70 Fun Facts About Apple

Apple Computer was founded on April 1 of which year?

The partnership was signed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and a third partner who bailed out within two weeks; it was incorporated the following January.

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

He filed his withdrawal twelve days after drafting the partnership papers, worried that as the only partner with real 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 machine was sold as a bare circuit board; a local retailer's order for 50 fully assembled units is what got production started.

Which retailer's order for 50 computers allowed the Apple I to go into production?

Paul Terrell placed the order after seeing the prototype demonstrated at the Homebrew Computer Club, and insisted on fully assembled boards rather than kits.

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

He resigned from that job in 1977 to work at Apple full time, the same year the Apple II shipped.

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

It was the first spreadsheet application of any kind, and it turned a hobbyist machine into an office tool.

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

The elaborate hand-drawn frame with a ribbon banner lasted barely a year before the bitten-apple mark replaced it.

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

He worked for Apple's marketing consultant Regis McKenna, and both he and Apple deny the persistent claim that the bite honours Alan Turing.

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

The price of admission was letting the visitor buy $1 million of Apple stock before the IPO, a trade that looks lopsided in hindsight.

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

The offering raised over $100 million, more than any IPO since Ford in 1956, and made instant millionaires of dozens of employees.

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

The $9,995 machine sold only about 10,000 units, but its mouse-driven interface set up the Macintosh a year later.

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

The McIntosh cultivar's spelling was tweaked, and "Macintosh" stayed the computer's official name until 1999.

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

He had released Blade Runner about eighteen months earlier, and the spot was shot in England for a reported $370,000.

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

She was played by English athlete Anya Major, and the ad's one national US airing was during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII.

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

Sales hit 70,000 units by early May, but the machine's failure to dent the IBM PC by 1985 weakened Jobs' position inside the company.

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

Two years later Sculley won the power struggle and Jobs left, taking five senior employees with him to start a new computer company.

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

The purchase, in late 1996, also gave Apple the operating system foundations that became Mac OS X and the WebObjects server behind its online store.

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

Half the money went to the seller for technology rights and half became working capital; the studio's Toy Story arrived nine years later.

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

Jobs then found a loophole to kill the Mac OS licensing program and announced a $150 million investment from Microsoft at that summer's Macworld Expo.

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

Hanks was considered, but the eventual narrator was an Apple fan and took the job; the spot won the 1998 Emmy for Best 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?

Creative director Ken Segall pitched "iMac" twice; the internal name had come from marketing executive Phil Schiller.

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

The 5 GB player was developed in under a year, and Fortune called it "Apple's 21st-Century Walkman".

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

The white prototype recalled the line "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" and the spaceship's small EVA pods.

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

The developers moved to Apple, simplified the interface, added CD burning and stripped out its skins.

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

A Windows version of iTunes followed that October, turning the store into the default music shop for the iPod.

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

The same keynote announced that Apple Computer, Inc. was dropping "Computer" from its name.

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

Its Linksys subsidiary had rebranded a line of VoIP phones under the name in 2006; the settlement let both companies keep using it.

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

The work began in 2005 in secret collaboration with Cingular Wireless, which is now part of AT&T.

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

Apple's standard 30 percent cut of sales has since drawn antitrust scrutiny, and in 2020 it dropped to 15 percent for small developers.

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

It shipped as a beta on the iPhone 4S in October 2011, and 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?

He was born in Mobile in 1960, and in 2014 became the first Fortune 500 chief executive to publicly come out as gay.

Which headphone and streaming company did Apple buy for $3 billion in 2014, its largest acquisition?

The company 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 solid-gold Edition models cost $10,000 to $17,000, and it quickly became the world's best-selling wearable.

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

They were announced on September 7, 2016 alongside the iPhone 7, the phone that dropped the headphone jack.

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

The first M1 Macs were unveiled on November 10, 2020, on a 5 nm process, ending fifteen years of Intel processors in the Mac.

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

Employees started moving in during April 2017, and the on-site auditorium was named the Steve Jobs Theater.

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

It doubled that milestone just two years later, in August 2020, when the share price briefly topped $467.

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

The British designer had joined Apple in September 1992 and was knighted in 2012; his firm has since worked with Ferrari, Airbnb and OpenAI.

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

He would feign a wrap-up, turn to leave the stage and turn back, mimicking Peter Falk's raincoated lieutenant.

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

The store beneath opened in May 2006 as Apple's 147th and is the only one that never closes.

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

Apple avoids calling it a headset, marketing it as a "spatial computer" running visionOS.

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

CEO John Sculley coined the phrase; the device's shaky handwriting recognition was mocked in Doonesbury, where it misread "Catching on?" as "Egg Freckles".

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

He refused to graft, so his trees bore small sour fruit; Ohioans of the era drank about thirty gallons of the stuff a year.

The Granny Smith apple originated in 1868 in Eastwood, now a suburb of which city?

Maria Ann Smith found the chance seedling and sold the apples at the George Street market, where they stored exceptionally well.

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

Jesse Hiatt entered it in an 1892 Stark Nurseries contest to replace the Ben Davis apple; Stark bought the rights and renamed it.

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

The US Hazardous Substances Data Bank records no cases of poisoning from eating apple seeds; the dose is far too small.

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

The Yakima River Valley in the eastern half of the state is orchard country; it also leads the nation in hops, pears and sweet cherries.

The apple's wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, still grows in the mountains of which region?

It ranges across southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and northwest China; today China alone grows about half the world's crop.

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

The physicist's own acquaintances say he told the tale himself, though never the version where the fruit hits him on the head.

Which country grew about 52% of the world's apples in 2024?

World production was 98 million tonnes, with the US, Turkey and Poland the next largest growers.

Roughly how many apple cultivars exist worldwide?

Grown from seed, apples rarely resemble their parents, which is why every commercial variety is a clone grafted onto rootstock.

Bobbing for apples works because apples do what in water?

In Scotland the game is called 'dooking', and in Ireland 'Snap Apple Night' is another name for Halloween.

Which US state's university bred the popular MN1711 apple, released in 1991?

Designated MN1711 in 1974, it was once slated to be thrown out and went on to earn more than $10 million in patent royalties.

The Cosmic Crisp apple, released in 2019, is a cross between Enterprise and which other apple?

Bred at Washington State University as WA 38, it can sit in cold storage for more than ten months and barely browns when cut.

The Fuji apple was developed in 1939 in which country?

Despite its name it is a cross of two American varieties, Red Delicious and Ralls Janet.

Which apple, first found on a West Virginia farm, is that state's official fruit?

The farmer sold the tree and propagation rights to Stark Brothers Nurseries for $5,000, and Clay County has held a festival for it since 1972.

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

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?

The original ran 'Eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread'; today's wording was first recorded in 1922.

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

Buckets of apples were even found in Norway's Oseberg ship burial, hinting at how old the association is.

Which nickname for New York City was popularised in the 1920s by a horse-racing writer?

John J. Fitz Gerald picked it up from stable hands, and a 1970s tourism campaign made it stick.

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

Serving a slice with sharp cheddar on top also began in 17th-century England before spreading to New England dairy country.

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

The story is set around 1307, but the first written records of it only appear in the late 15th century.

Which apple variety originated as a chance seedling in Iowa in 1872 and was first named 'Hawkeye'?

Stark Nurseries bought the rights, and 'Delicious' only became 'Red Delicious' in 1914 to distinguish it from the unrelated Golden Delicious.

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

The word wassail comes from a toast, and by 1300 it meant the spiced drink itself.

Alexander the Great sent samples of dwarf apple trees to which institution in Athens?

Dwarf rootstocks go back to about 300 BC in Persia and Asia Minor and were common by the 15th century.

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?

His 1st-century advice on air circulation and keeping windfalls apart still extends storage life; grafting was already known in antiquity.

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

Malum with a long a means apple, malum with a short a means evil, and both are normally written the same way.

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

Siri had begun as a spin-off from SRI International, and Tim Cook had taken over as CEO just weeks earlier.