Apple Inc. is a major American technology company whose work spans personal computing, mobile devices, operating systems, software, services, silicon, media, and consumer technology. This document records Apple's historical and corporate context for the project.
Project note: This document recognizes Apple's technical and historical significance. It does not imply that the project is an Apple product or that Apple endorses it.
Apple has made a substantial and lasting contribution to personal computing and consumer technology. The Macintosh, iPhone, iPad, Apple silicon, macOS, iOS, and Apple's services ecosystem have influenced hardware and software design for decades.
The spirit here is the same as the other family documents: recognize useful work, preserve interoperability where practical, learn from established engineering practices, and give credit to the people and institutions that helped build the computing ecosystem.
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne were the founders associated with Apple's creation in 1976.
Jobs became Apple's best-known business and product leader, while Wozniak was the principal early engineering figure behind the Apple I and Apple II. Wayne was involved at the company's founding and left the venture shortly afterward.
Apple's history includes the Macintosh, Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Vision Pro, Apple silicon, and software platforms including macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS.
Tim Cook has served as Apple's chief executive since 2011. Apple continues to operate as an integrated hardware, software, and services company.
Apple's fiscal-2025 public materials describe a workforce of more than 150,000 employees. Apple's environmental reporting for fiscal 2024 recorded approximately 164,000 full-time-equivalent employees, providing an additional historical reference point.
| Measure | Reported figure |
|---|---|
| Apple employees, public FY2025 description | 150,000+ |
| FY2024 full-time-equivalent employees | 164,000 |
| Fiscal year used for latest completed financial table | FY2025 |
Apple operates a global network of corporate offices, retail stores, research and development facilities, data infrastructure, and specialized manufacturing and logistics facilities. Apple also relies extensively on a global supplier and manufacturing network.
A single worldwide building count is not a useful corporate metric, so this document does not infer one from store, office, or supplier-location counts.
For the fiscal year ended September 27, 2025, Apple reported:
| Measure | FY2025 |
|---|---|
| Net sales | $416.161 billion |
| Net income | $112.010 billion |
| Diluted EPS | $7.46 |
Apple reported record fiscal-2025 revenue of approximately $416 billion.
Apple common stock trades on The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC under:
AAPL
Apple's initial public offering took place on December 12, 1980, at $22.00 per share before subsequent stock splits.
Apple has documented five stock splits since its IPO:
| Effective date | Split |
|---|---|
| June 16, 1987 | 2-for-1 |
| June 21, 2000 | 2-for-1 |
| February 28, 2005 | 2-for-1 |
| June 9, 2014 | 7-for-1 |
| August 28, 2020 | 4-for-1 |
Apple's investor-relations materials state that these five splits reduce the split-adjusted IPO price to approximately $0.10 per share.
A responsible corporate history records documented legal and regulatory matters without exaggeration.
Apple's public legal materials cover litigation, regulatory matters, government information requests, competition and market regulation, privacy, intellectual property, and other corporate legal subjects. Apple also maintains a public legal-resources collection and reports material proceedings through its SEC filings.
These matters should be described according to their documented legal status rather than by using broad labels about people or organizations.
Apple's history provides useful context for operating systems, graphical interfaces, hardware/software integration, compilers, application frameworks, digital media, mobile computing, and device-oriented software engineering.
This project remains independent. It may learn from Apple's documented engineering and design practices while maintaining its own implementation, documentation, testing, and development practices.
Apple's history represents decades of work in personal computing, industrial design, operating systems, silicon, mobile devices, services, and consumer technology. Its place in modern computing makes it a useful part of this family of technology reference documents.
- Apple — Investor Relations FAQ
- Apple — FY2025 consolidated financial statements
- Apple — FY2025 results
- Apple — Legal resources
- Apple — Investor Relations
Prepared for this project, September 2026.