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Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, CA on February 24, 1955. He was given up for adoption after he was born and they gave him the name Steven Paul Jobs. Jobs began to show interest in electronics when he entered middle school at Cupertino Junior High School in Los Altos, California.( Beahm, 2011) When he was in high school he met his future Apple cofounder Stephen Wozniak. They bonded on their common interests in electronics and pranks. After graduating high school he enrolled in Reed University in Oregon but after one semester he dropped out and continued to audit his classes. In early 1975, Jobs and Wozniak joined the Homebrew Computer Club; it was a club of people who knew technology. They would get together to talk about items that interest them, rumors, have discussions about things and to trade integrated circuits. After a couple of years in college Steve Jobs landed a job at a company called Atari. The founder of Atari Nolan Bushnell was his idol. He really wanted to start a company when working there because he wanted to be successful making a product and making lots of money off of it. (Wozniak)
Apple was founded April 1, 1976. This was when Wozniak and jobs introduced the first apple computer the Apple I, in which they built the computers in their garage. Once word got out about their computers they got an order of $50,000 from a local store. They were not able to buy the parts that they needed so they asked a local parts supplier if they could do thirty day credit on them. Even though they did not own anything to have credit they were able to get the parts. Not too long after that the Apple I computer was put in computer magazines. After the Apple I came out, they were already trying to improve the computer to make it better. They contributed multiple new features into the computer such as; adding color to the high resolution graphics, made it
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to where they could use fewer chips, it ran faster than the Apple I, added keyboard, video output, and offered built in BASIC. They were the first to put in a built in cassette port to put in a cassette recorder and programs on to the computer. Once they built the Apple II computer they thought it was time to make their business official so they moved into their first office building on Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino, California. Once they made the move they decided to go to an ad agency. When they spoke to the ad agency they wanted them to change the name of the company because they thought Apple was not a good name for a company. Jobs and Wozniak told them that was the name and they were not going to change it. (Wozniak)
The First West Coast Computer Faire debut the Apple II in 1977. The company had such a huge hit on this computer. It was their first mass produced personal computer. Sales for the Apple II were $139 million. (Beahm, 2011) Then in 1980 Apple came out with the Apple III, but as results of a design flaw they had to recall the first
Image 1 This is a picture of the original Apple II.
14,000 computers. With all of the news going around about Apple company being created, in 1982 Time Magazine did a story on Steve Jobs called “America’s Risk Takers: Steven Jobs of Apple Computer.” In 1984 the first Macintosh was released, it was an affordable alternative from the Lisa (Local Integrated Software Architecture)
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computer which was released one year prior in 83’. The Macintosh computer premiered in a commercial during Super Bowl XVIII, it was called “1984.” This was the world’s first GUI (graphical user interface) computer that was mass-marketed. Jobs was only 25 years old and was a millionaire. ( Beahm, 2011)
Once the Macintosh was released, Sculley (Apple’s president at the time) thought that Jobs was not doing anything good for Apple anymore. So the executives of the company started to phase him out. With him being ignored by everyone at Apple he left the company and
Image 2 Steve Jobs with the First Macintosh.
began a new company called NeXT in 1985. NeXT is a company that was aimed to be used for higher education and research. When he was at NeXT he decided to buy the Pixar Animation Studios. Jobs put in $50 million of his own money because he knew that the company had potential. (Beahm, 2011) Pixar managed to produce a lot of popular animation films. Once Pixar released its movies it had a net worth of $4 billion. Pixar and Walt Disney merge together in 2006.
In 1996, Apple bought out the NeXT Company for $429 million because it struggled to sell its systems. Apple ended up using the OS from the NeXT software to
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put into Apples new innovations. In 1998 Apple unveiled Jobs latest idea the IMac. Steve Jobs announced that he had become the new CEO of Apple. (Swartz & Welch, 2011) Jobs showed off the new Beta Mac OS X that he used when he created it when he owned the NeXT company. In 2001 the first two Apple stores opened in Glendale, California and Tysons Corner, Virginia. Later that year Jobs showed off the first iPod at a news conference. The IPOD would eventually change the music industry in a huge way. In 2008, Apple came out with Jobs latest idea. ITunes was an online website where people could purchase music digitally without having to buy the whole CD. ITunes became the second biggest music retailer in America. (Macworld Staff, 2011)
Steve Jobs was told in 2003 that he had a tumor that was cancerous but he was able to have surgery to get it removed. He tried to hold off on the surgery by trying different treatments. But after a year he went on to have the surgery on the pancreatic tumor which turned out to be successful. During 2009 Jobs took a leave of absence to have a liver transplant. Then in August of 2011, he resigned as CEO of Apple. Shortly after resigning he passed away from battling pancreatic cancer at the age of 56. (2015)
Everyone knew him as the person that helped create Apple. He was a wellrounded and intelligent man. He helped invent so many things throughout his years that created a whole new society. With just so many inventions to mention like the Apple I , Apple II, the OS X, the iMac, iPod, and many more. Apple would have not been a great company without him. He helped the company grow in the beginning and brought it back to life when it was not doing so well. For all of the projects that Jobs had done he
Digital Revolution: Steve Jobs generated $8.3 billion in revenue according to Forbes Magazine in 2008. (Swartz & Welch, 2011)
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Work Cited •
Jobs, S., & Beahm. G. W. (2011). I, Steve : Steve Jobs, in
his Own Words. Chicago, III: B2 Books. •
Steve Jobs. (2015). The Biography.com website. Retrieved
from http://www.biography.com/people/steve-jobs-9354805. •
Swartz, J and Welch, W. M. (2011, October 6). Steve Jobs,
Apple co-founder, dies. USA Today. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-09-22/steve-jobsdies/50672498/1. •
Stephen Wozniak. Homebrew and how the Apple came to
be. [Web log]. Retrieved from http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/homebrew_and_how_the_apple.php. •
Macworld Staff. (2011, October). Remembering Steve Jobs,
the man who saved Apple. Macworld. Retrieved from http://www.macworld.com/article/1162763/remembering_steve_jobs_the_ man_who_saved_apple.html. •
Image 1: [Untitled photograph of Apple II computer].
Retrieved from: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/stillimage/Apple/Apple_II/apple_II.102635905.lg.jpg.
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Image 2: [Untitled photograph of Steve Jobs]. Retrieved
from: http://images.macworld.com/images/opinion/graphics/13831625mac_jobs_original.jpg.