Apple Inc.

1976–1980: Founding and incorporation and Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple in Jobs' parents' home on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California. Wozniak called the popular belief that the company was founded in the garage "a bit of a myth", although they moved some operations to the garage when the bedroom became too crowded. is Apple's first product, designed by Wozniak and sold as an assembled circuit board without the required keyboard, monitor, power supply, and the optional case. Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne as a partnership. The company's first product was the Apple I, a computer designed and hand-built entirely by Wozniak. To finance its creation, Jobs sold his Volkswagen Bus, and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator. Neither received the full selling price, but together they earned . Wozniak debuted the first prototype at the Homebrew Computer Club in July 1976. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips—a base kit concept which was not yet marketed as a complete personal computer. It was priced soon after debut for . Wozniak later said he was unaware of the coincidental mark of the beast in the number 666, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits". Apple Computer, Inc. was incorporated in Cupertino, California, without Wayne, who had left and sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 only twelve days after having co-founded it. Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of to Jobs and Wozniak during the incorporation of Apple. During the first five years of operations, revenue grew exponentially, doubling about every four months. Between September 1977 and September 1980, yearly sales grew from $775,000 to  million, an average annual growth rate of 533%. The Apple II, also designed by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16, 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because of its character cell-based color graphics and open architecture. The Apple I and early Apple II models used ordinary audio cassette tapes as storage devices, which were superseded by the -inch floppy disk drive and interface called the Disk II in 1978. , introduced in 1977 and designed primarily by Wozniak, was the company's first major success. The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first killer application of the business world: VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program released in 1979. VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II: compatibility with the office, but Apple II market share remained behind home computers made by competitors such as Atari, Commodore, and Tandy. On December 12, 1980, Apple went public with an initial public offering (IPO) on the fully electronic Nasdaq stock market, selling 4.6 million shares at $22 per share ($.10 per share when adjusting for stock splits ), By the end of the day, around 300 millionaires were created, including Jobs and Wozniak, from a stock price of $29 per share and a market cap of $1.778 billion. Wozniak's absence allowed Jobs to take over the project and he redefined the Macintosh as a mouse-driven GUI machine similar to the Lisa. Wozniak speculates that Jobs' sense of rivalry towards the Lisa project was the driving force behind this sudden shift in direction. Its debut was signified by "1984", a -million television advertisement directed by Ridley Scott that aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. This was hailed as a watershed event for Apple's success and was called a "masterpiece" by CNN and one of the greatest TV advertisements of all time by TV Guide. The advertisement created great interest in the Macintosh, and sales were initially good, but began to taper off dramatically after the first three months as reviews started coming in. Jobs had required of RAM, which limited its speed and software in favor of aspiring for a projected price point of . The Macintosh shipped for , a price panned by critics due to its slow performance. In early 1985, this sales slump triggered a power struggle between Steve Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired away from Pepsi two years earlier by Jobs saying, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?" Sculley removed Jobs as the head of the Macintosh division, with unanimous support from the Apple board of directors. The board of directors instructed Sculley to contain Jobs and his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products. Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from leadership. Jean-Louis Gassée informed Sculley that Jobs had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup, and called an emergency meeting at which Apple's executive staff sided with Sculley, and stripped Jobs of all operational duties. Jobs resigned from Apple in September 1985 and took several Apple employees with him to found NeXT. Wozniak had also quit his active employment at Apple earlier in 1985 to pursue other ventures, expressing his frustration with Apple's treatment of the Apple II division and stating that the company had "been going in the wrong direction for the last five years". Wozniak remained employed by Apple as a representative, After the departures of Jobs and Wozniak in 1985, Sculley launched the Macintosh 512K that year with quadruple the RAM, and introduced the LaserWriter, the first reasonably priced PostScript-based laser printer. PageMaker, an early desktop publishing application taking advantage of the PostScript language, was also released by Aldus Corporation in July 1985. It has been suggested that the combination of Macintosh, LaserWriter, and PageMaker was responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market. This dominant position in the desktop publishing market allowed the company to focus on higher price points, the so-called "high-right policy" named for its position on a price–profits chart. Newer models selling at higher price points offered higher profit margin, and appeared to not affect total sales as power users snapped up every increase in speed. Although some worried about pricing themselves out of the market, the high-right policy was in full force by the mid-1980s, due to Jean-Louis Gassée's slogan of "fifty-five or die", referring to the 55% profit margins of the Macintosh II. This policy began to backfire late in the decade as desktop publishing programs appeared on IBM PC compatibles with some of the same functionality of the Macintosh at far lower price points. The company lost its dominant position in the desktop publishing market and estranged many of its original consumer customer base, who could no longer afford Apple products. The Christmas season of 1989 was the first in the company's history to have declining sales, which led to a 20% drop in Apple's stock price. During this period, the relationship between Sculley and Gassée deteriorated, leading Sculley to effectively demote Gassée in January 1990 by appointing Michael Spindler as the chief operating officer. Gassée left the company later that year to set up a rival, Be Inc. 1990–1997: Decline and restructuring The company pivoted its strategy and, in October 1990, introduced three lower-cost models: the Macintosh Classic, the Macintosh LC, and the Macintosh IIsi, all of which generated significant sales due to pent-up demand. In 1991, Apple introduced the PowerBook, a commercially successful laptop whose clamshell design influenced later notebook computers. The same year, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the Macintosh operating system, adding color to the interface and introducing new networking capabilities. The success of the lower-cost Macs and the PowerBook brought increasing revenue. For some time, Apple was doing very well, introducing fresh new products at increasing profits. The magazine MacAddict named the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the Macintosh. is Apple's first tablet computer prototype, created in 1992 to bring the Mac OS to a tablet. It was canceled in favor of the Newton. The success of lower-cost consumer Macs, especially the LC, cannibalized higher-priced machines. To address this, management introduced several new brands, selling largely identical machines at different price points, for different markets: the high-end Quadra series, the mid-range Centris series, and the consumer-marketed Performa series. This led to significant consumer confusion among so many models. In 1993, the Apple II series was discontinued. It was expensive to produce, and the company decided it was still absorbing sales from lower-cost Macintosh models. After the launch of the LC, Apple encouraged developers to create applications for Macintosh rather than Apple II, and authorized salespersons to redirect consumers from Apple II and toward Macintosh. The Apple IIe was discontinued in 1993. Apple experimented with several other unsuccessful consumer targeted products during the 1990s, including QuickTake digital cameras, PowerCD portable CD audio players, speakers, the Pippin video game console, the eWorld online service, and Apple Interactive Television Box. Apple made significant investments in the Newton tablet division; the Newton was later criticized for high costs and limited commercial success, and commentators have attributed the decision to start that division in part to market forecasts by CEO John Sculley. Throughout this period, Microsoft continued to gain market share with Windows by focusing on delivering software to inexpensive personal computers, while Apple was delivering a richly engineered but expensive experience. Apple relied on high profit margins and never developed a clear response; it sued Microsoft for making a GUI similar to the Lisa in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. The lawsuit dragged on for years and was finally dismissed. The major product flops and the rapid loss of market share to Windows sullied Apple's reputation, and in 1993 Sculley was replaced as CEO by Michael Spindler. , introduced in 1994, was Apple's first home computer model after the switch to PowerPC processors. Under Spindler, Apple, IBM, and Motorola formed the AIM alliance in 1994 to create a new computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform or PReP), with IBM and Motorola hardware coupled with Apple software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software would leave the PC far behind and thus counter the dominance of Windows. That year, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh, the first of many computers with Motorola's PowerPC processor. In the wake of the alliance, Apple opened up to the idea of allowing Motorola and other companies to build Macintosh clones. Over the next two years, 75 distinct Macintosh clone models were introduced. However, by 1996, Apple executives were worried that the clones were cannibalizing sales of its own high-end computers, where profit margins were highest. In 1996, Spindler was replaced as CEO by Gil Amelio, who was hired for his reputation as a corporate rehabilitator. Amelio made big changes, including extensive layoffs and cost-cutting. This period was also marked by numerous failed attempts to modernize the Macintosh operating system (the classic Mac OS). The original Macintosh operating system (System 1) was not built for multitasking (running several applications at once). The company attempted to correct this by introducing cooperative multitasking in System 5, but still decided it needed a more modern approach. This led to the Pink project in 1988, A/UX that same year, Copland in 1994, and evaluated the purchase of BeOS in 1996. Talks with Be stalled when the CEO, former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée, demanded $300 million in contrast to Apple's $125-million offer. With Apple only weeks away from bankruptcy, the board preferred NeXTSTEP and purchased NeXT in late 1996 for $400 million, retaining Steve Jobs. 1997–2007: Return to profitability The NeXT acquisition was finalized on February 9, 1997, and the board brought Jobs back to Apple as an advisor. On July 9, 1997, Jobs staged a boardroom coup, which resulted in Amelio's resignation after overseeing a three-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses. The board named Jobs as interim CEO and he immediately reviewed the product lineup. Jobs canceled 70% of models, ending 3,000 jobs and paring to the core of its computer offerings. The next month, in August 1997, Steve Jobs convinced Microsoft to make a $150-million investment in Apple and a commitment to continue developing Mac software. This was seen as an "antitrust insurance policy" for Microsoft which had recently settled with the Department of Justice over anti-competitive practices in the United States v. Microsoft Corp. case. Around then, Jobs donated Apple's internal library and archives to Stanford University, to focus more on the present and the future rather than the past. He ended the Mac clone deals and in September 1997, purchased the largest clone maker, Power Computing. On November 10, 1997, the Apple Store website launched, which was tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing model similar to PC manufacturer Dell's success. The moves paid off for Jobs; at the end of his first year as CEO, the company had a $309-million profit. Its striking teardrop shape and translucent materials were designed by Jonathan Ive, who had been hired by Amelio, and who collaborated with Jobs for more than a decade to reshape Apple's product design. A little more than a year later on July 21, 1999, Apple introduced the iBook consumer laptop. It culminated Jobs' strategy to produce only four products: refined versions of the Power Macintosh G3 desktop and PowerBook G3 laptop for professionals, and the iMac desktop and iBook laptop for consumers. Jobs said the small product line allowed for a greater focus on quality and innovation. Around then, Apple also completed numerous acquisitions to create a portfolio of digital media production software for both professionals and consumers. Apple acquired Macromedia's Key Grip digital video editing software project, which was launched as Final Cut Pro in April 1999. Key Grip's development also led to Apple's release of the consumer video-editing product iMovie in October 1999. Apple acquired the German company Astarte in April 2000, which had developed the DVD authoring software DVDirector, which Apple repackaged as the professional-oriented DVD Studio Pro, and reused its technology to create iDVD for the consumer market. In 2001, Apple changed course with three announcements. First, on March 24, 2001, Apple announced the release of a new modern operating system, Mac OS X. This was after numerous failed attempts in the early 1990s, and several years of development. Mac OS X is based on NeXTSTEP, OpenStep, and BSD Unix, to combine the stability, reliability, and security of Unix with the ease of use of an overhauled user interface. Second, in May 2001, the first two Apple Store retail locations opened in Virginia and California, offering an improved presentation of the company's products. ing industry; chart shows the number of songs sold from 2003 to 2010. In 2003, the iTunes Store was introduced with music downloads for 99¢ a song and iPod integration. It quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 5 billion downloads by June 19, 2008. Two years later, the iTunes Store was the world's largest music retailer. In 2002, Apple purchased Nothing Real for its advanced digital compositing application Shake, and Emagic for the music productivity application Logic. The purchase of Emagic made Apple the first computer manufacturer to own a music software company. The acquisition was followed by the development of Apple's consumer-level GarageBand application. The release of iPhoto that year completed the iLife suite. is Apple's first laptop with an Intel microprocessor, introduced in 2006. At the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on June 6, 2005, Jobs announced that Apple would move away from PowerPC processors, and the Mac would transition to Intel processors in 2006. On January 10, 2006, the new MacBook Pro and iMac became the first Apple computers to use Intel's Core Duo CPU. By August 7, 2006, Apple made the transition to Intel chips for the entire Mac product line—over one year sooner than announced. Apple also introduced Boot Camp in 2006 to help users install Windows XP or Windows Vista on their Intel Macs alongside Mac OS X. Between early 2003 and 2006, the price of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from around $6 per share (split-adjusted) to over $80. When Apple surpassed Dell's market cap in January 2006, Jobs sent an email to Apple employees saying Dell's CEO Michael Dell should eat his words. Nine years prior, Dell had said that if he ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders". 2007–2011: Success with mobile devices was on display at the 2007 MacWorld Expo. During his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced the renaming of Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple Inc., because the company had broadened its focus from computers to consumer electronics. This event also saw the announcement of the iPhone and the Apple TV. The company sold 270,000 first-generation iPhones during the first 30 hours of sales, and some industry commentators described the device as "a game changer for the industry". In an article posted on Apple's website on February 6, 2007, Jobs wrote that Apple would be willing to sell music on the iTunes Store without digital rights management, thereby allowing tracks to be played on third-party players if record labels would agree to drop the technology. On April 2, 2007, Apple and EMI jointly announced the removal of DRM technology from EMI's catalog in the iTunes Store, effective in May 2007. Other record labels eventually followed suit and Apple published a press release in January 2009 to announce that all songs on the iTunes Store are available without its FairPlay DRM. In July 2008, Apple launched the App Store to sell third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Within a month, the store sold 60 million applications and registered an average daily revenue of $1 million, with Jobs speculating in August 2008 that the App Store could become a billion-dollar business for Apple. By October 2008, Apple was the third-largest mobile handset supplier in the world due to the popularity of the iPhone. ; Apple worked with other manufacturers to implement purpose-built "Made for iPod" docking stations. On January 14, 2009, Jobs announced in an internal memo that he would be taking a six-month medical leave of absence from Apple until the end of June 2009 and would spend the time focusing on his health. In the email, Jobs stated that "the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well", and explained that the break would allow the company "to focus on delivering extraordinary products". Though Jobs was absent, Apple recorded its best non-holiday quarter (Q1 FY 2009) during the recession, with revenue of $8.16 billion and profit of $1.21 billion. After years of speculation and multiple rumored "leaks", Apple unveiled a large screen, tablet-like media device known as the iPad on January 27, 2010. The iPad ran the same touch-based operating system as the iPhone, and all iPhone apps were compatible with the iPad. This gave the iPad a large app catalog on launch, though having very little development time before the release. Later that year on April 3, 2010, the iPad was launched in the US. It sold more than 300,000 units on its first day, and 500,000 by the end of the first week. In May 2010, Apple's market cap exceeded that of competitor Microsoft for the first time since 1989. In June 2010, Apple released the iPhone 4, which introduced video calling using FaceTime, multitasking, and a new design with an exposed stainless steel frame as the phone's antenna system. Later that year, Apple again refreshed the iPod line by introducing a multi-touch iPod Nano, an iPod Touch with FaceTime, and an iPod Shuffle that brought back the clickwheel buttons of earlier generations. It also introduced the smaller, cheaper second-generation Apple TV which allowed the rental of movies and shows. On January 17, 2011, Jobs announced in an internal Apple memo that he would take another medical leave of absence for an indefinite period to allow him to focus on his health. Chief operating officer Tim Cook assumed Jobs' day-to-day operations at Apple, although Jobs would still remain "involved in major strategic decisions". Apple became the most valuable consumer-facing brand in the world, and has consistently been among the most valuable brands since then. In June 2011, Jobs took the stage and unveiled iCloud, an online storage and syncing service for music, photos, files, and software which replaced MobileMe, Apple's previous attempt at content syncing. This would be the last product launch Jobs would attend before his death. On August 24, 2011, Jobs resigned his position as CEO of Apple. He was replaced by Cook and Jobs became Apple's chairman. Apple did not have a chairman at the time and instead had two co-lead directors, Andrea Jung and Arthur D. Levinson, who continued with those titles until Levinson replaced Jobs as chairman of the board in November after Jobs' death. 2011–2020: Post-Jobs era, new devices On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs died, marking the end of an era for Apple. The next major product announcement by Apple was on January 19, 2012, when Apple's Phil Schiller introduced iBooks Textbooks for iOS and iBooks Author for Mac OS X in New York City. Jobs stated in the biography Steve Jobs that he wanted to reinvent the textbook industry and education. From 2011 to 2012, Apple released the iPhone 4s and iPhone 5, which featured improved cameras, an intelligent software assistant named Siri, and cloud-synced data with iCloud; the third- and fourth-generation iPads, which featured Retina displays; and sales of three million iPads in three days following the launch of the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad (released November 3, 2012). Apple also released a third-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display and new iMac and Mac Mini computers. On August 20, 2012, Apple's rising stock price increased the company's market capitalization to a then-record $624 billion. This beat the non-inflation-adjusted record for market capitalization previously set by Microsoft in 1999. On August 24, 2012, a US jury ruled that Samsung should pay Apple $1.05 billion (£665m) in damages in an intellectual property lawsuit. Samsung appealed the damages award, which was reduced by $450 million and further granted Samsung's request for a new trial. It is predicted that Apple will make  million per year from this deal with HTC. In May 2014, Apple confirmed its intent to acquire Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine's audio company Beats Electronics, producer of the "Beats by Dr. Dre" line of headphones and speaker products, and operator of the music streaming service Beats Music, for  billion, and to sell its products through Apple's retail outlets and resellers. Iovine believed that Beats had always "belonged" with Apple, as the company modeled itself after Apple's "unmatched ability to marry culture and technology". The acquisition was the largest purchase in Apple's history. (2015) During a press event on September 9, 2014, Apple introduced a smartwatch called the Apple Watch. Initially, Apple marketed the device as a fashion accessory and a complement to the iPhone, that would allow people to look at their smartphones less. Over time, the company has focused on developing health and fitness-oriented features on the watch, in an effort to compete with dedicated activity trackers. In January 2016, Apple announced that over one billion Apple devices were in active use worldwide. On June 6, 2016, Fortune released the Fortune 500, its annual list of companies ranked on revenue generation. In the trailing fiscal year of 2015, Apple was listed as the top tech company. It ranked third, overall, with  billion in revenue. Toward the end of the year, TechCrunch reported that Apple was acquiring Shazam, a company that introduced its products at WWDC and specializing in music, TV, film and advertising recognition. The acquisition was confirmed a few days later, reportedly costing Apple  million, with media reports that the purchase looked like a move to acquire data and tools bolstering the Apple Music streaming service. The purchase was approved by the European Union in September 2018. Also in June 2017, Apple appointed Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg to head the newly formed worldwide video unit. In November 2017, Apple announced it was branching out into original scripted programming: a drama series starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and a reboot of the anthology series Amazing Stories with Steven Spielberg. In June 2018, Apple signed the Writers Guild of America's minimum basic agreement and Oprah Winfrey to a multi-year content partnership. Additional partnerships for original series included Sesame Workshop and DHX Media and its subsidiary Peanuts Worldwide, and a partnership with A24 to create original films. During the Apple Special Event in September 2017, the AirPower wireless charger was announced alongside the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and Watch Series 3. The AirPower was intended to wirelessly charge multiple devices, simultaneously. Though initially set to release in early 2018, the AirPower would be canceled in March 2019, marking the first cancellation of a device under Cook's leadership. 2020–2024: Transition from Intel CPUs, legal compliance and settlements (2020), Apple's first notebook computer following the switch from x86-based Intel processors to ARM processors During its annual WWDC keynote speech on June 22, 2020, Apple announced it would move away from Intel processors, and the Mac would transition to processors developed in-house. The announcement was expected by industry analysts, and it has been noted that Macs featuring Apple's processors would allow for big increases in performance over current Intel-based models. On November 10, 2020, the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the Mac Mini became the first Macs powered by an Apple-designed processor, the Apple M1. In April 2022, it was reported that Samsung Electro-Mechanics would be collaborating with Apple on its M2 chip instead of LG Innotek. Developer logs showed that at least nine Mac models with four different M2 chips were being tested. The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple's effort to develop its own chips left it better prepared to deal with the semiconductor shortage that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to increased profitability, with sales of M1-based Mac computers rising sharply in 2020 and 2021. It also inspired other companies like Tesla, Amazon, and Meta Platforms to pursue a similar path. In April 2022, Apple opened an online store that allowed anyone in the US to view repair manuals and order replacement parts for specific recent iPhones, although the difference in cost between this method and official repair is anticipated to be minimal. In May 2022, a trademark was filed for RealityOS, an operating system reportedly intended for virtual and augmented reality headsets, first mentioned in 2017. According to Bloomberg, the headset may come out in 2023. Further insider reports state that the device uses iris scanning for payment confirmation and signing into accounts. In June 2023, Apple formally announced its first mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, which ran its new visionOS operating system. The headset was released in February of the following year. On June 18, 2022, the Apple Store in Towson, Maryland, became the first to unionize in the US, with the employees voting to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. On July 7, 2022, Apple added Lockdown Mode to macOS 13 and iOS 16, as a response to the earlier Pegasus revelations; the mode increases security protections for high-risk users against targeted zero-day malware. Apple launched a buy now, pay later service called 'Apple Pay Later' for its Apple Wallet users in March 2023. The program allows its users to apply for loans between $50 and $1,000 to make online or in-app purchases and then repaying them through four installments spread over six weeks without any interest or fees. In November 2023, Apple agreed to a $25-million settlement in a US Department of Justice case that alleged Apple was discriminating against US citizens in hiring. Apple created jobs that were not listed online and that required a paper submission application, while advertising these jobs to foreign workers as part of recruitment for PERM. In January 2024, Apple announced compliance with the European Union's competition law, with major changes to the App Store and other services, effective on March 7. This enables iOS users in the 27-nation bloc to use alternative app stores, and alternative payment methods within apps. This adds a menu in Safari for downloading alternative browsers, such as Chrome or Firefox. In June 2024, Apple introduced Apple Intelligence to incorporate on-device artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. In October 2024, Apple introduced its Apple Intelligence suite, bringing generative AI features such as writing assistance, enhanced Siri capabilities, and improved photo tools to select iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. On November 1, 2024, Apple announced its acquisition of Pixelmator, a company known for its image editing applications for iPhone and Mac. Apple had previously showcased Pixelmator's apps during its product launches, including naming Pixelmator Pro its Mac App of the Year in 2018 for its innovative use of machine learning and AI. In the announcement, Pixelmator stated that there would be no significant changes to its existing apps following the acquisition. On December 31, 2024, a preliminary settlement was filed in the Oakland California federal court that accused Apple of unlawfully recording private conversations, through unintentional Siri activations, and of sharing them with third parties, including advertisers. Apple agreed to a $95-million cash settlement to resolve this lawsuit in which its Siri assistant violated user privacy. While denying any wrongdoing, Apple settled the case, allowing affected users to potentially claim up to $20 per device. Attorneys sought $28.5 million in fees from the settlement fund. 2025–present: Domestic investment, AI development, and Tim Cook's retirement as CEO In 2025, Apple undertook its largest investment initiative to date, announcing a commitment to spend over $500 billion in the United States over the following four years. This extensive strategy includes the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Houston to produce servers supporting Apple Intelligence, expansion of research and development in fields like silicon engineering and AI, and the establishment of a new advanced manufacturing academy in Detroit. The company also pledged to double its US Advanced Manufacturing Fund and increase collaboration with American suppliers, aiming to create tens of thousands of jobs related to R&D, AI, and manufacturing technologies. The software landscape at Apple underwent a transformation in 2025. At its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple introduced the new "Liquid Glass" design language, rolled out unified system design updates across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and other platforms, and significantly expanded the capabilities of Apple Intelligence. According to Apple, these updates were intended to address previous criticisms of fragmented interfaces and to use on‑device and cloud‑based AI to improve privacy and user experience. Despite continued growth in its services sector, including a new all-time high for services revenue in the March quarter and the launch of updated models such as the iPhone 16e and M4 MacBook Air, Apple faced significant challenges. The company contended with a 19% decline in stock value year-to-date, ongoing antitrust investigations by the US Department of Justice, and legal disputes involving the App Store. Competition in the AI space escalated, with rivals gaining ground. High-profile departures and political tensions, including calls for Apple to manufacture iPhones domestically or face tariffs, added to the pressure, have been cited by analysts as contributing to a difficult year for CEO Tim Cook. In December 2025, Cook met with US House members to push back against the App Store Accountability Act which could require that Apple authenticates users' ages and possibly collect sensitive data on children. On January 12, 2026, Apple announced a partnership with Google Gemini for AI-powered Siri. In January 2026, Apple acquired Q.ai, an Israeli artificial intelligence startup specializing in imaging and machine learning technologies for audio processing. The financial terms were not disclosed, though media reports estimated the acquisition at nearly US$2 billion; this is Apple's second-largest purchase to date. Following the deal, Q.ai's founders and approximately 100 employees joined Apple. In February 2026, US lawmakers requested that the United Kingdom government provide a briefing on its now-rescinded order for Apple to build a backdoor into its encrypted devices, expressing concerns about privacy and security implications of such access. On April 20, 2026, Apple announced that John Ternus is succeeding Tim Cook as CEO, while Cook will assume the role of executive chairman on September 1, 2026. It was also announced that at the same time, Arthur Levinson (current Non-Executive Chairman) will step into the role of Lead Independent Director. On April 20, 2026, Apple announced that Tim Cook will step down as CEO on September 1, 2026, to be succeeded by John Ternus, the Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering. Cook is slated to become Executive Chairman of the Board, while Arthur Levinson, the long-standing non-executive chairman, will transition to the role of Lead Independent Director. == Products ==

Since the company's founding and into the early 2000s, Apple primarily sold computers, which are marketed as Macintosh since the mid-1980s. Since then, the company has expanded its product categories to include various portable devices, starting with the now discontinued iPod (2001), and later the iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010). Apple also sells several other products that it categorizes as "Wearables, Home and Accessories", such as the Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods, HomePod, and Apple Vision Pro. , there were over 2 billion Apple devices in active use worldwide. but have criticized them for reduced functionality or fewer features available when used with competing devices, and for reliance on Apple's proprietary features, software, and services—an approach often described as a "walled garden". Cory Doctorow, a Canadian intellectual property researcher and activist, characterized Apple's strategy of promoting interoperability with its own products while simultaneously reducing functionality for competitors as an anti-competitive practice. Mac Mac, which is short for Macintosh, its official name until 1999, is Apple's line of personal computers that use the company's proprietary macOS operating system. Personal computers were Apple's original business line, but they account for only about eight percent of the company's revenue. There are six Mac computer families in production: • iMac: Consumer all-in-one desktop computer, introduced in 1998. • Mac Mini: Consumer sub-desktop computer, introduced in 2005. • MacBook Pro: Professional notebook, introduced in 2006. • MacBook Air: Consumer ultra-thin notebook, introduced in 2008. • Mac Studio: Professional small form-factor workstation, introduced in 2022. • MacBook Neo: Low-cost ultra-thin notebook, introduced in 2026. Macs use Apple silicon chips, run the macOS operating system, and include Apple software like the Safari web browser, iMovie for home movie editing, GarageBand for music creation, and the iWork productivity suite. Apple also sells pro apps: Final Cut Pro for video production, Logic Pro for musicians and producers, and Xcode for software developers. Apple also sells a variety of accessories for Macs, including the Studio Display and Studio Display XDR, Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard. The latest and current series of Mac include either the M5 Apple Silicon chip, expected to be released with a new Mac Studio model in mid-2026 and already available in the MacBook Pro and the A18 Pro-powered MacBook Neo, the company's first ostensibly 'entry level' MacBook product. iPhone in ultramarine The iPhone is Apple's line of smartphones, which run the company's iOS operating system. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. Since then, new iPhone models have been released every year. When it was introduced, its multi-touch screen was described as "revolutionary" and a "game-changer" for the mobile phone industry. The device has been credited with creating the app economy. iOS is one of the two major smartphone platforms in the world, alongside Android. The iPhone has generated large profits for the company, and is credited with helping to make Apple one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies. , the iPhone accounts for nearly half of the company's revenue. Apple has sold more than 500 million iPads, though sales peaked in 2013. The iPad remains the most popular tablet computer by sales , and accounted for seven percent of the company's revenue . These products include the AirPods line of wireless headphones, Apple TV digital media players, Apple Watch smartwatches, Beats headphones, HomePod smart speakers, and the Vision Pro mixed reality headset. , this broad line of products comprises about ten percent of the company's revenues. , services comprise about 26% of the company's revenue. == Marketing ==

Branding According to Steve Jobs, the company's name was inspired by his visit to an apple farm while on a fruitarian diet. Apple's first logo, designed by Ron Wayne, depicts Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. It was almost immediately replaced by Rob Janoff's "rainbow Apple", the now-familiar rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it. This logo has been erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide. On August 27, 1999, Apple officially dropped the rainbow scheme and began to use single-color logos nearly identical in shape to the previous rainbow incarnation. An Aqua-themed version of the logo was used from 1997 until 2003, and a glass-themed version was used from 2007 until 2013. Apple evangelists were actively engaged by the company at one time, but this was after the phenomenon had already been firmly established. Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has called the brand fanaticism "something that was stumbled upon", while Jonathan Ive claimed in 2014 that "people have an incredibly personal relationship" with Apple's products. On September 30, 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands" report. Boston Consulting Group has ranked Apple as the world's most innovative brand every year . 1.65 billion Apple products were in active use. In February 2023, that number exceeded 2 billion devices. In 2023, the World Intellectual Property Organization's Madrid Yearly Review ranked Apple's number of trademark applications, filled under the Madrid System, as 10th in the world, with 74 trademark applications submitted during 2023. Advertising Apple's first slogan, "Byte into an Apple", was coined in the late 1970s. From 1997 to 2002, the slogan "Think different" was used in advertising campaigns, and is still closely associated with Apple. Apple also has slogans for specific product lines—for example, "iThink, therefore iMac" was used in 1998 to promote the iMac, and "Say hello to iPhone" has been used in iPhone advertisements. "Hello" was also used to introduce the original Macintosh, Newton, iMac ("hello (again)"), and iPod. From the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, with the 1984 Super Bowl advertisement to the more modern Get a Mac adverts, Apple has been recognized for its efforts toward effective advertising and marketing for its products. However, claims made by later campaigns were criticized, particularly the 2005 Power Mac ads. Apple's product advertisements gained significant attention as a result of their graphics and song choice. Musicians who benefited from an improved profile as a result of their songs being included on Apple advertisements include Canadian singer Feist with the song "1234" and Yael Naïm with the song "New Soul". after years of attempting but failing store-within-a-store concepts. Seeing a need for improved retail presentation of the company's products, he began an effort in 1997 to revamp the retail program to get an improved relationship to consumers, and hired Ron Johnson in 2000. and opened the first two physical stores in 2001. but they exceeded the sales numbers of competing nearby stores, and within three years reached US$1 billion in annual sales, becoming the fastest retailer in history to do so. Strong product sales have placed Apple among the top-tier retail stores, with sales over $16 billion globally in 2011. Apple Stores underwent a period of significant redesign, beginning in May 2016. This redesign included physical changes to the Apple Stores, such as open spaces and re-branded rooms, and changes in function to facilitate interaction between consumers and professionals. Many Apple Stores are located inside shopping malls, but Apple has built several stand-alone "flagship" stores in high-profile locations. The success of Apple Stores have had significant influence over other consumer electronics retailers, which have lost traffic, control and profits due to a perceived higher quality of service and products at Apple Stores. Due to the popularity of the brand, Apple receives a large number of job applications, many of which come from young workers. On August 13, 2020, Epic Games, the maker of the popular game Fortnite, sued Apple and Google after Fortnite was removed from Apple's and Google's app stores. The lawsuits came after Apple and Google blocked the game after it introduced a direct payment system that bypassed the fees that Apple and Google had imposed. In September 2020, Epic Games founded the Coalition for App Fairness together with thirteen other companies, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in the app stores. Later, in December 2020, Facebook agreed to assist Epic in its legal game against Apple, planning to support the company by providing materials and documents to Epic. Facebook had, however, stated that the company would not participate directly with the lawsuit, although did commit to helping with the discovery of evidence relating to the trial of 2021. In the months prior to their agreement, Facebook had been dealing with feuds against Apple relating to the prices of paid apps and privacy rule changes. Head of ad products for Facebook Dan Levy commented, saying that "this is not really about privacy for them, this is about an attack on personalized ads and the consequences it's going to have on small-business owners," commenting on the full-page ads placed by Facebook in various newspapers in December 2020. Privacy is a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies such as Facebook and Apple. Apple has publicly taken a pro-privacy stance, actively making privacy-conscious features and settings part of its conferences, promotional campaigns, and public image. With its iOS 8 mobile operating system in 2014, the company started encrypting all contents of iOS devices through users' passcodes, making it impossible at the time for the company to provide customer data to law enforcement requests seeking such information. With the popularity rise of cloud storage solutions, Apple began a technique in 2016 to do deep learning scans for facial data in photos on the user's local device and encrypting the content before uploading it to Apple's iCloud storage system. It also introduced "differential privacy", a way to collect crowdsourced data from many users, while keeping individual users anonymous, in a system that Wired described as "trying to learn as much as possible about a group while learning as little as possible about any individual in it". Users are explicitly asked if they want to participate, and can actively opt-in or opt-out. However, Apple has aided law enforcement in criminal investigations by providing iCloud backups of users' devices, and the company's commitment to privacy has been questioned by its efforts to promote biometric authentication technology in its iPhone models starting with the iPhone 5s, which do not have the same level of constitutional privacy as a passcode in the United States. With Apple's release of an update to iOS 14, Apple required all developers of iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch applications to directly ask iPhone users permission to track them. The feature, called "App Tracking Transparency", received heavy criticism from Facebook, whose primary business model revolves around the tracking of users' data and sharing such data with advertisers so users can see more relevant ads, a technique commonly known as targeted advertising. After Facebook's measures, including purchasing full-page newspaper advertisements protesting App Tracking Transparency, Apple released the update in early 2021. A study by Verizon subsidiary Flurry Analytics reported only 4% of iOS users in the United States and 12% worldwide have opted into tracking. Prior to the release of iOS 15, Apple announced new efforts at combating child sexual abuse material on iOS and Mac platforms. Parents of minor iMessage users can now be alerted if their child sends or receives nude photographs. Additionally, on-device hashing would take place on media destined for upload to iCloud, and hashes would be compared to a list of known abusive images provided by law enforcement; if enough matches were found, Apple would be alerted and authorities informed. The new features received praise from law enforcement and victims rights advocates. However, privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, condemned the new features as invasive and highly prone to abuse by authoritarian governments. Ireland's Data Protection Commission launched a privacy investigation to examine whether Apple complied with the EU's GDPR law following an investigation into how the company processes personal data with targeted ads on its platform. In December 2019, security researcher Brian Krebs discovered that the iPhone 11 Pro would still show the arrow indicator–signifying location services are being used–at the top of the screen while the main location services toggle is enabled, despite all individual location services being disabled. Krebs was unable to replicate this behavior on older models and when asking Apple for comment, he was told by Apple that "It is expected behavior that the Location Services icon appears in the status bar when Location Services is enabled. The icon appears for system services that do not have a switch in Settings." Apple later further clarified that this behavior was to ensure compliance with ultra-wideband regulations in specific countries, a technology Apple started implementing in iPhones starting with iPhone 11 Pro, and emphasized that "the management of ultra wideband compliance and its use of location data is done entirely on the device and Apple is not collecting user location data." Will Strafach, an executive at security firm Guardian Firewall, confirmed the lack of evidence that location data was sent off to a remote server. Apple promised to add a new toggle for this feature and in later iOS revisions Apple provided users with the option to tap on the location services indicator in Control Center to see which specific service is using the device's location. According to published reports by Bloomberg News on March 30, 2022, Apple turned over data such as phone numbers, physical addresses, and IP addresses to hackers posing as law enforcement officials using forged documents. The law enforcement requests sometimes included forged signatures of real or fictional officials. When asked about the allegations, an Apple representative referred the reporter to a section of the company policy for law enforcement guidelines, which stated, "We review every data request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse." == Corporate affairs ==

Business trends The key trends for Apple are, as of each financial year ending September 24: Leadership Senior management , the management of Apple includes: • Tim Cook (chief executive officer) • Sabih Khan (chief operating officer) • Johny Srouji (chief hardware officer) • Kevan Parekh (senior vice president and chief financial officer) • Katherine Adams (senior vice president – Government Affairs) • Eddy Cue (senior vice president – Services and Health) • Craig Federighi (senior vice president – Software Engineering) • Greg Joswiak (senior vice president – Worldwide Marketing) • Jennifer Newstead (senior vice president and General Counsel) • Deirdre O'Brien (senior vice president – Retail + People) • John Ternus (senior vice president – Hardware Engineering) Board of directors , the board of directors of Apple includes: • The Vanguard Group (1,430,000,000 shares, 9.72%) • BlackRock (1,150,000,000 shares, 7.86%) • State Street Corporation (604,060,000 shares, 4.11%) • Geode Capital Management (358,030,000 shares, 2.44%) • Fidelity Investments (307,400,000 shares, 2.09%) • Morgan Stanley (230,480,000 shares, 1.57%) • Berkshire Hathaway (227,920,000 shares, 1.55%) • JPMorgan Chase (225,420,000 shares, 1.54%) • T. Rowe Price (203,500,000 shares, 1.39%) • Norges Bank (192,260,000 shares, 1.31%) Corporate culture and Macintosh engineer Andy Hertzfeld attended the Apple User Group Connection club in 1985. Apple is one of several highly successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of corporate culture. Jobs often walked around the office barefoot even after Apple became a Fortune 500 company. By the time of the "1984" television advertisement, Apple's informal culture had become a key trait that differentiated it from its competitors. According to a 2011 report in Fortune, this has resulted in a corporate culture more akin to a startup rather than a multinational corporation. In a 2017 interview, Wozniak credited watching Star Trek and attending Star Trek conventions in his youth as inspiration for co-founding Apple. As the company has grown and been led by a series of differently opinionated chief executives, some media have suggested that it has lost some of its original character. Nonetheless, it has maintained a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence that reliably attracts talented workers, particularly after Jobs returned. Numerous Apple employees have stated that projects without Jobs' involvement often took longer than others. The Apple Fellows program awards employees for extraordinary technical or leadership contributions to personal computing. Recipients include Bill Atkinson, Steve Capps, Rod Holt, Guy Kawasaki, Al Alcorn, Don Norman, Jobs intended that employees were to be specialists who are not exposed to functions outside their area of expertise. For instance, Ron Johnson—Senior Vice President of Retail Operations until November 1, 2011—was responsible for site selection, in-store service, and store layout, yet had no control of the inventory in his stores. This was done by Tim Cook, who had a background in supply-chain management. Apple is known for strictly enforcing accountability. Each project has a "directly responsible individual" or "DRI" in Apple jargon. Unlike other major US companies, Apple provides a relatively simple compensation policy for executives that does not include perks enjoyed by other CEOs like country club fees or private use of company aircraft. The company typically grants stock options to executives every other year. In 2015, Apple had 110,000 full-time employees. This increased to 116,000 full-time employees the next year, a notable hiring decrease, largely due to its first revenue decline. Apple does not specify how many of its employees work in retail, though its 2014 SEC filing put the number at approximately half of its employee base. In September 2017, Apple announced that it had over 123,000 full-time employees. Apple has a strong culture of corporate secrecy, and has an anti-leak Global Security team that recruits from the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Secret Service. In December 2017, Glassdoor said Apple was the 48th best place to work, having originally entered at rank 19 in 2009, peaking at rank 10 in 2012, and falling down the ranks in subsequent years. In 2023, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman revealed the existence of Apple's Exploratory Design Group (XDG), which was working to add glucose monitoring to the Apple Watch. Gurman compared XDG to Alphabet's X "moonshot factory". Criticism and controversies Apple has faced criticism regarding its market practices, labor conditions, and privacy policies. The company has been criticized for alleged anti-competitive behavior and its alleged participation in the PRISM surveillance program. Significant concerns have been raised about labor issues in its supply chain, restrictions on the right to repair, and the company’s tax strategies and environmental impact. Furthermore, Apple has faced scrutiny for its business operations in nations with restrictive human rights records, such as China. Offices Apple's world corporate headquarters are located in Cupertino, in the middle of California's Silicon Valley, at Apple Park, a massive circular groundscraper building with a circumference of . The building opened in April 2017 and houses more than 12,000 employees. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wanted Apple Park to look less like a business park and more like a nature refuge, and personally appeared before the Cupertino City Council in June 2011 to make the proposal, in his final public appearance before his death. Apple also operates from the Apple Campus (also known by its address, 1 Infinite Loop), a grouping of six buildings in Cupertino that total located about to the west of Apple Park. The Apple Campus was the company's headquarters from its opening in 1993, until the opening of Apple Park in 2017. The buildings, located at 1–6 Infinite Loop, are arranged in a circular pattern around a central green space, in a design that has been compared to that of a university. In addition to Apple Park and the Apple Campus, Apple occupies an additional thirty office buildings scattered throughout the city of Cupertino, including three buildings as prior headquarters: Stephens Creek Three from 1977 to 1978, Bandley One from 1978 to 1982, and Mariani One from 1982 to 1993. In total, Apple occupies almost 40% of the available office space in the city. Apple's headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are located in Cork in the south of Ireland, called the Hollyhill campus. The facility, which opened in 1980, houses 5,500 people and was Apple's first location outside of the United States. Apple's international sales and distribution arms operate out of the campus in Cork. Apple has two campuses near Austin, Texas: a campus opened in 2014 houses 500 engineers who work on Apple silicon and a campus opened in 2021 where 6,000 people work in technical support, supply chain management, online store curation, and Apple Maps data management. The company also has several other locations in Boulder, Colorado; Culver City, California; Herzliya (Israel), London, New York, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Seattle that each employ hundreds of people. Litigation Apple has been a participant in various legal proceedings and claims since it began operation. In particular, Apple is known for and promotes itself as actively and aggressively enforcing its intellectual property interests. Some litigation examples include Apple v. Samsung, Apple v. Microsoft, Motorola Mobility v. Apple Inc., and Apple Corps v. Apple Computer. Apple has also had to defend itself against charges on numerous occasions of violating intellectual property rights. Most have been dismissed in the courts as shell companies known as patent trolls, with no evidence of actual use of patents in question. On December 21, 2016, Nokia announced that in the US and Germany, it has filed a suit against Apple, claiming that the latter's products infringe on Nokia's patents. Most recently, in November 2017, the United States International Trade Commission announced an investigation into allegations of patent infringement in regards to Apple's remote desktop technology; Aqua Connect, a company that builds remote desktop software, has claimed that Apple infringed on two of its patents. Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Apple in August 2020 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, related to Apple's practices in the iOS App Store. In January 2022, Ericsson sued Apple over payment of royalty of 5G technology. On June 24, 2024, the European Commission accused Apple of violating the Digital Markets Act by preventing "app developers from freely steering consumers to alternative channels for offers and content". In April 2025, Apple was found guilty and fined €500 million ($570 million) for violating the Digital Markets Act. Lobbying In 2025, Apple was one of the donors who funded the White House's East Wing demolition, and planned building of a ballroom. == Finances ==

As of 2024, Apple was the world's fourth-largest personal computer vendor, the largest vendor of tablet computers, and the largest vendor of mobile phones. It is a Big Tech company. In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple reported a total of $108 billion in annual revenues—a significant increase from its 2010 revenues of $65 billion—and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves. On March 19, 2012, Apple announced plans for a $2.65-per-share dividend beginning in the fourth quarter of 2012, per approval by its board of directors. The company's worldwide annual revenue in 2013 totaled $170 billion. In May 2013, Apple entered the top ten of the Fortune 500 list of companies for the first time, rising 11 places above its 2012 ranking to take the sixth position. , Apple has around US$234 billion of cash and marketable securities, of which 90% is located outside the United States for tax purposes. Apple amassed 65% of all profits made by the eight largest worldwide smartphone manufacturers in quarter one of 2014, according to a report by Canaccord Genuity. In the first quarter of 2015, the company garnered 92% of all earnings. On April 30, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had cash reserves of $250 billion, officially confirmed by Apple as specifically $256.8 billion a few days later. , Apple was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. On August 2, 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded US company to reach a $1 trillion market value, and, , is valued at just over $4 trillion. Apple was ranked No. 3 on the 2023 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by revenue. In July 2022, Apple reported an 11% decline in Q3 profits compared to 2021. Its revenue in the same period rose 2% year-on-year to $83 billion, though this figure was also lower than in 2021, where the increase was at 36%. The general downturn is reportedly caused by the slowing global economy and supply chain disruptions in China. That year, Apple was one of the largest corporate spenders on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure amounting to over $27 billion. In May 2023, Apple reported a decline in its sales for the first quarter of 2023. Compared to that of 2022, revenue for 2023 fell by 3%. This is Apple's second consecutive quarter of sales decline. This fall is attributed to the slowing economy and consumers putting off purchases of iPads and computers due to increased pricing. However, iPhone sales held up with a year-on-year increase of 1.5%. According to Apple, demands for such devices were strong, particularly in Latin America and South Asia. Taxes Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world. According to The New York Times, in the 1980s Apple was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed the company to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes. In the late 1980s, Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich", which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. British Conservative Party Member of Parliament Charlie Elphicke published research on October 30, 2012, which showed that some multinational companies, including Apple, were making billions of pounds of profit in the UK, but were paying an effective tax rate to the UK Treasury of only 3 percent, well below standard corporate tax rates. He followed this research by calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to force these multinationals, which also included Google and the Coca-Cola Company, to state the effective rate of tax it pays on its UK revenues. Elphicke also said that government contracts should be withheld from multinationals who do not pay their fair share of UK tax. According to a US Senate report on the company's offshore tax structure concluded in May 2013, Apple has held billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries to pay little or no taxes to any government by using an unusual global tax structure. The main subsidiary, a holding company that includes Apple's retail stores throughout Europe, has not paid any corporate income tax in the last five years. "Apple has exploited a difference between Irish and U.S. tax residency rules", the report said. On May 21, 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook defended his company's tax tactics at a Senate hearing. Apple says that it is the single largest taxpayer in the US, with an effective tax rate of approximately of 26% as of Q2 FY2016. In an interview with the German newspaper FAZ in October 2017, Tim Cook stated that Apple was the biggest taxpayer worldwide. In 2016, after a two-year investigation, the European Commission claimed that Apple's use of a hybrid Double Irish tax arrangement constituted "illegal state aid" from Ireland, and ordered Apple to pay €13 billion ($14.5 billion) in unpaid taxes, the largest corporate tax fine in history. This was later annulled, after the European General Court ruled that the commission had provided insufficient evidence. In 2018, Apple repatriated $285 billion to the United States, resulting in a $38-billion tax payment spread over the following eight years. Charity Apple is a partner of Product Red, a fundraising campaign for AIDS charity. In November 2014, Apple arranged for all App Store revenue in a two-week period to go to the fundraiser, generating more than US$20 million, and in March 2017, it released an iPhone 7 with a red color finish. , Apple has donated over $250 million to Product Red. Apple contributes financially to fundraisers in times of natural disasters. In November 2012, it donated $2.5 million to the American Red Cross to aid relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy, and in 2017 it donated $5 million to relief efforts for both Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, and for the 2017 Central Mexico earthquake. The company has used its iTunes platform to encourage donations in the wake of environmental disasters and humanitarian crises, such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Japan earthquake, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013, and the 2015 European migrant crisis. Apple emphasizes that it does not incur any processing or other fees for iTunes donations, sending 100% of the payments directly to relief efforts, though it also acknowledges that the Red Cross does not receive any personal information on the users donating and that the payments may not be tax deductible. On April 14, 2016, Apple and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced that they have engaged in a partnership to, "help protect life on our planet". Apple released a special page in the iTunes App Store, Apps for Earth. In the arrangement, Apple has committed that through April 24, WWF will receive 100% of the proceeds from the applications participating in the App Store via both the purchases of any paid apps and the In-App Purchases. Apple and WWF's Apps for Earth campaign raised more than $8 million in total proceeds to support WWF's conservation work. WWF announced the results at WWDC 2016 in San Francisco. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple's CEO Cook announced that the company would be donating "millions" of masks to health workers in the United States and Europe. On January 13, 2021, Apple announced a $100-million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative to help combat institutional racism worldwide after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. In June 2023, Apple announced that it was doubling this and then distributed more than $200 million to support organizations focused on education, economic growth, and criminal justice. Half is philanthropic grants and half is centered on equity. == Environment ==

Apple Energy Apple Energy, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple that sells solar energy. , Apple's solar farms in California and Nevada have been declared to provide 217.9 megawatts of solar generation capacity. Apple has received regulatory approval to construct a landfill gas energy plant in North Carolina to use the methane emissions to generate electricity. Apple's North Carolina data center is already powered entirely by renewable sources. Energy and resources In 2010, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to directing consumers toward the greenest companies, gave Apple a score of 52 points out of a possible 100, which puts Apple in its top category "Striding". This was an increase from May 2008, when Climate Counts only gave Apple 11 points out of 100, which placed the company last among electronics companies, at which time Climate Counts also labeled Apple with a "stuck icon", adding that Apple at the time was "a choice to avoid for the climate-conscious consumer". Following a Greenpeace protest, Apple released a statement on April 17, 2012, committing to ending its use of coal and shifting to 100% renewable clean energy. By 2013, Apple was using 100% renewable energy to power its data centers. Overall, 75% of the company's power came from clean renewable sources. In May 2015, Greenpeace evaluated the state of the Green Internet and commended Apple on its environmental practices saying, "Apple's commitment to renewable energy has helped set a new bar for the industry, illustrating in very concrete terms that a 100% renewable Internet is within its reach, and providing several models of intervention for other companies that want to build a sustainable Internet." , Apple states that 100% of its US operations run on renewable energy, 100% of Apple's data centers run on renewable energy and 93% of Apple's global operations run on renewable energy. However, the facilities are connected to the local grid which usually contains a mix of fossil and renewable sources, so Apple uses carbon offsets for its electricity use. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) allows consumers to see the effect a product has on the environment. Each product receives a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rank depending on its efficiency and sustainability. Every Apple tablet, notebook, desktop computer, and display that EPEAT ranks achieves a Gold rating, the highest possible. Although Apple's data centers recycle water 35 times, the increased activity in retail, corporate and data centers also increase the amount of water use to in 2015. During an event on March 21, 2016, Apple provided a status update on its environmental initiative to be 100% renewable in all of its worldwide operations. Lisa P. Jackson, Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives who reports directly to CEO, Tim Cook, announced that , 93% of Apple's worldwide operations are powered with renewable energy. Also featured was the company's efforts to use sustainable paper in its product packaging; 99% of all paper used by Apple in the product packaging comes from post-consumer recycled paper or sustainably managed forests, as the company continues its move to all paper packaging for all of its products. Apple announced on August 16, 2016, that Lens Technology, one of its major suppliers in China, has committed to power all its glass production for Apple with 100 percent renewable energy by 2018. The commitment was a large step in Apple's efforts to help manufacturers lower their carbon footprint in China. Apple also announced that all 14 of its final assembly sites in China are now compliant with UL's Zero Waste to Landfill validation. The standard, which started in January 2015, certifies that all manufacturing waste is reused, recycled, composted, or converted into energy (when necessary). Since the program began, nearly 140,000 metric tons of waste have been diverted from landfills. On July 21, 2020, Apple announced its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. In the next 10 years, Apple will try to lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including: low carbon product design, expanding energy efficiency, renewable energy, process and material innovations, and carbon removal. In June 2024, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a report about an electronic computer manufacturing facility leased by Apple in 2015 in Santa Clara, California, code named Aria. The EPA report stated that Apple was potentially in violation of federal regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The inspection found that Apple was potentially mistreating waste as only subject to California regulations and that it had potentially miscalculated the effectiveness of Apple's activated carbon filters, which filter volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air. The EPA inspected the facility in August 2023 due to a tip from a former Apple employee who posted the report on X. in 2008, Apple became the first electronics manufacturer to eliminate all polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in its complete product line. In June 2007, Apple began replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCDs in its computers with mercury-free LED-backlit LCD and arsenic-free glass, starting with the upgraded MacBook Pro. Apple offers comprehensive and transparent information about the CO2e, emissions, materials, and electrical usage concerning every product it currently produces or has sold in the past (and which it has enough data needed to produce the report), in its portfolio on its homepage. Allowing consumers to make informed purchasing decisions on the products it offers for sale. Since 2009, all Apple products have mercury-free LED-backlit LCDs, arsenic-free glass, and non-PVC cables. All Apple products have EPEAT Gold status and beat the latest Energy Star guidelines in each product's respective regulatory category. In November 2011, Apple was featured in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy policy, and how "green" its products are. The company ranked fourth of fifteen electronics companies (moving up five places from the previous year) with a score of 4.6/10. Greenpeace praised Apple's sustainability, noting that the company exceeded its 70% global recycling goal in 2010. Apple continues to score well on product ratings, with all of its products now being free of PVC plastic and BFRs. However, the guide criticized Apple on the Energy criteria for not seeking external verification of its greenhouse gas emissions data, and for not setting any targets to reduce emissions. In January 2012, Apple requested that its cable maker, Volex, begin producing halogen-free USB and power cables. Green bonds In February 2016, Apple issued a -billion green bond (climate bond), the first ever of its kind by a US tech company. The green bond proceeds are dedicated to the financing of environmental projects. == Supply chain ==

, Apple used hardware components from 43 different countries. Apple products were made in the United States in Apple-owned factories until the late 1990s; however, as a result of outsourcing initiatives in the 2000s, almost all of its manufacturing is now handled abroad. According to a report by The New York Times, Apple insiders "believe the vast scale of overseas factories, as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers, have so outpaced their American counterparts that 'Made in the U.S.A.' is no longer a viable option for most Apple products". South Korean firms, including Samsung and LG, worked closely with Apple as parts partners for the iMac, iPod, and iPhone before it increased its reliance on Taiwan and China. Taiwanese Apple suppliers such as Foxconn, Wistron, Pegatron, Quanta, and Compal Electronics established a sizable manufacturing presence in China. By the 2020s, orders were shifting to Chinese firms such as to Luxshare, BYD Electronic, Goertek, and Wingtech. By 2021, Apple had more suppliers from China than Taiwan. and in May, the Journal wrote that an Apple manufacturer had begun production of iPhone SE in the country, In May 2017, the company announced a $1-billion funding project for "advanced manufacturing" in the United States, In April 2019, Apple initiated manufacturing of iPhone 7 at its Bengaluru facility. The company's manufacturing, procurement, and logistics enable it to execute massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories. In 2011, Apple's profit margins were 40 percent, compared with between 10 and 20 percent for most other hardware companies. Cook's catchphrase to describe his focus on the company's operational arm is: "Nobody wants to buy sour milk." Labor force Apple directly employs 147,000 workers including 25,000 corporate employees in Apple Park and across Silicon Valley. The vast majority of its employees work at the over 500 retail Apple Stores globally. Apple relies on a larger, outsourced workforce for manufacturing, particularly in China where Apple directly employs 10,000 workers across its retail and corporate divisions. In addition, one further million workers are contracted by Apple's suppliers to assemble Apple products, including Foxconn and Pegatron. Zhengzhou Technology Park alone employs 350,000 Chinese workers in Zhengzhou to exclusively work on the iPhone. Apple workers around the globe have been involved in organizing since the 1990s. Apple unions are made up of retail, corporate, and outsourced workers. Apple employees have joined trade unions or formed works councils in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2021, Apple Together, a solidarity union, sought to bring together the company's global worker organizations. The majority of industrial labor disputes (including union recognition) involving Apple occur indirectly through its suppliers and contractors, notably Foxconn plants in China and, to a lesser extent, in Brazil and India. Apple has been criticized for labor sourcing and conditions at the facilities of its contract manufacturers as well as mines. == See also ==