40 years of Apple: what a long, bumpy ride it’s been

On 1 April 1976 two college dropouts, both named Steve, met in a garage to build a computer that would revolutionise the world.

That computer was the Apple I, which paved the road to the company we all know now as Apple, Inc.

Within the past four decades, the company has become a tech giant with record-breaking sales and innovative products found in homes and hands all over the world.

Some of its pioneering accomplishments have been the Mac computer, the iPod MP3 player and the omnipresent iPhone. Apple has also been immortalized by Hollywood with two biopics on its co-founder Steve Jobs, who died of cancer in 2011 (See: Apple loses its icon).

Apple is currently one of most valued companies in the world, worth more than $700 billion. It's also one of the top 15 best companies to work for. As of September 2015, it employs 110,000 people - half of whom work in its retail Apple Stores.

Every success story is also a story of great failures, though. Apple's last 40 years have also been filled with disappointing product releases, a constant change in leadership and a few run-ins with the law. Regardless, it remains a force to be reckoned with.

Apple was established on 1 April 1976 when friends Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs sold their first Apple I personal computer kit. Jobs and Wozniak first met when they were 20 years old through a mutual friend, Bill Fernandez - who became Apple's first employee.

1976: Launch. Jobs and Wozniak officially founded Apple Computers, Inc and unveiled the Apple I. They hand-built 50 Apple I's and decided to sell them for $666.66. The vintage computer only had 4KB of RAM, which is 2,000,000 times less than a standard computer today. The Apple 1 computer became an antique and was sold for $387,750 at a Christie's online-only auction in 2013.

1977: The second generation. Apple officially became incorporated in January, then publicly released the Apple II in June, which was the first personal computer for the mass market. That same year, Michael Scott became the president of the company.

1978: floppy disks. The tech giant took a break from releasing computers and released the Apple Disk II, which was an external floppy-disk drive. The floppy disk was more expensive than what a gaming console costs in 2016. The Apple Disk had an introductory price of $495, but it was then raised to $595.

The third generation. After a two-year hiatus from releasing products, Apple unveiled the Apple III computer in May. Then in December, the company went public by offering 4.6 million shares at $22 each - now a valuation of approximately $1.8 billion.

1981: Jobs becomes chairman. Jobs became chairman and Mike Markkula became president. Then in September the company introduced the ProFile hard disk - a 5MB mass storage system that seems like nothing compared to today's storage system capacity. Too put it into perspective, 5MB would be one page of "a" letters, which is about 3,696 characters.

1982: Printers. Apple continued releasing new products by introducing the Dot Matrix, which was a printer that hooked up to the Apple II, III series and eventually, the Lisa. It cost $699 and printed 70 lines per minute.

1983: A new brand. Apple launched Lisa in January, which stood for Local Integrated Software Architecture. However, it was also speculated that the name stood for Jobs' daughter, who is portrayed in Danny Boyle's "Steve Jobs". Lisa was meant to be a new brand of personal computer that would offer a graphical user interface aimed at business users.

That same year in April, John Sculley became the president and CEO of Apple. In the 2015 Steve Jobs film, Sculley's character was played by Jeff Daniels. Then in May, Apple joined the Fortune 500.

1984: The iconic commercial. The Macintosh was introduced to the world during the Super Bowl. The minute-long clip became one of the most iconic commercials to date. The commercial evoked George Orwell's dystopian novel of the same name and featured a woman freeing the masses from the PC.

1985: Discontinued. Given the success of the Macintosh, Apple discontinued the Lisa after poor sales.

1985: Jobs exits. Jobs left Apple to work on his own computer, the NeXT, which had a disappointing debut in 1988. The computer was a black cube that looked stylish, but did not appeal to many.

1987: Wozniak exits. Wozniak resigned from his role at Apple, but technically remained an employee. Woz then created his own company called CL9 and developed the first universal remote.

1987: Life in colour. With the departure of the two co-founders, Apple released the Macintosh II, which was the first colour Mac.

1988: Competition. Apple filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for copyright infringement on visual displays. The GUI lawsuit was then dismissed in 1993.

1989: Smaller and lighter. After much success selling the Mac, Apple decided to develop a more compact computer and released the Macintosh Portable. It was definitely "lighter," but would still require some strength to carry since it weighed about 16 pounds. The Portable was what paved the way to today's Macbooks.

1990-1993: Change in leadership. Apple saw a big change in leadership during the early '90s. Michael Spindler became president in 1990, then became the CEO in 1993 - the same year Sculley became chairman. Then in October of that year, Sculley resigned and was replaced by Mike Markkula.

1991: Video player. During all the shifts in positions, Apple was still releasing new products. In May of 1991, the company announced the digital media player QuickTime.

1996: Fifth CEO. This is where Apple starts becoming the company we all know now. Gil Amelio became the chairman and CEO of Apple. Amelio was responsible for purchasing Job's NeXT software and eventually paving the way for Jobs becoming the CEO.

1997: The founder returns. Jobs returns to Apple, but as an adviser.

1997: Interim CEO. Because of some conflict with the board and Jobs, Amelio resigned in July. Jobs then became the interim CEO in September - he would call himself iCEO.

1997: Alliance. Jobs decided to change around a lot of things at the company in order to make it successful once again. One of those changes was creating a five-year technology alliance with Microsoft in order to have the Office software on the Mac.

1998: The iMac says "Hello". Apple changed its OS strategy and introduced OS X in May. Then in August, it launched the first ''all-in-one'' Macintosh, the iMac. The iMac was well-known for its colourful, transparent backs and for its slogan which was "Hello."

1999: Going portable. Apple was so successful with the release of the colourful iMac that it decided to make a laptop version and call it the iBook.

2000: Officially CEO. Jobs officially became the CEO of Apple. This is when the co-founder decided to start delving into music.

2001: Tunes, OS X and the iPod. It was the new millennium and the start of Apple's huge success. In 2001, the company introduced iTunes, OS X (the software we still use) and the iPod, which is considered one of the company's biggest accomplishments. The first iPod MP3 music player was released on October 23, 2001, at an event in Cupertino, Calif. The device was able to hold up to 1,000 songs.

2002: Computers go flat. The iMac was known for its bulgy and colourful backs, but in 2002, Apple redesigned its computers by introducing the flat-panelled G4 iMac. It looked like a flat screen mounted on top of a sphere.

2003: New software. The iLife suite was released, which includes iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes and Safari - apps we still use in 2016.

2003: Cross-platform. With the debut of the iTunes Store, Apple decided to make its music software compatible with competing Windows computers.

2004: iTunes goes global. Apple introduced the iPod mini the same year it launched iTunes in France, Germany and the UK. It was also the first year that the iPod got its first colour screen.

2005: Smaller products. Smaller phones were trending in the early 2000s, so naturally Apple made its own products smaller and released the Mac mini and the iPod shuffle - an iPod without a screen. Later that year it introduced the iPod Nano, which was also a small, colourful iPod but with a screen.

2006: Intel-based computers. Apple releases two new computers with Intel processors: the iMac and the MacBook Pro.

2007: The iPhone. Steve Jobs made history when he unveiled the first generation of the iPhone. The tiny 3.5 inch screen was the first of its kind to feature a touchscreen display that combined an iPod with a mobile web browser with a telephone. The 2 MP camera was only available on the rear of the camera (no selfies yet!) and was only available for AT&T. The sleek gadget, which allowed users to listen to music, take photos and surf the web, was named the "Invention of the Year" by Time Magazine.

Ever since Day 1, people would wait in line for days to get their hands of the first batch of iPhones before they sold out. The phone was available to the public on 29 June, 2007 in only the black and aluminium colour. The phone was last sold in July 2008 and has been ancient history ever since.

One year later, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was at it again, this time with the faster, sleeker iPhone 3G. On 9 June 2008, Jobs announced a phone that was thinner, featured a plastic back and came in black and white. The biggest news was the launch of the App Store that allowed users to access a multitude of applications, not just the ones the phone came with as in the original iPhone.

The evolution of the Apple iPhone
The iPod was a great innovation, but the iPhone is what really changed the company. In 2007, Jobs introduced the smartphone to the world and decided to change the company's name to just Apple, Inc.

2008: Thinner products. Smaller products weren't enough for Apple, so it started making them thinner. The MacBook Air was introduced in January and was considered the thinnest laptop at the time.

2010: Tablets. Because a computer is too big, and a smartphone is too small, Apple decided to develop a tablet that would serve as the perfect in-between. The iPad quickly became a fan favourite because it was a portable theatre, book library, game console and a web browser all in one.

2011: Hello, Siri. After three curved iPhone models Apple decided to redesign the iPhone in 2010 and then add an intelligent voice assistant to it in 2011. The iPhone 4 was the first big resigned iPhone, but it was the 4S that stole the show since it included the snarky AI, Siri. The voice assistant promised to help users with appointments, calls, quick searches and fun facts.

2011: The iCloud. Losing your gadget no longer meant you'd lose your data. When Apple announced the iCloud, an online media storage system, people were able to backup all their files to ''the cloud'' they could access from other devices whenever they wanted.

2011: Jobs resigns. Due to illness, Jobs resigned as CEO in August and was replaced by Tim Cook - who is still in charge.

2011: Apple loses its icon. Then in October, Jobs died at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

2012: Things keep getting smaller. With a new person in charge, Apple continues to develop products and announces the iPad mini- a smaller, faster and thinner tablet.

2013: Life in colour and fingerprints. Apple got creative with its iPhone and introduced the 5C, which came in pastel colours - the first time an iPhone is available in a colour other than black or white. The iPhone 5C was available in green, blue, pink, yellow and white.

Along with the 5C, Apple also launched the iPhone 5S, which kept a similar design to the 5 (released in 2012) but was available in gold. However, the real innovation in the 5S was a home button equipped with a fingerprint Touch ID sensor used to unlock the phone - then it was also used to make mobile payments.

2013-2014 Milestones
''Monkey Drums'' by Chase Buch becomes iTunes' 25 billionth purchased song. The song was downloaded in February 2013 by a man in Germany. Because of his lucky timing, the man received a €10,000 iTunes gift card.

Then in May 2013, the company had its 50 billionth downloaded application from the App store. The 50 billionth app was ''Say the Same Thing'' and it was downloaded by a man in Ohio, who also received a $10,000 gift card.

Apple continued making history in March 2014 by selling its 500 millionth iPhone. Then on 22 November, 2014, the tech giant sold its one-billionth iOS device. The product was a 64GB iPhone 6 Plus.

In between all the milestones, Apple also announced in May 2014 that it was buying Beats for $3 billion.

The Apple Watch was announced in April 2014 for $349.

After so many years of having 4-inch screen displays, Apple decided to go big and released the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The 6 has a 4.7-inch screen and the 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen. Along with the two new phones, Apple also released the mobile payment service Apple Pay and the innovative Apple Watch- which was released to compete with Android Wear.

 2015: New music service, products
After purchasing Beats from Dr Dre, Apple launched Apple Music to compete with Spotify and other music streaming services. The service created controversy with artists because it wasn't paying them during the three-month free trial. Taylor Swift was one of the artists who stood up against Apple.

Along with a new music streaming service, Apple also released enhanced products in 2015: the iPhones 6S and 6S Plus, the iPad Pro (with a bigger 12.9-inch screen), and a new Apple TV, featuring Siri and a redesigned remote.

2016: Smaller products - Again
After a big push with its 12.9-inch iPad and its 5.5-inch phablet, Apple went back to smaller products. At its most recent product event, the company unveiled the iPhone SE, which is basically an iPhone 6S with a 4-inch display. Apple also unveiled a smaller iPad Pro with a 9.7-inch screen.

2016: Apple vs. FBI
Apple became the centre of attention in the US in February after the FBI demanded the company unlock the encrypted iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter. Apple refused to create a ''backdoor'' claiming that the one-time break-in would be ''bad for America.'' Cook said he personally refused to hack into the phone because he wants to protect people's safety and data.

The case was then dropped on 28 March after the FBI managed to find a way into the locked phone (Battle with Apple ends as FBI cracks killer's iPhone).