Project

In

Contemporary world

Submitted by: Caira Rose Fernando

Introduction

Apple Computers, Inc. was founded on April 1, 1976, by college dropouts Steve Jobs and

Steve Wozniak, who brought to the new company a vision of changing the way people viewed

computers. Jobs and Wozniak wanted to make computers small enough for people to have them

in their homes or offices. Simply put, they wanted a computer that was user-friendly. Jobs and

Wozniak started out building the Apple I in Jobs' garage and sold them without a monitor,

keyboard, or casing (which they decided to add on in 1977). The Apple II revolutionized the

computer industry with the introduction of the first-ever color graphics.1 Sales jumped from $7.8

million in 1978 to $117 million in 1980, the year Apple went public. Wozniak left Apple in 1983

due to a diminishing interest in the day-to-day running of Apple Computers. Jobs then hired

PepsiCo's John Sculley to be president. However, this move backfired and after much

controversy with Sculley, Jobs left in 1985 and went on to new and bigger things. He founded

his own company NeXT Software and he also bought Pixar from George Lucas, which would

later become a huge success in computer animation of such movies as Toy Story, A Bug's

Life, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo.

Through the rest of the 1980s, Apple was still doing well and in 1990 it posted its highest profits

yet. This was, however, mostly due to the plans that Jobs had already set in motion before he left,

most notably his deal with a tiny company by the name of Adobe, creator of the Adobe Portable

Document Format (PDF). Together the two companies created the phenomenon known as

desktop publishing. Back in 1985 Sculley turned down an appeal from Microsoft founder Bill

Gates to license its software. This decision would later come back to haunt him because
Microsoft, whose Windows operating system (OS) featured a graphical interface similar to

Apple's, became their toughest competition in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.Over the

course of a few years, Apple's market share suffered slowly after its peak in 1990 and by 1996,

experts believed the company to be doomed. It was not until 1997, when Apple was desperately

in need of an operating system, that it bought out NeXT Software (Jobs' company) and the board

of directors decided to ask for some help from an old friend: Steve Jobs. Jobs became an interim

CEO, or iCEO as he called himself (Jobs was not officially the CEO until 2000). Jobs decided to

make some changes around Apple. He forged an alliance with Microsoft to create a Mac version

of its popular office software.

Not long after this decision was the turning point for the company. Jobs revamped the computers

and introduced the iBook (a personal laptop). He also started branching out into mp3 players

(iPod) and media player software (iTunes). This was Jobs' best move yet. While computers are

still an important part of Apple, its music related products (i.e. iPod and iTunes) have become

the company's most profitable sector. Apple has also recently released the iPhone, a cellular

phone, and the Apple TV. While Steve Jobs died October 5, 2011, Apple continues on with his

legacy.Apple Inc. has pioneered its way through the computer industry—not once, but multiple

times throughout its existence. It believes in pushing the limits of creativity in order to produce

interesting and valuable products for society. After more than 30 years, it is undeniable that

Apple "has had a profound impact on technology, innovating and influencing not only how we

use computers but the activities for which what we use them.
 Discussion

Apple Inc. designs, manufactures and markets mobile communication and media devices,

personal computers and portable digital music players. The Company sells a range of related

software, services, accessories, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and

applications. The Company's segments include the Americas, Europe, Greater China, Japan and

Rest of Asia Pacific. The Americas segment includes both North and South America. The

Europe segment includes European countries, India, the Middle East and Africa. The Greater

China segment includes China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The Rest of Asia Pacific segment

includes Australia and the Asian countries not included in the Company's other operating

segments. Its products and services include iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, Apple Watch, Apple TV, a

portfolio of consumer and professional software applications, iPhone OS (iOS), OS X and

watchOS operating systems, iCloud, Apple Pay and a range of accessory, service and support

offerings.

In 2018, Apple announced its highest annual revenue to date with 265.6 billion U.S. dollars

generated in revenue. About 218 billion U.S. dollars of this was generated by sales of the iPhone,

meaning that the smart device was responsible for an average of around 82 percent of the

company’s total global revenue. Sales of the iPhone reached about 218 million unitsin 2017, a

significant increase from the 150 million units that were sold in 2013 and the 40 million

units sold in 2010. Apple remains one of the market leaders in the smartphone industry.

Apple also increased sales of the iPad, with shipments reaching more than 13 million units in the

first quarter of 2018, earning the company revenue of 5.9 billion U.S. dollars. The iPad

contributed an average share of 6.6 percent to Apple’s total global revenue in the first quarter of
2018. However, Apple has seen its market share of global tablet shipments drop in recent years

due to increasing competition from other tablet vendors including Samsung and Lenovo. As a

result the global tablet market share of the iPad stood at 25.8 percent in the third quarter of 2017,

a sharp contrast to the 60.3 percent share it enjoyed in the second quarter of 2012.

Apple may be the first publicly traded trillion-dollar company in the U.S., but the tech giant’s

42-year track record hasn’t been all sunshine and iPhones (the company has sold well over a

billion of the smartphones). In fact, even the company that revolutionized the personal computer

industry with the Macintosh has had its share of failures over the years, from an overheating

computer to a handheld device that co-founder Steve Jobs hated and comedy writers

mocked.And as Steve Jobs himself one said: “You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn.... If

you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”Here are some of the Apple products from the

past four decades that totally flopped.

The Apple II was the product that first catapulted Apple to success in 1977, when it became the

first commercially successful personal computer and went on to sell between five and six million

units by the time it was discontinued in 1993. The Apple III? Not so much. Released in 1980, the

Apple III was intended for use by businesses, featuring expanded keyboard functions and a

larger display. Steve Jobs reportedly wanted the machine to run quietly, so he insisted that the

Apple III would have no cooling fan or vents. Engineers built the computer with an aluminum

case to help it remain cool, but the Apple III overheated anyway, sometimes even causing

computer chips and floppy disks (remember those?) to melt inside. Co-founder Steve

Wozniak lamented that the Apple III “had 100 percent hardware failures,” forcing Apple to

recall and replace every single one of the first 14,000 Apple III’s produced. A revised version of
the Apple III fixed the earlier issues, but the damage to the product’s reputation sunk any

chances of it catching on. Apple discontinued the Apple III in 1984, with Jobs claiming the

company lost “infinite, incalculable amounts” of money on the product line.

Released in 1983, the Apple Lisa was notable for being one of the first commercial computers to

be sold with a mouse and to feature a graphical user interface (or GUI, which means the screen

has icons and images rather than just lines of text). The Lisa (which may or may not have been

named after founder Steve Jobs’ daughter) also featured an incredibly steep price-tag of $9,995

that proved prohibitive for too many customers. The high price hurt sales of the Lisa, with Apple

only selling about 100,000 units before the model was eventually discontinued after a few years.

It also didn’t help the Lisa that, in 1984, Apple released what would become one of its most

iconic products, its first Macintosh computer, which was significantly cheaper than the Lisa and

proved much more popular. “First of all, it was too expensive—about ten grand,” Jobs said about

the Lisa in an interview with Playboy in 1985. We had gotten Fortune 500-itis, trying to sell to

those huge corporations, when our roots were selling to people.”Unfortunately, the product’s

failure meant that Apple had roughly 2,700 unsold units leftover, which the tech company

actually ended up dumping in a Utah landfill.

The Apple Newton, When Apple first released its Newton personal digital assistant (PDA) in

1993, the product was meant to kick off a revolution in handheld tech devices. The Newton

featured an innovative handwriting feature where users wrote on the device’s screen with a stylus

pen and the Newton would translate the handwriting into digital text. Apple’s marketing boasted

that the Newton could take notes as easily as “a piece of paper.” The only problem was that the
handwriting recognition feature did not work as well as Apple had hoped, too often resulting in

an indecipherable jumble of words. The Newton became the subject of widespread pop culture

mockery, including in the “Doonesbury” comic strip and a reference on Fox’s “The Simpsons.”

Apple’s then CEO, John Sculley (Jobs had been pushed out of the company in 1985),

reportedly expected to sell 1 million Newtons in the first year, but instead the company sold only

50,000 in the first three months and then stopped touting the product’s sales figures. Jobs

officially killed the Newton shortly after he returned to Apple in 1997. Jobs later dissed the

Newton to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, mocking the idea that the device used a stylus when

people should be able to just use their fingers. “By shutting it down, I freed up some good

engineers who could work on new mobile devices,” Jobs told Isaacson for his 2011 biography.

“And eventually we got it right when we moved on to iPhones and the iPad.”

The Macintosh TV was another failed product attempt that appeared during Jobs’ exile from the

company he co-founded. Also launched in 1993, the product was an early attempt at combining a

computer with the experience of watching television — something that’s done today on

everything from laptops to tablets and smartphones, but it was not as commonplace in the early

’90s. The Macintosh TV essentially resembled a Macintosh LC 500 series computer, but it was

outfitted with a TV tuner card that allowed users to hook it up to a TV antenna or cable line. But

you couldn’t watch TV while using the computer, as the product only allowed you to switch

back and forth from a computer function to watching TV on its 14-inch screen. Maybe if the

Macintosh TV had offered a picture-in-picture feature it would have caught on more with

consumers, but the lack of innovation, along with the fact that the product cost a whopping
$2,099, made it a flop.Apple sold only 10,000 Macintosh TVs and the company discontinued the

product after a little more than three months.

The main conclusion that I can say that we found to be the most interesting about Apple

is how they are very innovative and early adapters. Apple is usually the first company to come

out with a new product line before anyone else. This is very risky but it seems to be working to

Apples advantage. This shows that taking risks can sometimes make or break you and Apple has

great potential and has a lot to improve. Currently, Apple is demonstrating negative aspects of

TNCs, contributing to international debt crisis through exploitation of workers. In a way, Apple

is promoting debt crisis in LDCs by accessing their labour and raw materials on the cheapest

possible terms. If it is willing to play the role of a beneficial TNC, the global economy can

certainly benefit. Furthermore, people in the least developed countries, and the environment, will

benefit as well. This requires a change from all stakeholders: the company itself, the consumers,

the shareholders, and the workers. It is important for a TNC to progress towards beneficial

behaviour because this can determine people's view on progressing towards further globalization,

as influenced by neo-liberalism.