Just recently, Apple unveiled its newest iPhones – the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, and on the other hand Aaron Sorkin’s and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, which received a thumbs up in special screenings, is set to release on October 9. So, we thought it’s the correct time to take a quick look at the company’s history, with, of course, special focus on Jobs.

The beginning

It all started back in 1976, when college drop-outs Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, along with their friend Ronald Wayne established a company named Apple Computer. The association between Jobs and Wozniak, in particular, dates back to 1971, when they first met at Hewlett-Packard – where Wozniak worked – through a mutual friend.

Both of them started a business in 1972 that saw them selling a device called “blue box” which allowed users to illegally make free long-distance calls on AT&T’s network, and that too without getting traced.

“It was the magic that two teenagers could build this box for $100 worth of parts and control 100’s of billions of dollars of infrastructure in the entire telephone network in the whole world,” Jobs said later in a 1995 interview. “Experiences like that taught us the power of ideas. If we wouldn’t have made blue boxes, there would have been no Apple.”

Unsurprisingly, the device became popular, especially among criminals, with Jobs and Woz selling units for a total of $6,000. However, they gave up the venture after police started tightening the noose around them.

In 1974, Woz invited Jobs – who had just come back from a spiritual trip to India – to join the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto. While initially Woz helped Jobs – who was working with Atari at time – with his office project, soon they started working on a PC. What would eventually become Apple I (shown below) was ready by 1976.

The device, which was first introduced at the Homebrew Computer Club, was essentially a DIY kit that didn’t even have a case. It was designed and hand-built by Woz, and needed a keyboard and a monitor to work as a full fledged computer.

The initial struggle

After HP and Atari showed little interest in their product, which was priced at $666.66, citing no market demand, Jobs and Woz, along with Ronald Wayne decided to set-up their own company in the Jobs’ family garage. Apple Computer soon got their first order of 50 units (for $500 each) from the Byte Shop, the only computer store chain around at the time. Despite facing financial crunch, they somehow managed to deliver that order.

Nearly a couple of weeks later, Wayne – who held 10% of the company stock – decided to end his association with the firm as he wasn’t fine with Jobs’ idea of securing huge loans to build the Apple-1 in large quantities. He was given less than $1,000 for the stake that would have been worth around $72bn today.

With Apple-1 turning out to be a successful product, Woz started working on Apple-II in the year 1976 itself. The idea was to create a pre-assembled personal computer for the general public. However, they still did not have enough money to produce it in large quantities.

The beginning of good times

Towards the end of the year 1976, ex-Intel manager named Mike Markkula invested $92,000 in the company. Subsequently, Apple Computer also secured a bank loan of $250,000, and managed to get $600,000 in venture funding – suddenly things were on the track. The company also got its logo designed in 1977.

The Apple-II computer went on sale in June 1977. Carrying a price tag of $1,295, the machine came with a plastic case, standard keyboard, tape-based storage, power supply, and color graphics.

Although it was an excellent product, its high price affected its initial sales. The situation, however, suddenly changed in 1979, when the VisiCalc app was unveiled. It was described as a “magic sheet of paper that can perform calculations and recalculations”.

The app was first released exclusively for the Apple II, giving the much required boost to the computer’s sales – people bought the machine just to run VisiCalc . The Apple-II series proved to be a roaring success for the company, which sold nearly 6 million units in the next 15 years.

In the year 1980, the company followed up Apple II with the release of Apple III, a business-oriented PC. However, the product failed, and was discontinued…

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A lot of movement on the top ten chart for yet another week. Last time around, the new Sony Xperia Z5 family muscled in and occupied the top and bottom of the top ten chart shortly after its IFA release. This week it the new iPhone 6s took the mobile world by storm and generated an impressive amount of hits.

It currently sits at first place with a considerable lead over the runner up, which is the Samsung Galaxy Note5. So the initial Xperia Z5 craze has died down a little with only the Z5 Premium left on the chart at third place and enter the iPhone.

It is also interesting to note that the 6s Plus didn’t manage to make it to the top ten for the week. Perhaps this will change given some more time, but currently, the rest of the list seems to be more or less in its typical arrangement.

The Galaxy J7 and J5 are now up a space and at fourth and fifth place. The Moto G (3rd gen) has fallen down a few places, but still standing strong at sixth. Then, we’re on familiar ground yet again with the Galaxy Grand Prime and the Galaxy A8.

We top things off with the iPhone 6 which made the cut this week, most-likely due to people comparing it to the iPhone 6s to see what changed. Which leaves the Galaxy S6 down a place at the bottom of the chart.

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Apple iPhone 6s
RANK: 1NEW IN

specs gallery

Samsung Galaxy Note5
RANK: 2WAS: 3

specs review

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
RANK: 3WAS: 1

specs review

Samsung Galaxy J7
RANK: 4WAS: 5

specs gallery

Samsung Galaxy J5
RANK: 5WAS: 6

specs gallery

Motorola Moto G (3rd gen)
RANK: 6WAS: 4

specs review

Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
RANK: 7WAS: 7

specs review

Samsung Galaxy A8
RANK: 8WAS: 8

specs…

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This week saw the announcement of the 9th generation iPhone, so it’s a good time to look back through its family tree. Welcome back for another weekend trip down memory lane.

Apple iPhone

It was the phone that changed the industry – not the first smartphone, not even the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen, but its influence in phone design is still felt today. Part of the credit goes to Steve Jobs’ dislike for styluses – the standard tool for touchscreens at the time – so he guided his team to design a user interface built from the ground up to be used with fingers.

At the time, touch phones tried to mimic mouse-driven desktop UIs, perhaps because that’s what users were familiar with. But Apple did what Apple does best – create an accessible experience and get users to do things The Right Way™.

However, “smartphone” wasn’t quite part of Steve’s original vision – no native apps were allowed, only “web apps.” And the Safari browser meant to run them supported neither Flash nor Java, which were still the predominant way to create apps for the web.

The original iPhone had plenty of other limitations. Its camera was very basic (no autofocus, no videos), there was no 3G for faster access to those web apps, Bluetooth file sharing was nowhere to be found, heck, you couldn’t even set a ringtone.

So how could such a limited phone shake the industry to its core? Well, Apple had one thing right – specs wars don’t matter if you can offer the best experience.

Apple iPhone 3G

The Apple iPhone 3G fixed many of the initial limitations. After unofficial ways to install apps became popular, Apple introduced the official App Store with iPhone OS 2.0. The new phone would also add 3G connectivity for faster internet access and added GPS for Google Maps.

Official photos of Apple iPhone 3G

Apple left some things unchanged though – the iPhone 3G used the same 2MP camera as the original, so no autofocus and no video. No video calls over 3G either, a feature other smartphones flaunted.

The phone also dropped the aluminum casing of the original and went with glossy plastic, making it the ugly ducking in an otherwise very nice looking family.

Apple iPhone 3GS

The birth of the S iPhones – the models that improve last year’s model, without any major design changes. Except the iPhone 3G brought relatively small improvements (really things that should have been part of the original), while the 3GS actually set the stage for some of Apple’s major iPhone features to come.

First, the camera was spruced up – autofocus added (with 10cm macro mode) and video capture was enabled at VGA @ 30fps (even though the competition was taking the first steps to 720p). An editor was added to trim your videos.

Voice control was added – not Siri, but its great-grandfather. Similarly Nike+ was precursor to Apple Health, hardware encryption was enabled too.

Apple iPhone 4

Even Apple’s magic couldn’t stave off the specs war and the Apple iPhone 4 (no more “G”) was a big change in direction. The Retina display bumped the pixel density to an unheard of 326ppi, kicking off the resolution race. It was a high-quality IPS display with great viewing angles and contrast too.

It was also the first iPhone to get serious about the camera – the 5MP/720p shooter was not impressive on paper, but produced spectacular photos. The iPhone 4 also added a camera on the front – not for 3G calls, but for Apple’s custom FaceTime.

Apple iPhone 4

Apple’s design was always a selling point, but the iPhone 4 took it to a new level. Thin (9.3mm) with a sleek metal-and-glass body, it was quite a looker. The return to a metal chassis brought connectivity issues with it though.

Along with the new iPhone Apple unveiled a tablet too – the iPad – but that’s a story for another time.

Apple iPhone 4S

Apple turned the screws on Android makers further with the iPhone 4S. It matched them at 1080p video with the new 8MP camera, which was nothing short of amazing. The 8MP/1080p camera, with minor updates each year, lasted Apple four generations. It was finally changed in full with the iPhone 6s, but that’s a highly impressive track record.

Apple also stepped up its performance game and introduced its first dual-core processor. Multitasking still wasn’t a thing though, not true multitasking that is (and…

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