APPLE FOOLS DAY (or, APPY 36th BIRTHDAY, APPLE!): 36 Things You Didn’t Know about Steve, Steve & the Startup they Started
by Don Rose
In honor of Apple’s 36th birthday, here are 36 amazing facts you may not know about Apple’s founders and their company, which got its start on this day, April 1, 1976:
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. Apple began in the garage of Steve Jobs, where he and Steve Wozniak sold blue boxes that anyone could use to hide their weed.
. The very first Apple product (Apple I) had to be assembled into a working computer by the virgins who bought them.
. The Apple I cost 666 dollars, which was not a sign of the Antichrist, but rather a sign of a huge profit.
. After Apple stock made him rich, Wozniak lost millions on a Broadway flop, “The Izard of Woz”, a Pig Latin re-imagining of “Wizard of Oz”.
. Jobs spent his Apple fortune building a sprawling ranch-style compound called “Neversayneverland”. It was later renamed “Insanelygreatland”.
. Many Apple II owners used the program VisiCalc to solve a difficult financial problem: calculating exactly how much money one spent on weed.
. Jobs once described an acid trip during which he asked himself, “How many angel investors can sit on the head of a pin?”
. Woz came up with his solution to making color graphics while in a dream state, asking himself the impossible question, “How can I make color graphics?”
. The Apple II’s code name was “Jobvious”, as in “Jobs is obviously our leader”. Feeling it may be too obvious, he changed it to “Steve & Steve’s Stellar Stash”.
. Apple once released a promotional film called “Apple II Forever”. It was later expanded into a feature film called “The Neverending Story”.
. In the 2011 Jobs biography, he reveals that Apple’s first killer app was indeed hiding weed.
. Woz launched the “Us” Festival in 1982 as a bold response to the 70s “Me” Decade; thanks to Woz, everyone now refers to the 80s as the “Us” Decade.
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. The famed “1984” Macintosh ad - which aired only once, during the Super Bowl - is considered to be the greatest commercial of all time to see on weed.
. The “1984” Mac ad’s director, Ridley Scott, got the name “Ridley” because Jobs kept telling him his film was “riddled” with errors.
. The Macintosh sold slowly at first because there was no way to open it, and hence no place to hide your weed.
. Jobs was notorious for driving his Mac team to do the impossible. For example, he made all members of that team sign the inside of the Mac, from the outside.
. Kevin Costner once starred in a commercial for Apple’s ill-fated Lisa computer, so named because you’d have to sell half of the Mona Lisa to afford it.
. Thomas Watson, IBM founder, famously predicted there would be “a world market for maybe 5 computers”. Turns out he was talking about the Apple Lisa.
. In the mid-80s, Jobs was forced out of Apple - not by John Sculley or the Apple board, but by an invisible alien horse named Marcus. Or so Marcus says.
. Jobs called his new company NeXT because, whenever folks saw his new machine, they looked at the price tag and said “Next!”
. Post-Apple, Jobs bought Pixar, but their very first feature flopped (a CGI version of “The Manchurian Candidate”, using Virtualsupermarionation).
. If you rearrange the letters in former Apple CEO Gil Amelio’s name, the result is a complete waste of time.
. Apple was never able to get a video game system off the ground, mainly because it couldn’t solve the problem of anti-gravity.
. At its lowest point, Apple found itself just 90 days away from bankruptcy. Or, as airlines call it, “Tuesday”.
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. The first iMac was a huge success, the first personal computer to come in bright colors that would match absolutely nothing in your home.
. The original iPod came in three colors: white, off-white, and white white.
. The iPad was originally slated to be called iSlate, but Jobs was afraid any delay would lead journalists to change the name to “Is Late”.
. In 2003, Apple developed iRaq, the world’s first perfectly fitting bra, but had to put it on hold due to a badly-timed war.
. Apple recently stated that their new huge circular office building looks like a giant spaceship because “it is a giant spaceship”.
. Gorbachev once visited Apple, but no one heard about it because Apple couldn’t figure out his policy of “openness”.
. Apple is secretly working on a new, much clearer programming language called “LASIC”.
. Calling the MacBook Pro too expensive for sales in China, Apple plans to sell a cheaper model for its Chinese workers called MacBook Conn
. The word “Apple”, translated into Chinese, means “Overpriced”.
. Current CEO Tim Cook, looking to free himself from Steve Jobs’ shadow, has shelved one of Jobs’s pet projects: selling thongs for 99 cents.
. If you could go back in time and buy 1 share of Apple stock in 1976, you’d be worth billions today, because you’d have a freaking time machine.
. Apple plans to release the iBot personal robot in 2015; its killer app: bringing weed to its owner.
