Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1976 as a personal-computer company.
The business began after Wozniak designed the Apple I, a computer sold primarily as a single assembled circuit board. Jobs recognized its commercial potential, and the pair worked with Ronald Wayne, who briefly became a third co-founder and produced an early partnership agreement and logo.
Apple Computer Company was formed on April 1, 1976. The Apple II, introduced in 1977, became one of the first widely successful mass-produced personal computers, helping establish the company in the growing home-computer market.
Jobs left Apple in 1985 and returned in 1997 after the company acquired NeXT. Apple later dropped “Computer” from its name in 2007, reflecting its expansion into music players, phones, tablets, and services. The company’s founding is therefore earlier than the Macintosh’s 1984 launch.