Timeline | all about Steve Jobs.com

Youth & Apple's early years 1955-1985

24 Feb 1955: Steven Paul was born in San Francisco, the son of Abdulfattah Jandali and Joanne Schieble. He is quickly adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs.

1960: The Jobs family moves from San Francisco to Mountain View, a suburban town in Santa Clara county, more famous under the name Silicon Valley.

Summer 1968: 13-year-old Steve Jobs calls up Bill Hewlett and gets a summer job at the HP factory.

1969: Steve Jobs meets Steve Wozniak, 5 years his elder, through a mutual friend. Woz and Steve share a love of electronics, Bob Dylan, and pranks.

1972

Phone Phreaks

Steve and Woz build and illegally sell 'blue boxes' that let one make phone calls for free.

1973: Steve spends the fall semester at Reed College, Oregon, then drops out. He stays on campus and attends classes that interest him for a while, then moves to a hippie commune.

1974: Steve gets his first job at video game maker Atari, and later makes a trip to India to 'seek enlightenment' with his college friend Dan Kottke.

Mar 1976: Woz and Steve show off the early Apple I board at the Homebrew Computer Club.

1 Apr 1976: Apple Computer Inc. is incorporated by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne.

Spring 1976: Steve and Woz start assembling Apple I computers in the Jobses' garage, and sell them to computer hobbyists, including 50 for the Byte Shop.

28 Aug 1976: Steve Jobs and Woz show off the Apple I at the Personal Computing Festival in Atlantic City, with help from Dan Kottke.

Jan 1977: Former Intel executive turned business angel Mike Markkula invests in Apple, and hires former colleague Mike Scott as CEO. Woz is forced to leave HP to join Apple full time.

17 Apr 1977

West Coast Computer Faire

Apple makes a huge sensation at the West Coast Computer Faire with a prototype Apple II.

1978: The Apple II becomes the first mass-market personal computer, with impressive sales around the US. Apple becomes a symbol of the personal computing revolution. At the company, work starts on the Apple III and the Lisa, while Jef Raskin begins writing The Book of Macintosh.

17 May 1978

Steve's ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan gives birth to their daugher Lisa. Steve refuses to acknowledge he is the father.

1979: Sales of Apple II skyrocket after revolutionary spreadsheet software Visicalc is introduced.

Dec 1979: Steve Jobs is shown the first working graphical user interface at Xerox PARC.

1980: Jef Raskin's Macintosh project is green-lit. Lisa evolves into a GUI-computer, in part because of Steve Jobs' demands.

May 1980: Apple launches the Apple III, which proves a disastrous flop.

12 Dec 1980: Apple goes public, increasing Steve Jobs' net worth from dozens of millions of dollars to over $200 million.

Early 1981: Jef Raskin is forced out of his Macintosh project as Steve Jobs takes over.

25 Feb 1981: Black Wednesday: 50 Apple employees laid off by CEO Mike Scott without notice. The board asks him to leave shortly afterwards. Mike Markkula becomes interim CEO.

12 Aug 1981: IBM launches the IBM PC, the biggest threat to Apple's future yet.

Feb 1982

Rise to Fame

A portrait of Steve Jobs ends up on the cover of Time Magazine, under the title 'Striking it Rich'. Steve trusts Time correspondent Michael Moritz to follow him on the Mac team for months, hoping to become Man of the Year.

3 Jan 1983: Time instead makes The Computer 'machine of the year' and publishes a hatchet job on Steve Jobs, who is furious and develops a mistrust of journalists for the rest of his life

19 Jan 1983: Launch of the Lisa computer. The Lisa team later merges with the Mac team under Steve Jobs's leadership.

8 Apr 1983: PepsiCo CEO John Sculley becomes Apple's CEO after having been wooed by Steve Jobs for several months.

24 Jan 1984

"Hello, I am Macintosh"

Macintosh is launched in great fanfare at Apple's annual shareholder meeting.

24 Feb 1985: Steve Jobs celebrates his 30th birthday with Ella Fitzgerald as guest singer for the night.

May 1985: Palace coup: Apple's board sides with John Sculley and strips Steve off all executive duties.

Summer 1985: Alan Kay first introduces the Pixar team to Steve Jobs.

17 Sep 1985

Steve Jobs resigns from Apple and starts NeXT with five other refugees from Apple. Apple announces it will sue NeXT.

NeXT Pixar and wilderness 1986-1996

1986: Steve's mother Clara dies. A couple months later, Steve discovers his biological mother Joanne and his sister, novelist Mona Simpson. They will become very close.

30 Jan 1986: Jobs buys the computer division of George Lucas' ILM for $10 million and incorporates it as Pixar.

Aug 1986: Pixar unveils John Lasseter's short film Luxo Jr. at SIGGRAPH. It is praised by the expert audience as one of the first computer-animated work of art.

Feb 1987: Ross Perot invests $20 million in NeXT, based on a $125 million valuation. The NeXT computer is still under development.

Sep 1988: NeXT and IBM form a partnership to have NeXT software run on IBM machines.

12 Oct 1988

NeXT Cube Introduction

Steve Jobs unveils the NeXT Cube in San Francisco to great critical acclaim, pitching it as a workstation for higher education.

Winter 1988: Pixar launches its new computer graphics workstation, the Pixar Image Computer II, and starts working on the RenderMan computer animation software.

Dec 1988: At SIGGRAPH, Pixar releases its new short Tin Toy. It will end up winning 1988's Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Mar 1989: NeXT partners with retailer Businessland to sell to corporate America in addition to higher ed.

Apr 1989: Steve Jobs is named 'Entrepreneur of the decade' by Inc. magazine.

30 Apr 1989: Steve shuts down all of Pixar's hardware operations.

Jun 1989: Canon invests $100 million in NeXT, now valued at $600 million.

13 Sep 1989: Steve introduces the cheaper NeXTstation in San Francisco, to boost the modest sales of NeXT hardware.

Mar 1991: Steve Jobs fires almost half of Pixar's staff and takes back all of the employees' stock in an effort to cut costs, as the company is still in the red 5 years after its launch.

18 Mar 1991

Wedding

Steve marries Laurene Powell in Yosemite under the blessing of Steve's old zen guru Kobin Chino. Laurene is already pregnant.

May 1991: Pixar signs a deal with Disney to make a computer-animated feature film.

Fall 1991: Laurene gives birth to Steve's second child and his only son, Reed Paul Jobs.

Jan 1992: NeXT licenses its operating system, NeXTSTEP, to run on Intel's x86 machines.

11 Feb 1993: NeXT fires 300 employees as it discontinues all its hardware operations and becomes NeXT Software Inc. This is the nadir of Steve's career.

Mar 1993

NeXT COO Peter Van Cuylenburg attemps for competitor Sun to buy NeXT. Sun CEO Scott McNealy warns Steve Jobs of the betrayal.

5 Mar 1993: Steve's (adoptive) father, Paul Jobs, dies.

Nov 1993: Disney's Jeffrey Katzenberg puts a halt to the development of Toy Story because of creative disagreements.

Nov 1994: Pixar resumes work on Toy Story.

Feb 1995: Steve starts focusing less on NeXT and more on Pixar before Toy Story is released. He becomes President & CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.

Late 1995: Laurene gives birth to Erin Siena Jobs, her second child with Steve.

29 Nov 1995

Pixar IPO

One week after Toy Story is out, Pixar goes public. Steve Jobs's worth rises to $1.5 billion, more than it ever was during his first tenure at Apple.

1996: Steve's biological sister Mona Simpson publishes her third novel, A Regular Guy, whose main character Tom Owens is largely based on her brother.

Early 1996: Steve Jobs negotiaties a breakthrough deal between Pixar and Disney with its CEO Michael Eisner. The deal includes landmark rights for a studio, such as equal billing.

Dec 1996: Apple, which was desperately looking for a modern operating system to buy, eventually buys NeXT for $400 million. Steve Jobs is named "informal adviser" to Apple CEO Gil Amelio.

Rebuilding Apple 1997-2004

Jul 1997: Gil Amelio is ousted by the Apple Board of directors after a disastrous quarter. Steve Jobs is named interim CEO in his place and installs his NeXT executive team at the top of Apple.

6 Aug 1997: Steve Jobs introduces Apple's new board of directors and a truce with Microsoft at Macworld Boston.

Fall 1997

Apple starts its Think Different campaign to restore its damaged brand image. The new slogan will quickly enter popular culture and define the company for the next five years.

8 Jan 1998: At Macworld, Steve Jobs announces that Apple is profitable again, thanks to sales of the new Power Macintosh computers.

May 1998: Birth of Eve Jobs, Laurene and Steve's youngest daughter.

6 May 1998

Say hello to iMac

Steve Jobs introduces Apple's revolutionary iMac at the Flint Center auditorium in Cupertino, 14 years after he had introduced the Macintosh at that same place.

5 Jan 1999: Steve Jobs introduces the new Power Mac G3 and the color iMacs at Macworld San Francisco.

Apr 1999: Pirates of Silicon Valley, a TV movie starring Noah Wyle as young Steve Jobs, airs.

21 Jul 1999: The original iBook is unveiled at Macworld New York with the tagline iMac to go. Steve Jobs invites Noah Wyle on stage to impersonate him again.

5 Oct 1999: Introduction of the iMac DV (for Digital Video) and iMovie, the first of Apple's first Digital Hub app.

5 Jan 2000

Steve Jobs becomes Apple CEO

At Macworld San Francisco, Steve Jobs drops the 'interim' in his title and officially becomes Apple's CEO. He also demoes Mac OS X's revolutionary Aqua interface to a bewildered audience.

19 Jul 2000: The Power Mac G4 Cube is unveiled at Macworld NY. It will be discontinued one year later because of disappointing sales.

9 Jan 2001: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's Digital Hub Strategy at Macworld SF: the Mac is to become the center of consumers' emerging digital lifestyles.

24 Mar 2001: After four years of hard work, Mac OS X 10.0, which was built on top of NeXT technology, finally ships.

19 May 2001: Apple opens its first Retail Stores in Tysons Corner, Virginia and Glendale, California.

23 Oct 2001

A Thousand Songs. In Your Pocket

After an 8-month crash development program, Steve Jobs unveils iPod at a small media event on the company's campus. He has no idea how it will tranform Apple.

7 Jan 2002: Steve unveils the iMac G4 and the fourth iApp, iPhoto, at Macworld San Francisco .

Mid 2002: Apple starts its popular 'Switch' campaign with ads picturing PC users that switched to the Mac.

17 Jul 2002: Steve Jobs introduces the first Windows-compatible iPods at Macworld NY .

28 Apr 2003: Apple opens the revolutionary online iTunes Music Store in the US, after negotiating landmark deals with all major music labels.

30 May 2003: Opening day of Finding Nemo, Pixar's first Best Animated Feature Academy Award winner.

Spring 2003: Following increasing tension with Michael Eisner, Steve Jobs announces that Pixar is seeking a new distributor to replace Disney after its contract expires.

23 Jun 2003: Steve Jobs unveils the Power Mac G5, the world's fastest computer, at WWDC'03 .

16 Oct 2003

The iPod Revolution

"The day hell froze over": Steve Jobs introduces iTunes for Windows and further demonstrates Apple's growing lead over its competitors in the digital music business.

Fall 2003: Steve Jobs is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but stubbornly refuses any modern medical treatment for months. He tries alternative diets instead.

6 Jan 2004: Steve unveils the iPod mini and the iLife suite at Macworld. The iPod mini will soon become the world's best-selling MP3 player and truly establish Apple as a consumer electronics powerhouse.

Aug 2004: Steve Jobs finally has his pancreatic tumor removed by surgery.

The Big Apple 2005-2011

11 Jan 2005: At Macworld, Steve Jobs unveils Apple's productivity suite iWork, the new Mac mini, and the iPod shuffle, the cheapest iPod ever at $49.

24 Feb 2005: Steve turns 50.

29 Apr 2005: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is released. A stable, fast release, it is immensely popular and marks the end of the four-year transition from the old Mac OS to UNIX-based Mac OS X.

6 Jun 2005: At WWDC 2005, Steve Jobs announces that Apple is going to switch away from Motorola's and IBM's PowerPC architectures, and use Intel processors in its future Macs instead. This move will further help the growing adoption of the Mac.

12 Jun 2005

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Steve Jobs makes a memorable commencement speech at Stanford University. History will remember its closing remarks, Steve's advice to the young students: 'Stay hungry, stay foolish', a quote from the last page of the Whole Earth Catalogue from his youth.

7 Sep 2005: Steve introduces the Motorola ROCKR, an iTunes-compatible cell phone, and the iPod nano.

12 Oct 2005: Steve Jobs invites Disney's new CEO Bob Iger on stage at an Apple Music Event where he also introduces the new iPod video, and the iTunes movie store.

10 Jan 2006: Steve Jobs unveils the first two Intel Macs at Macworld, the iMac and the new MacBook Pro.

24 Jan 2006

Disney buys Pixar

The Walt Disney Company acquires Pixar for $7.4 billion. Pixar's largest shareholder Steve Jobs joins the Disney board while Ed Catmull becomes president of the Walt Disney Animation Studios, and John Lasseter its chief creative officer. Just before the announcement, Jobs secretly told Disney CEO Bob Iger that his cancer had returned.

28 Feb 2006: Apple releases its first living-room product, the iPod hi-fi, discontinued a year and a half later.

18 Apr 2006: Steve Jobs announces Apple's intention to erect a second campus in Cupertino.

Mid 2006: Apple starts its famous 'Mac vs PC' campaign, a series of TV commercials featuring Justin Long as Mac and John Hodgman as PC. The campaign will last for three years and mark popular culture.

7 Aug 2006: Apple completes the transition of its entire product line to the Intel platform with the new Mac Pro.

9 Jan 2007

Welcome to iPhone

In his most memorable keynote presentation ever, at Macworld 2007, Steve Jobs introduces iPhone and its revolutionary touch-screen interface. He also introduces Apple TV and announces the company's name change from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. to better reflect its new nature.

Apr 2007: The SEC files charges against Apple's Nancy Heinen and Fred Anderson for options backdating.

29 Jun 2007: iPhone is released in the US, the same day as Pixar's 8th feature film, Ratatouille.

5 Dec 2007: Steve Jobs is inducted in the California Hall of Fame by Gov. Schwartzenegger.

15 Jan 2008: At Macworld 2008, Steve Jobs introduces MacBook Air, with the tagline 'the world's thinnest notebook'. Three years later, it will come to redefine all of Apple's notebook product line.

6 Mar 2008

The App Revolution

Apple announces it will open the iPhone platform to outside developers with the App Store. VC fund KPCB starts iFund to invest in the new mobile app economy that they (rightly) believe will sprout from it.

9 May 2008: The press starts speculating about Steve Jobs's health as he appears very thin to unveil the iPhone 3G with an entry price of $199 on stage at WWDC.

Aug 2008: The SEC clears Steve Jobs of any responsibilities in the options backdating scandal.

Late 2008: Apple starts its popular 'There's an app for that' campaign to illustrate the growing popularity of the App Store and the thousands of iPhone apps it offers.

5 Jan 2009: Steve Jobs announces he will not speak at Macworld 2009 because of his health, and takes a six-month medical leave of absence.

Apr 2009: Steve receives a liver transplant at the Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He was weeks away from dying when he got the surgery.

3 Aug 2009: Google CEO Eric Schmidt leaves Apple's board because of conflicting interests due to Android. Steve Jobs is furious at Google for having built a competing mobile operating system.

28 Aug 2009: Apple releases Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, stripped off any code from the original Mac OS.

9 Sep 2009: Back at Apple, Steve Jobs makes the first public appearance after his transplant to introduce new iPods at the 'It's Only Rock'N'Roll' event.

27 Jan 2010

iPad Introduction

After months of wild rumors, Steve Jobs unveils iPad, 'the biggest thing Apple's ever done'. The tablet runs the same operating system as iPhone.

16 Jul 2010: One month after the release of the new iPhone 4, Steve Jobs holds a press conference to address the smartphone's supposed reception issues, the so-called 'Antennagate'.

17 Jan 2011: Jobs surprises the world by announcing his new medical leave of absence, without any end date.

2 Mar 2011: Despite his medical leave, Steve Jobs takes the stage to unveil the new iPad 2.

6 Jun 2011

The Last Keynote

At his last keynote at WWDC 2011, a frail Steve Jobs unveils Apple's cloud offering, iCloud, a centerpiece in Apple's product offering for decades to come.

7 Jun 2011: Steve Jobs appears at the Cupertino City Council to unveil Apple's plans for its new 'Spaceship' campus. This would prove to be his last public appearance.

24 Aug 2011: Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple, with the words 'I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.' Tim Cook becomes Apple CEO.

5 Oct 2011: Steve Jobs dies at home, surrounded by his family.

16 Oct 2011: A private service is held at Stanford University's Memorial Church in memory of Steve Jobs, attended by many of his friends, former colleagues and industry peers.

24 Oct 2011: After two years of work, and forty interviews with Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson publishes his authorized biography of the Apple and Pixar co-founder, simply named Steve Jobs.

Timeline of Steve Jobs