History of Apple Inc./Progress in the 1990s
< History of Apple Inc.Mid 90s
- Continued incompetence, or sowing what was reaped...
But by the mid 90's Apple was a shadow of its former self. With few exceptions, Apple products had become overpriced and uninspired; the majority of the product line consisted of indistinct rehashes of the 1984 Macintosh, with relatively minor improvements. Competing products beat the Macintosh in performance in almost every dimension save style, typically at a significantly lower price.
Apple was no longer a technological leader and struggled to stay afloat as the company lost money in all of 1994, 95, 96, and 97. The first quarter of 1997 marked a nadir, as Apple stock hit a 12-year low of $4 and the company reported a $708 million loss. Later that year, Apple's primary competitor, facing antitrust charges, infused Apple with $150 million to prevent looming disaster.
Late 90s
- Attempts at rebuilding
In 1998 Apple released the all-in-one iMac, designed much like the original Macintosh in a clear plastic and trimmed in translucent shades of red, blue, green and orange. The unit design utilized SCSI and Apple desktop bus (ADB) ports and priced at $999.00. Later the iMac portable followed in 1999, using the same clear plastic and trimmed translucent colors. Mac released upgrades to the iMac that followed with the G3, G4, G5 and eMac systems.
In 2001 Apple released the invention of the iPod MP3 player using a 1.8" hard disk and 5 GB and in 2004 and 2005 Apple released the iPod mini, iPod photo, iPod nano and iPod video along with the Mac mini, becoming the least expensive of all Apple computers. In 2006 and 2007, Apple switched to Intel's Core Duo processor which made operating Intel-processor based applications and software possible along with releasing the Apple tv.
Then, just as the end looked imminent, things turned around. Apple's stock price leveled off as the company began to earn meager profits again. New, competitive products began to hit store shelves, slowly at first, but by the early 2000s the company was out of trouble. As of 2006, the company has a $72 billion valuation and is the envy of the high-tech world.
Today, Jobs continues to lead the Apple Corporation into bold and revolutionary products and ideas that have changed the way we live our lives worldwide through technology.
Apple Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells personal computers, portable digital music players, and mobile communication devices, as well as related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions worldwide. The company's products include desktop and notebook computers, iPods, server and storage products, the Mac OS X Leopard operating system; iLife, a suite of software for creation and management of digital photography, music, movies, DVDs, and Web sites; and iWork, a suite of software for the creation and management of business presentations, newsletters and spreadsheets.