marriages of several of Apple's engineers

In the early 2000s, Apple recruited multiple engineers onto rival teams tasked with combining phone, internet, and iPod capabilities. Despite significant technical hurdles, Steve Jobs favored a prototype with multitouch technology and a modified Mac operating system over a competing in-house model based on the iPod's click wheel. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

The McIntosh apple, long dominant, is now 10th-most popular in the US

First grown in Ontario, Canada, in 1795, the McIntosh became synonymous with the apple by the early 1900s. Newcomers on the market—especially the Honeycrisp in the 1990s—has nearly rendered the McIntosh irrelevant.

The iPhone's impact in 10 charts

It's been almost 20 years since Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPhone, the device that would come to define Apple for years and change not just the smartphone industry but the world at large. 10 examples of the iPhone's impact include its all-screen touch interface and the way it led to the rise of app culture.

Bob Noyce coinvented the integrated circuit, cofounded Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor, and is considered one of the founders of Silicon Valley

Some even called Noyce the "Mayor of Silicon Valley." According to Steve Jobs, he was the "ultimate inventor, rebel, and entrepreneur." This Founders episode dissects an article from 1983 that explains Noyce's lasting impact.