On this day: Steve Jobs was born

On February 24, 1955, Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. Before he went on to become the co-founder of Apple, he grew up in a neighbourhood full of engineers who spent their weekends working on electronics and other gadgets in their garages. He was interested in gadgets and electronics from a very young age.

Jobs got admitted to Reed College in Oregon, but he dropped out after one semester as he was more interested in eastern philosophy than what was taught in his liberal arts college. After dropping out, he moved to a hippie community in Oregon where he cultivated apples. A few months later, he took a job in California and was recruited by video game company Atari and used his pay to travel to India with one of his undergraduate pals, Dan Kottke.

Jobs’ friend Stephen Wozniak, who he would later start Apple with, was also interested in electronics. He attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of early computer hobbyists. Wozniak’s knowledge from the Homebrew meetings, along with his technological aptitude, enabled him to design his own computer board. Jobs was intrigued, and he immediately realised that his friend’s clever innovation might be offered to software enthusiasts who wished to build software without having to assemble a computer kit. Jobs persuaded Wozniak to establish a corporation for that purpose, and Apple Computers was founded on April 1, 1976.

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They assembled boards of Apple I computers in Jobs’ garage, and Wozniak even started working on Apple II computers. Jobs would soon start searching for capital to invest in Apple. He got business angel Mike Markkula to invest in the company for $250,000. The Apple II computer quickly grew popular as it beat competing devices with aesthetics, ease of use, and useful features.

In 1981, Steve Jobs began spearheading the Macintosh project. After three years of development, the project became a huge success. Jobs unveiled the iMac in 1998, a one-piece computer that delivered high-speed processing at a low price and started a PC trend.

With the debut of the first touch-screen Apple iPhone, a smartphone capable of playing MP3s and movies as well as accessing the internet in 2007, Jobs also launched the corporation into the telecommunications market. Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011 while battling pancreatic cancer.