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Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Apple's product lineup includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision Pro, and Apple TV; as well as software like iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS; and services like Apple Card, Apple Pay, iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple TV+.

Since 2011, Apple has been the world's largest company by market capitalization except when Microsoft held the position between January and June 2024. In 2023, Apple was the largest technology company by revenue, with US$394.33 billion. As of 2023, Apple was the fourth-largest personal computer vendor by unit sales, the largest manufacturing company by revenue, and the largest vendor of mobile phones in the world. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Amazon, Meta (the parent company of Facebook), and Microsoft.

Apple was founded as Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976, to produce and market Steve Wozniak 's Apple I personal computer. The company was incorporated by Wozniak and Steve Jobs in 1977. Its second computer, the Apple II, became a best seller as one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983 and the Macintosh in 1984, as some of the first computers to use a graphical user interface and a mouse. By 1985, the company's internal problems included the high cost of its products and power struggles between executives. That year Jobs left Apple to form NeXT, Inc., and Wozniak withdrew to other ventures. The market for personal computers expanded and evolved throughout the 1990s, and Apple lost considerable market share to the lower-priced Wintel duopoly of the Microsoft Windows operating system on Intel -powered PC clones.

In 1997, Apple was weeks away from bankruptcy. To resolve its failed operating system strategy and entice Jobs's return, it bought NeXT. Over the next decade, Jobs guided Apple back to profitability through several tactics including introducing the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad to critical acclaim, launching the " Think different " campaign and other memorable advertising campaigns, opening the Apple Store retail chain, and acquiring numerous companies to broaden its product portfolio. Jobs resigned in 2011 for health reasons, and died two months later. He was succeeded as CEO by Tim Cook.

Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion in August 2018, $2 trillion in August 2020, and at $3 trillion in January 2022. As of June 2024, it was valued at just over $3.2 trillion. It has been consistently ranked as one of the world's most valuable brands. However, Apple has received criticism regarding its contractors ' labor practices, its environmental practices, and its business ethics, including anti-competitive practices and materials sourcing. Nevertheless, it has a large following and a high level of brand loyalty.

Apple workers around the globe have been involved in organizing since the 1990s. Apple unions are made up of retail, corporate, and outsourced workers. Apple employees have joined trade unions or formed works councils in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States. In 2021, Apple Together, a solidarity union, sought to bring together the company's global worker organizations. The majority of industrial labor disputes (including union recognition) involving Apple occur indirectly through its suppliers and contractors, notably Foxconn plants in China and, to a lesser extent, in Brazil and India.