History of Apple

 The story of Steve Jobs and the company he founded

Our huge, comprehensive rundown of Apple's history will take you from its origins in the 1970s, Jobs' departure and later return to Apple. Follow the Apple story with us!

In this feature we tell the story of Apple. We start with the early days, the tale of how Apple was founded, moving on through the Apple I, to the Apple II, the launch of the Macintosh and the revolution in the DTP industry... To the tech-industry behemoth that we know and love today.

So sit back as we take a stroll down memory lane. Why not brush up on what really happened before you go and watch the Steve Jobs movie, with its interesting interpretations of several important events in the company's history?

On 1 April 1976 Apple was founded, making the company 41 years old as of the 1 April 2017 - here's a historical breakdown of the company.

The history of Apple

Our Apple history feature includes information about The foundation of Apple and the years that followed, we look at How Jobs met Woz and Why Apple was named Apple. The Apple I and The debut of the Apple II. Apple's visit to Xerox, and the one-button mouse. The story of The Lisa versus the Macintosh. Apple's '1984' advert, directed by Ridley Scott. The Macintosh and the DTP revolution. Read more: The Mac's Birthday .

We go on to examine what happened between Jobs and Sculley, leading to Jobs departure from Apple, and what happened during The wilderness years: when Steve Jobs wasn't at Apple, including Apple's decline and IBM and Microsoft's rise and how Apple teamed up with IBM and Motorola and eventually Microsoft. And finally, The return of Jobs to Apple.

The foundation of Apple

The history of everyone's favorite start-up is a tech fairytale of one garage, three friends and very humble beginnings. But we're getting ahead of ourselves…

The two Steves - Jobs and Wozniak - may have been Apple's most visible founders, but were it not for their friend Ronald Wayne there might be no iPhone, iPad or iMac today. Jobs convinced him to take 10% of the company stock and act as an arbiter should he and Woz come to blows, but Wayne backed out 12 days later, selling for just $500 a holding that would have been worth $72bn 40 years later.

The Apple Logo

There are other theories about the meaning behind the name Apple. The idea that it was named thus because Newton was inspired when an Apple fell out of a tree hitting him on the head, is backed up by the fact that the original Apple logo was a rather complicated illustration of Newton sitting under a tree.

Later the company settled on the bite out of an Apple design for Apple's logo - a far simpler logo design. These logos are probably the reason for other theories about the meaning behind the name Apple, with some suggesting that the Apple logo with a chunk taken out of it is a nod at computer scientist and Enigma code-breaker, Alan Turing, who committed suicide by eating a cyanide infused apple.

However, according to Rob Janoff, the designer who created the logo, the Turing connection is simply "a wonderful urban legend."

Equally the bite taken out of the Apple could represent the story of Adam and Eve from the Old Testament. The idea being that the Apple represents knowledge