Apple turns 30 April 1, no small feat in an industry where today’s leader is tomorrow’s answer to a trivia question. Apple has come a long way since its 1976 founding, evolving from a pair of electronics-minded buddies trying to sell printed circuit boards at their local amateur computer club to a 14,800-employee company with more than $14 billion in sales and an internationally recognized product line.

On the eve of Apple’s 30th anniversary, everyone from former employees to industry watchers agrees that the company has had a profound impact on technology, innovating and influencing not only how we use computers but the what we use them for


Apple was established on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne to sell the Apple I personal computer kit. The kits were hand-built by Wozniak and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard (with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips)—less than what is today considered a complete personal computer. The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66 ($2,723 in 2012 dollars, adjusted for inflation.)

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