AppleWe’ll start up with Apple , for obvious if un - alphabetic reasonableness . Why name a computer ship’s company after a yield ? Was it to be at the start of all computer leaning in the same way that business telephony directories pop out with wrapping name such as of AAA111 Taxis ? on the face of it not , and anyway Acorn jumped in ahead of it .
One level has it that Apple cobalt - founder Steve Jobs used to peck apple while at a commune and chose this rather easy connection as divine guidance ( root : ‘ The Little Kingdom ’ by Michael Moritz ) .
Another story is that Fab Four sports fan Jobs nick the name from the Beatles ’ label Apple Records – a decision that would later involve it in ceaselessly tedious legal haggle when Jobs and co give up iTunes and so forth .
Other names confuse in the ring for the two Steves ’ fresh new computer company included the mouse - swallowingly bad Executek and Matrix Electronics . ( origin : ‘ Apple Confidential 2.0 ’ by Owen Linzmayer )
Woz has enounce that “ to a marketer Apple was an leftover name . It came from the day when you picked an interesting , fun name for a company . You do that when you ’re on a hobby basis . The ad way kept tell us the name had to be changed . We had to have a name that suggest technology , figure crunching , calculations , database . We occupy the attitude that Apple is a good name . Our estimator would be favorable - everything an apple represents , healthy , personal , in the dwelling . We had to sustain our earth on that one . ”
Whatever the story Apple was a neat name for the new inauguration , and the antithesis of the old guard of Hewlett - Packard , Fairchild , etc . As Michael Malone writes in his Apple history‘Infinite Loop’the Apple name was “ smart , suspect , antiestablishment , unforgettable , favorable but hip . ” It was n’t just a name “ it was the climax of the Age of Aquarius ” .
AdobeOnce a great ally of Apple and collaborator pioneer in screen background publishing ’s marriage of PostScript and Apple ’s Mac and LaserWriter Adobe fell from grace when the once - faithful design software system collaborator apparently abandoned Apple at its lowest moment .
Adobe jilted the Mac from key program upgrades ( most notably with its Premiere TV - editing software ) , forcing Apple to produce its own alternatives ( Final Cut , which it buy from Macromedia before Adobe buy that company itself – it ’s incestuous industriousness , is n’t it , which means comprehend slights and public proclamation often lead to nasty short bosom - for - tat battles such as this one ) .
Steve Jobs saw this as a revolting betrayal from the company that Apple once owned a 15 % stake in .
He is now wreaking his revenge by deny Adobe ’s Flash access to its new wonder products the iPhone and iPad .
AirPortExcept maybe banging an inter - pileus in its names Apple loves nothing more than a smart but dull pun , and so picked AirPort as the title for its Wi - Fi products in 1999 . Confusingly the first AirPort Base Station actually resemble a UFO . It has to be admitted , however , that it ’s catchy than the more stately IEEE 802.11 .
Aluminum(Or aluminium as we outside of the US jauntily like to call it ) “ We ’re turning to aluminum and glass ” Steve Jobs announced in 2007 .
Apple has something of a infatuation on aluminum – making most of its hardware product out of the silvery blank extremity of the boron chemical group of chemic elements , and even simulate the stuff indiscriminately with its brushed metallic element package and across its site .
Apple even named some of its products after the lightweight and lasting metal .
There ’s plenty of it , too – atomic number 13 is the most abundant metal in the Earth ’s crust , and the third most abundant element after oxygen and Si . It makes up about 8 percent by weight of the Earth ’s substantial aerofoil , and about the same on the average participating Mac ’s screen .
AmelioWhen you think of Apple leaders you probably recall the visionary legend that is Steve Jobs or his cuddly ewok - similar Colorado - founder Woz . But for over a dozen blue years Steve was absent from the company he base and lesser piece support in his lieu .
At its abject tip Apple ’s card of directors nominate the cost - cutting CEO of National Semiconductor Gil Amelio as the company ’s novel boss to return Apple to lucrativeness . Receiving $ 100,000 for purpose of his individual jet while on Apple business was n’t the best start in Amelio ’s nonindulgence measures – nor was his $ 1 m salary or courteous little $ 5 MiB loan he procured from the ail heavyweight .
But Amelio did cut price , slashing the Apple workforce by a third . In scrapping the next - genesis Copland operating system Amelio did his best work bringing back Steve Jobs via Apple ’s acquirement of his NeXT OS in 1996 – which rick out to be the business world ’s most successful takeover but also the most expensive vocation suicide . Jobs do in little time turfing out the garrulous Amelio and taking back his company – and for that we should be eternally thankful .
More : The raise and Fall of Gil Amelio at Apple
AOLLong before Time Warner and the cyberspace bonanza Apple replace its undesirable AppleLink online service with a joint venture with a company called Quantum , then rebranded America Online . As part of the deal it acquired 2 m part of AOL strain at a cost of $ 12.5 m – 5 percent of the caller . Apple sold the share in 1996 at a profit of $ 39 m. If it had waited till 1999 when AOL ’s stock peaked those same shares would have been worth … hold off for it … $ 24.5 billion . ( Source : ‘ Apple Confidential 2.0 ’ , Linzmayer )
AppExactly like an “ app ” but cuter sounding and much easier to contract pun from . Some people probably think Apple invented them , too . There was also once talk of “ applets ” , but gratefully this never really caught on .
Apple CaféBefore the Apple Store came ( or rather did n’t come ) the Apple Café – a 1996 suggest chain of themed restaurants featuring video - conferencing unit and a range of Apple T - shirt and software system . The nutrient was to have been eclectic and alimentary but the idea conk when the licensee grew too worried about Apple ’s failing wellness .
Apple StoreNot yet selling Apple coffees the luxuriously appointed Apple Store attend like an act from the last days of Rome when first shown off by Steve Jobs in 2001 , but there are now over 300 spread across the world generating millions of sales and force envious but unlucky emulator moves from the likes of Microsoft . The two largest Apple Stores are both in London , for some reason .
April Fools ’ DayNot an auspicious day to find your company but in 1976 at least in keeping with the cheeky nature of Apple carbon monoxide gas - laminitis and noted trickster Steve Wozniak , and Steve Jobs ’ knowing smirk .
AquaAqua just used to be one of the few words you knew when you went to Europe on holiday , but for most of us it ’s also the shiny , semitransparent , sometimes pulsing optic theme of former version of Mac OS X. Describing Aqua ’s glossy esthetical Steve Jobs said : “ One of the design end was when you saw it you wanted to lick it . ” today there ’s not as much to tongue in the Mac port but some elements persevere , such as the dealings - light Close , Minimize and Open release at the top - leftfield of folder and written document windows .
AT&TNow the single and hated US iPhone mobile attack aircraft carrier AT&T was once in negotiations to coalesce with Apple in a deal push by Apple ’s then CEO John Sculley in 1993 . It very closely bechance but AT&T felt burned by its foul up buyout of microcomputer Jehovah NCR and walk aside – “ Boy , you have a phenomenal party . You have incisively what we ask . But we bought the awry company , ” CEO Bob Allen told a devastated Sculley – over the phone , of course . ( origin : ‘ Apple : The Inside Story of Intrigue , Egomania , and Business Blunders ’ by Jim Carlton )
AtariSteve Jobs worked for arcade games company Atari before growing up and ground Apple . He have his pal Woz to help him design a prototype of the later legendary Breakout secret plan for the ship’s company .
AtkinsonBill Atkinson was one of the original developers of the Macintosh , responsible for for the QuickDraw toolbox that support the new graphical substance abuser port – making him the “ principal designer of the Macintosh UI ” . He also created the computer Menu Bar , MacPaint and the Marching Ants selection animation ( which he based on a tasteless beer sign he spotted in a legal profession ; the foretoken was tasteless , not the beer ) . He is now a noted lensman .
