Apple’s 40th Anniversary

Whether Apple was actually started by two guys in a California garage may be debatable, but what's certain is that the pioneering computer maker turned consumer electronics juggernaut has come a long way.  Four decades after Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set out to turn computers into a tool that anyone could use, Apple has become the most valuable brand in the world, with some of the most successful products ever made.  For full story click here.

Oral History of Apple Design

If there is one thing that CEO Tim Cook doesn't want people to know, it's what dwells behind his company's "signature." As a result, most efforts to explain design at Apple end up reducing a complex 37-year history to bromides about simplicity, quality, and perfection–as if those were ambitions unique to Apple alone.  So Fast Company set out to remedy that deficiency. It wasn't easy. Precious few designers have left Sir Jonathan Ive's industrial design group since he took over in 1996: Two quit; three died. (We talked to the two who quit, among dozens of other longtime Apple veterans.) What we found is that the greatest business story of the past two decades–how Apple used design to rise from near bankruptcy to become the most valuable company in the world–is completely misunderstood. For full story plus links to the continuing story, click here.