Apple is an American multinational corporation which designs and manufactures consumer electronics and software products. The company's best-known hardware products include Macintosh computers, iPod portable media players, and the iPhone.

Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system, the iTunes media browser, the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software, and Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio- and film-industry software products. The company operates more than 250 retail stores in nine countries and an online store where hardware and software products are sold.

Established in Cupertino, California on April 1, 1976 and incorporated January 3, 1977, the company was called "Apple Computer, Inc." for its first 30 years, but dropped the word "Computer" on January 9, 2007 to reflect the company's ongoing expansion into the consumer electronics market in addition to its traditional focus on personal computers.

This would be the short history of the well-known Apple, which has turned 25 yesterday. On Wednesday, this year, Apple reported it finished with record quarterly profit of 1.61 billion dollars, with iPod sales hitting an all-time high, which is a remarkable result, given the current economic recession. The company posted revenue of 10.17 billion dollars in the three months ending December 27, 2008.

Even if the company admitted rivals Microsoft won the computer war, accounting for 90 percent of the world’s machines, Macs have been on constant growth. Apple wants to dominate this market too, so it remains to be seen if they’ll manage to catch up with Microsoft.