30 facts about Apple - to celebrate their 30th anniversary

On 1 April 2006 Apple celebrated the 30th anniversary of the company. It was 30 years ago that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak filed partnership papers, along with one Ron Wayne - who sold his 10% stake in the company for $800 only a couple of months later. To celebrate what by any account has been one of the great computing stories of our time, here are 30 facts about Apple derived from 1976 to 2006 (thanks mainly to the Wikipedia's excellent inter-linking system):

30. The "forgotten founder" Apple Ron Wayne illustrated the first Apple logo and wrote the Apple I manual. He also wrote their partnership agreement.

29. Apple wasn't started in a garage, it was started in a bedroom at 11161 Crist Drive in Los Altos.

28. Jobs and Woz previously worked together as summer employees at HP in Palo Alto.

27. All 3 founders worked at Atari before forming Apple.

26. In 1977, VC Mike Markkula spent USD$250,000 to buy one-third of Apple Computer. He was also CEO from 1981-83.

25. The first newsletter from March 15, 1975 of the famous Homebrew Computer Club (of which Jobs and Woz belonged) asked: "What will people do with a computer in their home?" Answers ranged from "private secretary functions: text editing, mass storage, memory, etc., to control of house utilities: heating, alarms, sprinkler system, auto tune-up, cooking, etc., to GAMES: all kinds."

24. The first Apple II computers went on sale on June 5, 1977 with a 1 MHz microprocessor and 4 KB of RAM (expandable to 48 KB).

23. Apple DOS 3.1, which was the first disk-based operating system for any Apple computer, was released in June 1978 for the Apple II.

22. Steven Weyhrich: "On the old Apple DOS 3.2 disks was a cool Integer BASIC program called "APPLE-VISION". In hi-res graphics, it drew a room with a TV, and after the picture was complete, the man on the screen danced to the song "Turkey In The Straw". It was amazing to see what that 4K Apple II was capable of doing!"

21. 1980's Apple III was the first completely new computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. It was a commercial failure though and the Apple II was the one that paved the way in the 80's.

20. 1983's Apple IIe was the longest-lived Apple computer of all time, having a run of nearly eleven years.

19. The Apple Lisa was first introduced in January 1983 (announced on January 19) at a cost of $9,995 US ($19,000 in 2005 dollars). It was the first commercial personal computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI), however it was a commercial failure.

18. Named after the McIntosh apple, the original Macintosh was released on January 24, 1984. It was the first commercially successful personal computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse instead of the then-standard command line interface.

17. The first 50,000 Apple IIGS computers in 1986 came with Steve Wozniak's "Woz" signature silkscreened on the front and were referred to as the "Woz Limited Edition."

16. Apple computers were cloned in the past and many of the clones had fruit names (e.g. "Pineapple") - geddit? :-)

15. Apple's Macintosh product line took over from the Apple II line in the early '90s.

14. Apple announced the iMac on May 7, 1998, and started shipping the iMac on August 15 of that year.  

13. The iPod was unveiled by CEO Steve Jobs on October 23, 2001 as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put “1,000 songs in your pocket.”

12. It wasn't until July 17 2002 that Apple began selling a Windows-compatible iPod.

11. iTunes was developed from SoundJam MP, a popular commercial MP3 application distributed by the Macintosh software company Casady & Greene.

10. The iTunes Music Store was introduced to the world on April 28, 2003 - selling songs for 99c and becoming a major reason for the iPod's success.

9. In October 2003, Apple released their first TV commercial of the silhouette campaign, which had already been featured for some time in print.

8. On January 6, 2004, Apple introduced the first iPod mini. It had 4 GB of storage and featured for the first time the "click wheel".

7. Apple announced iPod shuffle at Macworld Expo on January 11, 2005 with the taglines "Life is random" and "Give chance a chance". It had flash memory rather than a hard drive.

6. On September 7, 2005, Apple announced the successor to the iPod mini, the iPod nano.

5. iPod Car integration allows one to connect an iPod to a car - in 2006 it'll be available in a range of cars such as Lexus, Nissan, Mazda, Daihatsu, BMW, MINI, smart, and Alfa Romeo.

4. The iPod has sold 41 million overall and in the 2006 Q1 it sold 14 M - double the previous quarter!

3. On January 24 2006, Steve Jobs and Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion - which when confirmed will make Jobs The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with 7% stock.

2. At Apple's "Fun Products" Day on February 28, 2006, Steve Jobs announced the iPod Hi-Fi - an amplified loudspeaker system that docks with the iPod.

1. On 1 April 2006 Apple turned 30.

Those are just some of the highlights of 30 years of Apple. Feel free to add your personal highlights in the comments section.