Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 to sell Wozniak's
Apple I personal computer. The duo gained fame and wealth a year later for the
Apple II, one of the first highly successful mass-produced personal computers. In 1979, after a tour of
PARC, Jobs saw the commercial potential of the
Xerox Alto, which was
mouse-driven and had a
graphical user interface (GUI). This led to development of the unsuccessful
Apple Lisa in 1983, followed by the breakthrough
Macintosh in 1984. In addition to being the first mass-produced computer with a GUI, the Macintosh instigated the sudden rise of the
desktop publishing industry in 1985 with the addition of the Apple
LaserWriter, the first
laser printer to feature
vector graphics. Following a long power struggle, Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985.
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In 1997, Apple acquired and merged NeXT, allowing Jobs to become CEO once again, reviving the company at the verge of bankruptcy. Beginning in 1997 with the "
Think different" advertising campaign, Jobs worked closely with designer
Jonathan Ive to develop a line of products that would have larger cultural ramifications: the
iMac,
iTunes and
iTunes Store,
Apple Store,
iPod,
iPhone,
App Store, and the
iPad.
Mac OS was also revamped into
OS X (renamed “macOS” in 2016), based on NeXT's
NeXTSTEP platform.