Apple

Apple is a company from the USA that has been around since 1976. "Apple" is the English word for apple. Apple's distinctive mark is a bitten apple.

When Apple was founded, most computers were huge cabinets. Apple and other companies made smaller computers, for people in an office or even at home. Later, Apple started making other things and selling music.

One famous computer was the Macintosh from 1984, named after a type of apple. You operated it with a mouse and no longer typed in commands, but clicked on little pictures to start a programme. That was something very special at the time. But the Apple computers were more expensive than the computers that ran Microsoft's programmes. To this day, most people have a Microsoft computer. Microsoft is a different company: it hardly makes computers, but software that makes a computer work.

In 2001, Apple came out with the iPod. This little device could play music. In six years they sold more than a hundred million of them. What was and still is important is that you can also buy well-known pieces of music through Apple. The company also earns a lot of money with this. Two other well-known products from Apple are the iPhone, which is a smartphone, and the iPad, a tablet computer. The operating system for it is IOS.

One of the founders of Apple was Steve Jobs. He worked on the Macintosh, but later parted company in a dispute. He did not have so much success with his own computer company. Then he came back to Apple and made the company one of the most valuable in the world. Steve Jobs fell ill with cancer and died in 2011.