User:Electron9/Apple series


 * Check USD prices
 * Links

1976 Apple I Steve Wozniak built it, Steve Jobs beleived in the idea to sell computers. So much he sold his Volkswagen bus to finance the production. The first versions cost 666,66 USD mostly because Jobs was obsessed with number series. Totaly 200 units were manufactured. Today there's between 40 - 50 of them left. In November 2010 an Apple I, with the serial number 82 was sold at Christies auction house for 20 000 USD.

1977 Apple II Triggered by the success, Apple II were released in 1977 and became a huge success. The first home computer that many people came in touch with. The price was fair, and the profits were used to develop what would become an even greater success - the Macintosh.

1980 Apple 3 The first Apple­ computer with builtin floppy drive and a graphics card. Built as an office computer, but didn't make any huge success. With a price between 5500 - 10 000 USD, and many technical problems, the manufacturing became a short run.

1983 Lisa Some say that the computer got it's name after Steve Jobs daughter, that was born in 1978. But Jobs was forced to leave the project with Apple Lisa and started instead work intensively with the Macintosh project. Lisa was more advanced and powerfull than the "mac", and become no large success. Despite Lisa being the first Apple computer with a mouse.

1984 Macintosh Trashcan, drag-and-release, double click and menus. For a Mac user, everything is as obvious as the steering wheel of a car. The Macintosh started it all - and the success was enormous. The commercial for the introduction was produced based on George Orwells 1984 by the ”Alien”-director Ridley Scott

1989 Macintosh portable Apples first try with a portable computer equal to the stationary. It became a super flop: the computer was heavy and with a price tag at 6500 USD. Mac portable was the first personal computer that sent an email from space in 1991, but the manufacturing ended already in October the same year.

1998 iMac Steve Jobs was back - Design was as important as the content. But the skeptics were many, the computer broke with the conventions by lacking a floppy disc drive and serial ports. Instead users were dependent on a CD-ROM reader and USB ports. Despite the criticism it became a huge sales hit, 150 000 units was sold already in the first month.

1991 Powerbook After the failure with the Portable the return came two years later with the Powerbook series: Compact shape and dark grey color, trackball and clever placement of the keyboard such that the hand palms could rest. It became the standard for all feature portable computer.

1993 Newton In the end of the 1980s, when Steve Jobs was forced away from the company, Apple invested 100 miljon USD in developing its first hand computer. The result became the Newton, an early predecessor to the iPhone, with a function that could interpretate hand writing. The function was far from accomplished, but gave origin to a new phenomena - Newton poetry: write poetry by hand, and let the computer interpretate what had been written, and swish - a completely new poetry!

2001 iPod "Large and rattly or small and worthless." When Apple took a peek at how portable music players looked, it were their impression. They decided to develop their own. The iPod was revolutionary at its presentation by Jobs in 2001 with the words "thousands of songs in the pocket". The name was set by the freelancing copywriter Vinnie Chieco and was taken from the movie "2001 - a space oddysey" and the phrase "Open the pod bay door, Hal!".

2007 iPhone The rumors of something huge had been buzzing for many years when the iPhone was presented in 9 january 2007. Jobs had already 2003 expressed his belief that mobile phones, not computers would be peoples most important source of information. And the success was instant - when the sales started a half year later, Apple sold 270 000 units the first 30 hours A whole industry was forced to follow - and a guy by the name Michael Kovatch became hugely rich. Already in 1995 he registred the domain "iphone.com" after have gotten a feeling that sometime, someone in the feature would connect the internet and phones together. He got 1 million USD from Apple for the trouble. 2010 iPad The talk about reading pads started already 10 years before the iPad, and many were manufactured by other companies. But as usually - first when Apple released their variant, the standard was set. In between smartphones and portable computers, and in a classic simple design. At the release in April 2010, 3 million units was sold the first 80 days. When the year was over, Apple has sold nearly 15 million iPads and taken 75% of the market.