70 Fun Facts About Apple

Apple Computer was founded on April 1 of which year?

1976, and Ronald Wayne bailed out within two weeks; the company was incorporated the following January.

Which co-founder sold his stake in the newborn company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800?

Ronald Wayne, who drew up the partnership papers and held a 10% stake, withdrew on April 12, 1976 for $800, worried that as the only partner with assets he was exposed to Apple's debts.

What was the sale price of the Apple I when it went on sale in July 1976?

The Apple I sold for $666.66, a price Wozniak chose because he liked repeating digits; it shipped as a bare assembled circuit board with no case, keyboard or power supply.

Which retailer's order for 50 computers, placed after a Homebrew Computer Club demo, allowed the Apple I to go into production?

The Byte Shop's Paul Terrell placed the order after seeing the prototype demonstrated, and insisted on fully assembled boards rather than kits.

Which company, Steve Wozniak's pre-Apple employer, turned down his computer design five times?

Hewlett-Packard, where Wozniak designed calculators, declined his computer design five times; he left HP to join Apple full time after Mike Markkula's 1977 investment.

Which pioneering 1979 spreadsheet made businesses buy the Apple II just to run it?

VisiCalc, written by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, was the first spreadsheet for personal computers and the Apple II's killer app; Lotus 1-2-3 did the same for the IBM PC in 1983.

Apple's first logo, drawn by its short-lived third co-founder, showed which scientist under a tree?

Apple's 1976 logo showed Isaac Newton reading beneath an apple tree, framed by a ribbon quoting Wordsworth; the rainbow bitten-apple mark replaced it within a year.

Who designed the rainbow-striped bitten apple logo that Apple used until 1999?

Rob Janoff, an art director at the Regis McKenna agency, drew the rainbow apple in 1977; he says the bite was for scale so the fruit would not be mistaken for a cherry.

At which company's Palo Alto lab did Jobs see the graphical interface that shaped the Lisa and Mac in 1979?

Xerox PARC showed Jobs the Alto's mouse-driven graphical interface in December 1979, after Xerox was allowed to buy 100,000 pre-IPO Apple shares for $1 million.

Apple went public on the Nasdaq on December 12, 1980 at what price per share?

Apple sold 4.6 million shares at $22 each on December 12, 1980, raising about $101 million, the largest IPO since Ford in 1956 and minting some 300 millionaires.

Jobs later admitted the Apple Lisa was really named after whom?

Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson the Lisa was named for his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs, whatever Apple's 'Local Integrated Software Architecture' backronym claimed; the $9,995 machine sold poorly.

The Macintosh was named after the favourite apple variety of which Apple employee?

Jef Raskin, who started the Macintosh project in 1979, named it after his favourite apple, the McIntosh, altering the spelling partly to avoid the McIntosh Laboratory audio brand.

Who directed Apple's "1984" commercial that introduced the Macintosh during the Super Bowl?

Ridley Scott, whose Blade Runner had opened about eighteen months earlier, shot the '1984' spot at Shepperton Studios in England for a reported $370,000.

In the "1984" ad, the running heroine hurls what at the giant screen showing Big Brother?

English athlete Anya Major hurled the sledgehammer into the Big Brother screen; the ad's single national airing came in the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984.

The original Macintosh went on sale on January 24, 1984 at what price?

The Macintosh launched at $2,495, $500 above the planned $1,995 to fund marketing; 70,000 sold by early May 1984, but sales slumped that autumn and weakened Jobs inside Apple.

Which company was John Sculley running when Jobs asked if he wanted to keep selling 'sugared water'?

John Sculley was president of Pepsi-Cola when Jobs recruited him in 1983; two years later Sculley won their power struggle and Jobs left, taking five senior employees to start a new company.

After leaving Apple in 1985, Jobs founded which computer company that Apple later bought?

Apple bought NeXT for about $429 million in a deal announced in December 1996, gaining NeXTSTEP, the foundation of Mac OS X, and WebObjects, which ran its online store.

Jobs paid $10 million in 1986 for which company's computer graphics division, later Pixar?

Jobs bought the Lucasfilm Computer Division's graphics group from George Lucas in 1986, paying $5 million for the technology and investing another $5 million; renamed Pixar, it released Toy Story in 1995.

Which CEO was ousted by Apple's board in July 1997, clearing the way for Jobs to become interim CEO?

Gil Amelio was pushed out on July 9, 1997 after about seventeen months as CEO; Jobs announced Microsoft's $150 million investment at Macworld Boston that August and became interim CEO in September.

Which actor narrated the television version of Apple's "Think different" commercial?

Richard Dreyfuss narrated the 'Here's to the crazy ones' script; Jobs recorded his own version but chose Dreyfuss's, and the spot won the 1998 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.

The first iMac shipped in 1998 in a translucent shade named after a beach in which city?

The blue-green tint was named for the water off Bondi Beach; the machine also dropped the floppy drive in favour of USB and CD-ROM.

What name did Jobs prefer for the iMac before the ad agency talked him out of it?

Jobs favoured MacMan, a name Ken Segall of the agency Chiat/Day thought evoked Walkman and Pac-Man; Segall pitched iMac twice before Jobs accepted it.

Apple pitched the original 5 GB iPod in 2001 with the promise of how many songs 'in your pocket'?

1,000 songs in your pocket was the line; the player was developed in under a year and hailed as Apple's 21st-century Walkman.

Copywriter Vinnie Chieco proposed the name iPod after a prototype reminded him of which film?

Freelance copywriter Vinnie Chieco thought the white prototype resembled an EVA pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the line 'Open the pod bay doors, HAL' gave him the name.

iTunes began life as which Mac MP3 player, which Apple bought in 2000 and renamed?

Apple bought SoundJam MP from Casady & Greene in 2000; its developers Jeff Robbin and Bill Kincaid joined Apple, simplified the interface, added CD burning and dropped the skins, shipping iTunes in January 2001.

How many tracks did the iTunes Music Store offer when it opened on April 28, 2003?

The iTunes Music Store opened with 200,000 songs at 99 cents each from the five major labels and sold a million tracks in its first week; a Windows version followed in October 2003.

Where did Steve Jobs unveil the first iPhone on January 9, 2007?

Jobs introduced the iPhone at the Macworld Expo keynote in San Francisco's Moscone Center on January 9, 2007, the same speech in which Apple Computer, Inc. dropped 'Computer' from its name.

Which company already owned the iPhone trademark when Apple announced its phone in 2007?

Cisco had held the iPhone trademark since buying Infogear in 2000, and its Linksys unit put the name on VoIP phones in December 2006; a February 2007 settlement let both companies use it.

What was the internal codename of the effort that produced the first iPhone?

Project Purple began in 2005, with the phone's carrier work done in secret alongside Cingular Wireless, which was rebranded AT&T before the iPhone's June 2007 launch.

How many applications were available when the App Store opened on July 10, 2008?

The App Store launched with about 500 apps, a quarter of them free, and passed 10 million downloads in its first weekend; Apple's 30 percent cut fell to 15 percent for small developers in 2020.

Siri began as a spin-off from a project at which research institute?

Siri was spun out of SRI International's CALO artificial-intelligence project in 2007 and bought by Apple in April 2010; its original American voice was recorded by Susan Bennett in 2005, years before she knew what it was for.

In which state was Tim Cook born?

Tim Cook was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1960 and grew up in nearby Robertsdale; in 2014 he became the first Fortune 500 chief executive to come out publicly as gay.

Which headphone and music-streaming company did Apple buy for $3 billion in 2014?

Beats had been founded in 2006 by Dr. Dre and Interscope's Jimmy Iovine, and its streaming service became the seed of Apple Music.

The Apple Watch was released to the public on April 24 of which year?

The Apple Watch reached buyers on April 24, 2015, two weeks after pre-orders opened on April 10; the solid-gold Edition models cost $10,000 to $17,000.

The first AirPods carried which proprietary Apple chip to manage pairing and battery life?

The W1 chip handled pairing and power management in the first AirPods, announced on September 7, 2016 alongside the jack-less iPhone 7; the H1 replaced it in 2019.

The M1, Apple's first system on a chip designed for the Mac, is manufactured by which company?

TSMC fabricates the M1 on its 5 nm process; the first M1 Macs, unveiled on November 10, 2020, began the end of Apple's fifteen-year run of Intel processors.

Which architect designed Apple Park, the circular Cupertino campus nicknamed "the spaceship"?

Norman Foster's firm Foster + Partners designed Apple Park with Jobs, who presented the plan to Cupertino's council in 2011; employees moved in from April 2017 and its auditorium became the Steve Jobs Theater.

In August 2018 Apple became the first publicly traded US company to reach what market value?

Apple crossed $1 trillion on August 2, 2018, when its shares passed $207; it doubled that to $2 trillion in August 2020 as the price briefly topped $467.

Jony Ive left Apple in 2019 after 27 years to start which independent design firm with Marc Newson?

LoveFrom has since worked with Ferrari, Airbnb and OpenAI; Ive had joined Apple in September 1992 and was knighted in 2012.

Jobs' habit of ending keynotes with "But there's one more thing" was likened to which TV detective?

Jobs would feign a wrap-up, turn to leave and turn back, mimicking Columbo, Peter Falk's raincoated lieutenant who always had 'just one more thing' for his suspect.

Apple's Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan is entered through a 32-foot glass structure of what shape?

A glass cube 32 feet on a side stands in the plaza above the store, which opened in May 2006; the cube was rebuilt in 2011 with 15 panels in place of the original 90.

Apple Vision Pro launched in the US on February 2, 2024 at what starting price?

The Vision Pro started at $3,499 for the 256 GB model; Apple markets it as a 'spatial computer' running visionOS rather than a headset.

Apple's Newton MessagePad, launched in 1993, is credited with coining which product category?

John Sculley coined 'personal digital assistant' in 1992, a year before the MessagePad shipped; its shaky handwriting recognition was mocked in Doonesbury, which had it misread 'Catching on?' as 'Egg Freckles'.

Johnny Appleseed's seedling orchards bore fruit that was mainly used for what?

Hard cider was the main use: John Chapman refused to graft, so his seedling trees bore small, sour apples fit for pressing rather than eating, and cider was a frontier staple.

John McIntosh found the McIntosh apple in 1811 in what is now which Canadian province?

Ontario: John McIntosh found the seedling in 1811 while clearing land at Dundela, Upper Canada, and his family propagated the variety by grafting from the 1830s.

The Red Delicious was originally called "Hawkeye" by the farmer who found it in which state?

Jesse Hiatt found the chance seedling on his farm in Peru, Iowa, and called it Hawkeye; Stark Nurseries bought the rights in the 1890s and renamed it Delicious.

Apple seeds contain small amounts of which compound, which can release cyanide when digested?

Amygdalin, a cyanogenic glycoside, breaks down into hydrogen cyanide when seeds are chewed and digested, but a few swallowed apple seeds carry far too little to harm an adult.

Which US state is the country's largest producer of apples?

Washington grows well over half of America's apples, most of them in the irrigated Yakima and Wenatchee valleys east of the Cascades, where dry summers and cold winters suit the crop.

The apple's wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is native to the mountains of which region?

Malus sieversii is native to the Tian Shan of Central Asia, ranging across southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and northwest China; genome studies show it is the main ancestor of the domesticated apple.

Which writer's 1727 essay spread the story of the falling apple that inspired the theory of gravitation?

Voltaire, who had the story from Newton's niece Catherine Barton, retold it in his 1727 Essay on Epic Poetry; William Stukeley recorded Newton telling the tale himself in 1726.

Which country grew about half of the world's apples in 2024?

China grew roughly half of the world's apples in 2024, around 50 million tonnes of a crop near 98 million; no other country grew even 6 million tonnes.

Roughly how many apple cultivars exist worldwide?

More than 7,500 apple cultivars are known worldwide; grown from seed, apples rarely resemble their parents, so every commercial variety is a clone grafted onto rootstock.

Bobbing for apples works because apples do what in water?

Apples float because about a quarter of their volume is air, leaving them less dense than water; in Scotland the game is called 'dooking'.

Bramley's Seedling, Britain's classic cooking apple, grew from pips planted in 1809 in which county?

Nottinghamshire: Mary Ann Brailsford planted the pips in a garden at Southwell in 1809, and the tree took its name from Matthew Bramley, who owned the cottage when cuttings were first sold.

Which variety was crossed with Enterprise to create Washington State University's WA 38 apple?

Honeycrisp × Enterprise produced WA 38, sold since 2019 as Cosmic Crisp; it keeps in cold storage for up to a year and browns slowly when cut.

The Fuji apple crosses Red Delicious with which other American variety?

Ralls Janet, an old Virginia apple, was crossed with Red Delicious at Japan's Tohoku Research Station in 1939 to produce Fuji, which was released in 1962.

Which apple variety, first found on a West Virginia farm, became that state's official fruit in 1995?

Golden Delicious began as one tree whose owner sold it and the propagation rights to Stark Brothers Nurseries for $5,000; Clay County has held a festival for it since 1972.

Alma-Ata, the former name of Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, translates roughly to what?

Father of the apples fits: the wild apple Malus sieversii, ancestor of every supermarket apple, is thought to have first emerged in the region around the city.

The proverb 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away' has been traced to the 19th century in which country?

Wales: the saying was first recorded in 1866 from Pembrokeshire as 'Eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread'; the snappier modern wording appeared by the early 1900s.

In Norse mythology, which goddess kept the apples that gave the gods eternal youth?

Iðunn, wife of the poet-god Bragi, kept the apples of youth and was abducted by the giant Þjazi with Loki's help; a bucket of apples was found in Norway's Oseberg ship burial.

Which racing writer popularised 'The Big Apple' as a New York City nickname in the 1920s?

John J. Fitz Gerald, turf writer for the New York Morning Telegraph, heard 'the big apple' from New Orleans stable hands and used it in his 1920s column; a 1970s tourism campaign revived it.

Apple pie recipes were first recorded in the 14th century in which country?

England: the earliest known apple pie recipe appears in The Forme of Cury, compiled by Richard II's cooks around 1390, with figs, raisins, pears and saffron baked in a pastry 'coffin'.

Legendary Swiss hero William Tell is famous for shooting an apple off whose head?

Tell was forced by the bailiff Gessler to shoot the apple from his son Walter's head; the tale is set around 1307 but first appears in writing in the 1470s.

The Gala apple was bred in the 1930s by orchardist J.H. Kidd in which country?

New Zealand: J.H. Kidd crossed Kidd's Orange Red with Golden Delicious in the 1930s, and Gala went on to overtake Red Delicious as America's most-grown apple in 2018.

Orchard wassailing, singing to trees and pouring cider on roots, is done around which date?

Orchard wassailing falls on Twelfth Night, January 5 or 6, or on 'Old Twelvey Night', January 17, in parts of the West Country; the word comes from the Old English toast 'wes hál', be well.

Which Greek philosopher, Aristotle's successor, recorded that apple trees raised from seed degenerate?

Theophrastus, who succeeded Aristotle at the Lyceum, noted in his Enquiry into Plants around 300 BC that apples grown from seed do not come true, so orchardists propagated them by grafting.

A common northern European apple allergy strikes people who are also allergic to which tree's pollen?

A protein in apples resembles one in birch pollen; reactions usually mean an itchy mouth and throat rather than anything severe.

Which Roman writer described storing apples on straw in a room with a north-facing window?

Pliny the Elder's Natural History, completed in 77 AD, advises keeping apples in a cool room with north-facing windows, laid on straw with windfalls kept apart from the sound fruit.

The idea that Eden's forbidden fruit was an apple may stem from a pun on which language's word for 'evil'?

Latin: mālum with a long a means apple and malum with a short a means evil, and the two are written identically, a pun available to readers of the Latin Vulgate.

Which model, released the month Steve Jobs died in October 2011, introduced Siri?

The iPhone 4S, announced on October 4, 2011, the day before Jobs died, shipped with Siri in beta; Tim Cook had become CEO six weeks earlier.