Steve Jobs at Apple: A timeline
It's been a wild ride for Jobs since he co-founded Apple more than 30 years ago; here's a look at some of the highlights and milestones
Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple's CEO on Wednesday, and Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook was named as his replacement. Jobs will remain with the company as chairman of the board.
Here are some highlights and key events in Jobs' career at Apple.
[ Galen Gruman says Apple with be just fine without Jobs at the helm. | Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: Wrap Up newsletter. ]
1971 -- Meets Steve Wozniak, with whom Jobs will later found Apple.
1975 -- Starts attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club for home computer enthusiasts.
1976 -- Jobs and Wozniak raise $1,750 and build their first marketable tabletop computer, the Apple I.
1976 -- Founds Apple Computer Company with Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Wayne sells his stake two weeks later.
1976 -- Jobs and Wozniak launch Apple I for $666.66, the first single-board computer with a video interface and an onboard ROM (Read Only Memory), which instructed the machine on how to load programs from an external source.
1977 -- Apple is incorporated as Apple Computer Inc., and the new company buys out the original partnership.
1977 -- Apple launches Apple II, the world's first widely used personal computer.
1980 -- Apple III launched.
1980 -- Apple goes public, share price jumps from $22 to $29 on the first day of trading.
1981 -- Jobs involves himself in Macintosh development.
1983 -- Recruits John Sculley as Apple president and chief executive officer.
1983 -- Announces "Lisa," the first mouse-controlled computer. It fails in the marketplace.
1984 -- Apple launches Macintosh with a splashy ad campaign on Super Bowl Sunday.
1985 -- Jobs ousted from Apple after boardroom struggle with Sculley. Jobs resigns and takes five Apple employees with him.
1985 -- Founds Next Inc. to develop computer hardware and software. Company later renamed Next Computer Inc.
1986 -- Buys Pixar from George Lucas for less than $10 million. Company later renamed Pixar Animation Studios.
1989 -- Next launches $6,500 NeXT Computer, also known as The Cube. It comes with a monochrome monitor and fails in the marketplace.
1996 -- Apple acquires Next Computer for $427 million; Jobs becomes advisor to Apple Chairman Gilbert F. Amelio.
1997 -- Jobs becomes interim CEO and chairman of Apple Computer Inc. after Amelio is ousted. Jobs' salary is $1.
1998 -- Apple releases the all-in-one iMac, which sells millions of units, financially reviving the company and boosting its share price by 400 percent. iMac wins the Gold Award from British Design and Art Direction. Vogue calls it "one of Spring's hottest fashion statements," and Business Week says it is "one of the century's lasting images."
1998 -- Apple returns to profitability and records four profitable quarters in a row.
2000 -- "Interim" dropped from Jobs' title.
2001 -- Apple makes first foray into consumer electronics with launch of iPod, the portable MP3 player. (It sells more than 4.4 million iPods in fiscal 2004.)
2003 -- Jobs announces the iTunes Music Store, which sells encoded songs and albums.
2004 -- In August, Jobs is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and undergoes surgery. He recovers and returns to work in September.
2007 -- Jobs announces the iPhone, one of the first smartphones without a keyboard, at Macworld Expo.
