Apple

Introduction:

Apple Inc., a multinational company of technology, is based in America. Apple's headquarter is in Cupertino, California, and it designs, develops, and sells computer software, online services, and consumer electronics. The company is one of the big five companies in the information technology industry of America.

Hardware products list:

The product list of Apple Inc. includes iPhone smartphone, Apple Watch, Mac personal computer, iPod (portable Media player), iPad, Tablet, Apple Tv (digital Media Player), AirPods Max (headphones), and HomePod (smart speaker line).

Apple's software list:

Apple's software list includes iPad OS, iOS, Watch OS, Mac OS, Tv OS operating systems, Safari web browser, iTunes media player, Shazam music identifier, iWork, iLife creativity, and productivity suites. Professional Applications offered by Apple are Logic Pro, Final Cut, Pro X, and Xcode. Apple Inc.'s online services are iTunes Store, Mac App Store, Apple, Arcade, iOS App Store, Apple TV+, iMessage, Apple Music, and iCloud.

Founders:

The company was initiated in April 1976 by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Wozniak to design and sell Wozniak's Apple I (personal Computer). But Ronald Wayne sold his shares in 12 days. In January 1977, Apple Computer, Inc. was the initial name of Apple company, and sales of its both computers (Apple I and Apple II) overgrew.

Apple's worldwide annual revenue:

For the fiscal year, 2020 Apple's total revenue was 274.5$ billion. Apple is one of the most valuable companies globally and is the largest technology company by revenue. It also comes on the 4th number in the largest PC vendor by unit sales from January 2021 and also 4th largest smartphone manufacturer of the world. Apple became the first US-traded company publicly to valuable at over 1 trillion $ in August 2018. In August 2020, it became the first 2$ trillion company. As of 2020, Apple maintains 510 retail stores in more than 22 countries and employs 147,000 employees full time. It operates the world's largest music retailer store known as iTunes Store. More than 1.5 billion Apple's products were used worldwide by people as of January 2020. Apple is a high-level brand loyalty company.

Business History:

Apple launched its first PC (Personal Computer), Macintosh, for sale without programing language in 1984. Sales of Macintosh were initially good but dropped down due to its high price, speed issue, and limited software. This sales downfall triggered a power struggle between CEO John Sculley and Steve Jobs, and Sculley decided to remove Steve Jobs as General Manager of Macintosh. He got consistent support from Macintosh's board of directors. Furthermore, Apple introduced the power book and System 7 with an upgraded operating system, which added networking capabilities and colors to the interface. Power book and other products' success increased the revenue. Mac Addict Magazine named 1989 to 1991 as the "First Golden Age" of Macintosh.

Apple found the Apple II series production extremely expensive and decided to took away sales from Macintosh. Apple released Macintosh LC in October 1990 and started promoting Computer by advising their technical developer support staff to develop applications for Macintosh rather than Apple II and authorizing salespersons to direct consumers towards Macintosh and keep them away from Apple II. So, Apple discontinued in 1993. Apple has also experimented with numerous other unsuccessful products in the 1990s, including portable CD audio players, digital cameras, video consoles, speakers, TV applications, and e-World online service. But none of these products helped Apple's stock price and market share continue to slide.

Apple, Motorola, and IBM formed an AIM alliance to create a new computing platform PowerPC Reference Platform (PReP), which used hardware by Motorola, IBM, and Apple's software in 1994. Apple introduced Power Macintosh in the same year, and it was the first of many Apple computers to use the PowerPC processor of Motorola. Gil Amelio became the CEO of Spindler in 1996. He made significant changes, including cost-cutting and extensive layoffs. After countless flop attempts to modernize Mac OS, Apple purchased NeXT for its NeXT STEP operating system in 1997 and brought Steve Jobs back. When Jobs returned, Apple was only a few weeks away from bankruptcy.

On July 9, 1997, the governors' board discharged Amelio, and Jobs acted as CEO and began to restructure the company's product line. Then Jobs worked collectively with Jonathan Ive to rebuild Apple's reputation. In July 2006, iMac and MacBook Pro became the first Apple computers to use intel's Core Duo CPU. Wall Street Journal stated that Apple was going to build an engineers' team for designing microchips. In 2006 Apple introduced Boot Camp to help users install Windows Vista or Windows XP on Intel Macs alongside Mac OS X. Steeve Jobs resigned from his CEO's position on August 24, 2011, and Cook became the new CEO. Steeve Jobs became the chairman of Apple's company. Steeve Jobs died, making the end of an era for Apple on October 5, 2011.

Apple silicon transition:

On June 22, 2020, during its annual WWDC keynote speech, Apple announced that it would transit the Mac away from intel processors to in-house developed processors. Industry analysts were expecting the announcement; it was noticed by them that Mac featuring processors of Apple would allow better performance than current Intel-based models.

Corporate Identity of Apple:

Ron Wayne designed Apple's first logo. It portrays Sir Isac Newton sitting under the apple tree but was immediately change by Rob Janoff's rainbow apple. Janoff recommended Jobs with different monochromatic themes for the "bitten" logo, and jobs selected it immediately. But jobs insisted on colorizing the logo to humanize the company. Apple's logo was presented with a bitten apple so as not to be confused with a cherry. The colored stripes were conceived on the logo to represent that Apple II could also create graphics in different colors. Apple dropped the rainbow color scheme officially on August 27, 1999, and started using monochromatic logos. Apple used Aqua themed monochrome logo from 1998 to 2003 and glass themed from 2007 to 2013.

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Apple's first slogan, "Byte into an Apple," was composed in the late 1970s. From 1997 to 2002, the saying "Think Different" was used in advertising operations and is still closely correlated with Apple. Apple also has mottoes for distinct product lines — for example, "iThink. Therefore iMac" was practiced in 1998 to develop the iMac, and "Say hello to iPhone" has been practiced in iPhone commercials.

Apple used "Hello" to introduce the original Macintosh, Newton, iMac ("hello (again)"), and iPod. Introducing Macintosh in 1984, with the 1984 Super Bowl advertisement to the latest Get a Mac advert, Apple was known for its efficient advertising and marketing. Apple's product advertisements earned a lot of consideration due to their eye-catching graphics and tunes. Apple has its own YouTube channel, where they release different promotions, tips, and introductions for their latest devices.

Headquarters:

Apple's world corporate headquarter is in Silicon Valley at 1-6 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California. In California, Apple's campus has six buildings spread on 850,000 square feet, and Sobrato Development Cos built it in 1993. Apple also has its satellite campus in California, where it houses its research and testing laboratory.

Stores:

In May 2001, CEO Steve Jobs opened Apple's first store. To get an improved relationship with consumers, Jobs began an effort in 1997 to revamp the retail program and hired Ron Johnson in 2000. In 1997, Steve Jobs relaunched Apple's online store and opened its first two physical stores in 2001. Initially, the media speculated that Apple would fail, but the stores became highly successful and in the next three years reached US$ 1 billion annual sales. With the rapid growth in sale became the fastest retailor in history. Apple has expanded its number of retail stores and its geographical coverage. As of December 2017, the numbers of its stores were 499 in 22 countries worldwide. Apple became the top-tier retail store due to strong product sales over 16$ billion globally in 2011.

Corporate culture:

A group of chief executives with different opinions has led and grown-up Apple as a company; it has lost some original characters. Nevertheless, it has maintained a reputation for excellence and fostering individuality that reliably attracts competent workers, especially after Jobs returned to the company. Many Apple employees have stated that projects without the involvement of Steve Jobs often took more time than projects. Apple created the Fellow program to recognize the best of its employees, which awards every individual who makes extraordinary leadership or technical contributions to personal computing while at the company. Apple is one of the successful companies, founded in the 1970s, that opposed the corporate culture's traditional approach. Jobs walked barefoot in the office even after Apple became a Fortune 500 company. The informalApple's informal culture had become a key trait by the "1984" television advertisement that differentiated it from its competitors.

Manufacturing:

The company's logistics, manufacturing, and procurement enable it to create extensive product launches without maintaining large, profit-sapping inventories. Apple's profit margins were 40 percent in 2011, compared with 10 and 20 percent for other hardware companies. Catchphrase by Cook to describe his focus on the company's operational arm is: "Nobody wants to buy sour milk." During Mac's early history, Apple company denied adopting prevailing industry standards for hardware instead of creating their own. In the late 90s, the company reversed the trend, beginning with Apple's adoption of the PCI bus in the Power Macs 7500/8500/9500. The company has joined the industry-standard groups to influence the future direction of technology standards such as HyperTransport, USB, AGP, NVMe, Wi-Fi, PCIe, and others in its products. FireWire is also an Apple-originated standard, widely adopted across the industry after it was standardized as IEEE 1394 and is a mandated port in all Cable TV boxes legally in the United States.

The company announced a $1 billion funding project for "advanced manufacturing" in May 2017 in the United States and afterward invested $200 million in Corning Inc. It was a toughened Gorilla Glass technology used in its iPhone devices. The following December, Jeff Williams, Apple's chief operating officer, told CNBC that the "$1 billion" amount was "absolutely not" the eventual limit on its spending, clarifying that "We're not thinking in terms of a fund limit. We're thinking about that where are the opportunities across the US to help nurture companies that are making the advanced technology — and the advanced manufacturing that goes with that — that quite frankly is essential to our innovation".

Environmental practices and initiatives

Apple Energy:

Apple Energy, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Inc., which sells solar energy. On June 6, 2016, Apple's solar farms in Nevada and California declared to provide 217.9 megawatts of solar generation capacity. In addition to its solar energy production, Apple has also received regulatory approval to construct a landfill gas energy plant in North Carolina. To generate electricity Apple will use methane emission. North Carolina data center of Apple is already powered entirely with energy from renewable sources.

Toxins:

Following more Greenpeace campaigns in 2008, Apple became the first electronics manufacturer to eliminate polyvinyl chloride and brominated flame retardants in its product line. Apple began replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCDs in its computers with mercury-free LED-backlit LCDs and arsenic-free glass, initiating the MacBook upgraded Pro in June 2007. Apple offers transparent and comprehensive information about the CO2e, emissions, materials, and electrical usage concerning every product they currently produce or have already sold in the past times, in their portfolio on their homepage. They were allowing consumers to make fully informed purchasing decisions about the products they offer for sale. Apple's iPhone 3GS was free of PVC, arsenic, BFRs, mercury-free LED-backlit LCDs, non-PVC cables, and arsenic-free glass. Their complete product range has EPEAT Gold status and beat the latest Energy Star guidelines in every product's respective regulatory category.

Green bonds:

Apple company issued a US$1.5 billion green bond, which was a climate bond, the first-ever of its kind by a United States' tech company, in February 2016. The green bond proceeds are dedicated to environmental projects' financing.