Monday 1 May 2023

THIS APPLE IN HAND KEEPS ME AWAKE !

It was in 1665 that Isaac Newton formulated his great gravitational theory after watching an apple fall straight down rather than sideways or even upward. The impact of his finding remain as one of the most popular scientific achievements to date.

Much later in 1976, two college dropouts  decided to use the same apple as the name and logo of their company. Their intention was to make small computers for people which are user friendly. The Apple Computer Company so formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak- there was a third cofounder also named Ronald Wayne who left the company after two weeks-   may value more than 2 trillion US dollars or more as of now! Hundreds of millions of people use Apple products everyday world wide- iBook, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple watch are some of them. As known today Apple Inc. sells through their Apple stores while miles of queues of people emerge in front of them in each town when new products are introduced! Now India has opened multiple Apple stores, produces iphones and expected that in another  five years more than half of apple products in the world will be produced from India- making a shift from China.

Here I am covering the story of the transformation of their first logo which showed Sir Isaac Newton and his apple to what is today- an apple with a byte oops a bite!!Read about Apple Computers which you don't know though you may be using their products for years...including the truth that Steve Jobs was fired by his own company once!

Coloured version of the first logo

The beginning....and why they chose an apple?

Founded on April 1 , 1976, Apple Computers started operations in the garage of Steve Jobs. Their first product Apple I was sold without a monitor the same year. Next year in 1977, they added the monitors. Within 4 years of existence they could make  sales of 117 million when they decided to go public in 1980.

Steve Jobs was a vegetarian , a fruitarian to be exact. He was an environmentalist also. He had spent some time in India as well, to experience Zen Buddhism. Jobs was working as a video game designer with a US firm named  Atari which was founded in 1972.When he named the firm as Apple, Jobs could have had the intention of listing in the phonebook ahead of Atari! This could be the logical reason why he and partners chose an apple to name their company. 

In 1974, Jobs had reconnected with his high school friend Stephen Wozniak who was with Hewlett Packard Co. They had a third partner named Ronald Wayne who designed their first logo with Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree with a ripened apple looming large about  to fall ! Strangely within 12 days of existence Ronald Wayne left the organization and later sold his 10% share of $800 to his partners!

Evolution of logos....



In 1977,one year after the first logo depicting the apple about to fall on the head of Sir Isaac Newton, with the caption 'Newton: A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought...alone' they decided to change drastically. This time they went for an apple in rainbow colours. The designer went to include a bite on the apple to differentiate from that of a cherry! The apple with a bite continue to remain as their logo albeit the fact that they have changed the colours and shades from time to time.

How Steve Jobs was fired from his own company?

Strange things can happen in corporate world as I know first hand! As the Apple Inc was getting established and professionally growing, the two co founders thought that they should have a CEO who is senior to them and mature enough to guide the company to greater heights. When Steve Jobs zeroed on John Sculley, the CEO of Pepsico, the later was not interested to join them. "Do you want to sell sugar water for rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?" Jobs is recorded to have asked Sculley. However Sculley joined Apple Inc in 1983.

Two years later, over two  new products launched -the Lisa and the Macintosh- as they failed to perform in sales returns, Jobs and Sculley had to quarrel. The issue was taken to the Board. In 1985 the Board decided to fire Steve Jobs, leaving the Apple company without the inputs of the iconic founder!



It took another 12 years as Apple company confronted more and more problems without a stalwart like Jobs, the Board decided to call back services of Steve Jobs in 1997! I am not going to  elaborate what Steve Jobs did here. The world would not have been the same but for his contribution!
                                ______________________



10 comments:

  1. The naming of the company Apple to be alphabetically ahead of Atari as well the evolution of the symbol from the original to the present bitten Apple is an interesting information to readers like me.
    Well written.

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  2. Very informative and interesting facts

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  3. Excellent narration. The truth remains that ‘no one can tie down brilliant minds’

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  4. Fascinating article uncle!Despite reading so many books and articles on Apple and its founders I never knew about their original logo. ROBIN THOMAS

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  5. As usual excellent. Congratulations.I would like you to read ‘the four “ by Scott Galloway in which he talks also about the hidden DNA of Apple .
    Thomas Abraham

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  6. Thomas Abraham

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  7. Read the story sir. Steve Jobs is one of my favorite innovators. Read and watched about him and Apple’s journey many times. You have touched upon few facts many readers wouldn’t have known

    An excellent piece of writing AJO

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  8. Well written👍🙏

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  9. MADHU KUMAR : Very informative!

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