History of and Development of Apple

History of and Development of Apple History of Apples success Apple was founded in 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniack and Ronald Wayne. These three young men at this time, decided to produce and sell a computer. As Apple was growing continuously, the company searched for some managers to help with the expansion. During the next couple of years, Apple hired new people for the most important positions, such as CEO. In 1984, the moment was finally there, Apple introduced there first computer to the world, the Macintosh. This computer was very special, because it was the first small computer with a graphical user interface. At the end of 1984, there was a big decrease in sales for Apple and deterioration in Jobs working relationship with the CEO of Apple. In May 1985, there followed a lot of struggles within company of Apple and Sculley relieved Steve Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh division. The founder of Apple was fired of his own company. Steve Jobs moved on and founded another computer company, called NeXT Computer. The NeXT Company was known of its technical strengths and their development system. All years Steve Jobs was working at NeXT with the philosophy of perfection, as showed by things like the NeXTcube interpersonal computer. In 1993, Jobs introduced a new development in software, with the release of NeXTSTEP Intel. During the period of NeXT computers, Jobs bought Pixar, a company focused on the high-end graphics. After a few years of struggling with sales, NeXT decided to contract with Disney. During their period with Disney, they started to produce numerous of computer-animated movies and Disney co-financed and distributed it. At the end of the 20th century, Apple decided to buy NeXT. This means that Steve Jobs returned to Apple. In the next couple of years, Steve Jobs changed a lot within the company, because there were too many employees working and introduced new projects. Steve Jobs was back in business for Apple. From this point, the success of Apple started with the introduction of Mac OS X and the iMac. (Guha, 2005) The last ten years Over the last ten years, Apple is doing something different than most IT companies in the world. Apple keeps it simple with its product line. If you are going to compare the products Apple offers and the products Microsoft or Sony are offering, you will notice that Apple only has 4 iPods, one cell phone, three notebooks and three desktop computers. If you take a look at Sony, you will see that they offer us a wide variety of the same kind of products. The same is happening with many other companies, such as HP, TomTom, Garmin and Dell. Within those last ten years, you can see that Apple is finding niche markets and try to fill the gabs in these markets. Since Steve Jobs returned to Apple, it has changed a lot. Steve reviewed all product lines and changed it into distinct segments. Every Apple product has a different destination, because an iMac is available for all-in-one solutions and the Mac Pro is for the professional buyer. These are just examples of two of Apples products, but it is exactly the same with the other products, such as the iPod or Notebooks. If you go into more detail about the simple product lines Apple uses, we will find that the company Garmin produces approximately 82 GPS systems that can be used in a car or carried in your hand. From all those 82 designs, there are no big differences between all models, but the price different is huge. Compare this with the Apple strategy; you can conclude that Apple will make only one or two different GPS systems, because Apple will use all their technology they have into one or two models, instead of 82. This strategy counts for a higher profit, because Apple does not waste a lot of money on all kind of different designs with slightly different specifications. If we have a look at the cell phone industry and we have a look at Samsung, we will discover that Samsung offers plenty of different models on their website. Apple produces only one cell phone and upgrades this phone every year with better technology, instead of making 20 different models. To conclude this, customers hate to choose between many different products with the same specifications. Imagine that you are at a random TV store and see all the different LCD or Plasma TVs. Many people will say they like to have many choices, but on the other hand they hate it. That is something Apple took into account and only produces one or two models of the same product of top-notch quality that are easily available. Furthermore, everybody knows Apple for more than five years now and Apple is known as the company with fantastic quality and easy accessibility. All the advertising and promotions Apple did in the last ten years worked, because the iPhone which you can buy at Best Buy, does not require a salesman to sell this phone. The brand sells itself. (Asay, 2010) Over the last five to ten years, Apple had an enormous growth explosion. As you can see in Figure 3, Apple had a slow growth up to 2005, but after that they started introducing new technology, which gave Apple its growth explosion. The findings of this explosion are shown in Figure 3. Product differences between Apple and other companies Apple is a company that started with computers; this is still their main market. If we have a look at the differences between Apple computers and other PCs, we can conclude that there are big differences. The biggest difference between the two is the way both parties think about processes and philosophies. According to many people, after using a Mac, they say: Macs think like I do and PCs dont. Although the operating systems of PC and Mac are kind of similar to each other, the Mac requires less clicking, less menus and it is working as smooth as people expect them to. If we move on to the other products Apple offers, the iPhones, we will notice a lot of differences compared to other mobile phones. If we are going to compare the iPhone with other mobile phones, you need to compare it with the Androids in first place, because these phones are Apples competition at the moment. The first thing we will notice is the operating systems within the phone, because Apple uses iOS Mac systems and Androids is mostly based on Google. If you are using the iPhone with all the features Apple gives you, you will never notice the differences, but Apple does not support Adobe Flash, which allows you to view Flash Videos and Flash Games. Androids have a better open system, because if you want to download an application and this application is not in Googles official Android Market, you can still download it and run it properly. If we have a look at the Apple applications, you can only use the applications giving to you via the AppStore. This brings us to our next poin t, because security is really important using these expensive phones. The problem with Android is that one in five applications have security holes, which makes the phone less safe and changes of viruses or any other inconvenient error. That is what makes the iPhone the safest phone around at the moment, because they have a closed system, which allows you only to download within the AppStore. Furthermore, we can compare the interfaces of both phones. Apple is doing a great job using a very easy but fantastic interface. If you like to use the iOS interface, life is great, because it works smooth and quick. On the other hand, if you prefer to use widgets and see what other interfaces look like, the Androids are the way to go. (Dotree, 2010)