Today, I was thinking about Apple, you know, that huge company that makes all those iPhones and MacBooks we use. And I got curious – when did this whole thing even start?

So, first, I fired up my browser and punched in “when was Mac founded”. I got a bunch of results, but I went straight for the Wikipedia link because, well, it’s usually got the goods.
Turns out, Apple wasn’t always the giant we know today. It was started way back on April 1, 1976, by three guys: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. I guess they were the original tech bros!
They started selling this thing called the Apple I, which was basically a desktop computer that Wozniak had cooked up. Then, on January 3, 1977, they officially made it a company, calling it Apple Computer Co., in Cupertino, California. Sounds fancy, right?
- April 1, 1976: Apple Computer Co. created by Jobs, Wozniak, and Wayne.
- January 3, 1977: The company was incorporated.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. The Wikipedia page talked about this guy, John Sculley, who was running the show in the mid-80s. Apparently, Apple gave out its first stock dividend on May 11, 1987. Must have been a big deal back then.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. The page mentioned something about the “Mac” not selling well initially, and Jobs actually left the company in 1985. Can you believe it? The guy who started it all, gone!

Then I found this other article, it’s from Brittanica. It mentioned something about an operating system called macOS, the one that runs on Macs. It said that this OS was introduced in 1984. It all started to make sense! The first Macintosh, launched on January 24, 1984, was a big deal because it had some features that were a big hit with people.
Key Dates for Apple
- 1976: Apple is founded.
- 1984: The first Mac computer is introduced.
- 1985: Steve Jobs leaves Apple.
- 1987: Apple issues its first stock dividend.
Reading through the Wikipedia page further, I saw that Apple went through a bunch of ups and downs. Different CEOs, new products like the iPod in 2001, and even changing its name to just “Apple Inc.” in 2007. There is a whole timeline there, It was a pretty wild ride!
So, yeah, that’s the story of how Apple started. From a little computer made by a couple of Steves to the tech behemoth it is today. Crazy how things change, right?