Apple’s CEO:

Through every breakthrough, one idea has guided us — that the world is moved forward by people who think different.

That’s because progress always begins with someone — an inventor or scientist, a student or storyteller — who imagines a better way, a new idea, a different path. That spirit has guided Apple from the start. But it has never belonged to us alone.

Every invention we bring into the world is just the beginning of a story. The most meaningful chapters are written by all of you — the people who use our technology to work, learn, dream, and discover. You’ve made breakthroughs and launched businesses. You’ve cheered up loved ones in the hospital and captured your toddler’s first steps. You’ve run marathons, written books, and rekindled friendships. You’ve chased your curiosity, found your new favorite song, and shared stories that connect us all.

In your hands, the tools we make have improved lives, and sometimes even saved them. And that is what inspires us — not what technology can do alone, but everything you can do with it.

This sentiment is what clicked with me when I first started using a Mac for more than playing Odell Down Under after class. The idea that I could use a computer to take an idea and put it into the world enthralled me, and it’s why I still love this stuff today.

Does Apple always live up to this standard? Absolutely not. Do I still get this feeling every time I open my MacBook Pro or unlock my iPad? Absolutely.

As the company turns 50, its achievements should be celebrated, and its failures should be noted. Apple’s shortcomings in the world of politics, App Store policies, and more dim the company’s light. The value of its products is often the result of dedicated app developers doing their best work atop Apple’s platforms. In the world of big tech, I think Apple still leads in many areas, including privacy, environmental impact, and the not-so-simple matter of taste.

Jason Snell, for The Verge:

When you think of Apple, you probably think of the iPhone, or maybe the Mac, or perhaps you’ve got fond memories of the iPod. But Apple’s 50-year run of creating tech products that people fall in love with — sometimes a lot of people, sometimes just a hardy few — would never have happened if it weren’t for a product and platform that’s been gone for decades.

Apple would never have made it if it weren’t for the Apple II, the company’s first hit product and the first one to generate the amount of devotion we’ve now come to expect from fans of Apple’s products. Their slogan was, and still is, “Apple II Forever!”

Harry McCracken:

As Apple turns 50, its presence in our lives is so pervasive—2.5 billion of the company’s devices are in active use—that its unlikely origin story is more resonant than ever. To tell it, I turned to the people who lived it:

• Apple’s two living cofounders, Wozniak and Wayne
• Mike Markkula, the early retiree from Intel whose guidance and money turned the garage startup into a company
• Some of Apple’s earliest staffers, including Bill Fernandez, its first full-time employee, and Chris Espinosa, who’s still there today
• Regis McKenna, the Silicon Valley marketing guru who established Apple as a brand
• Liza Loop, the educator who became Apple’s first user
• Ron Rosenbaum, the Esquire writer whose article inspired Wozniak and Jobs’s first business venture
• Nolan Bushnell, whose Atari provided Jobs with most of his pre-Apple work experience
• Lee Felsenstein, moderator of the Homebrew Computer Club, the user group that prompted Wozniak to build Apple’s first machine
• Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, the creators of VisiCalc, the spreadsheet that gave the Apple II its killer app
• And many others

This oral history is incredible.

Joanna Stern, writing at The Verge:

It was January 2008, and Steve Jobs had just pulled the MacBook Air out of a manila envelope onstage at Macworld.

Within minutes, Windows PC executives everywhere lost their minds. They grabbed the nearest office envelope, tried to shove in their plastic laptops, and tore straight through the paper. Engineers were summoned. Assistants were dispatched for larger envelopes.

Okay, I have no proof that happened. But we all know what did happen next: imitation. Years of it.

Apple’s history books all hail the iPod. The iPhone. The iPad. And then, somewhere between a sidebar and a footnote, the MacBook Air. But without the Air, the modern laptop doesn’t exist.

Dating back to the early 2000s, it was clear that notebooks were going to overtake desktops, and the MacBook Air had a whole lot to do with that.

Ernie Smith at Tedium:

Recently, I had the chance to talk with a guy whose life, which is past the nine-decade mark, has been defined by just two weeks of it. You have likely heard the capsule version of his story repeatedly. He’s the man who gave up on one of the largest golden tickets in history. He created the first logo for a company who has been shaped more than any other by its second logo. And as he leaned into other pursuits, the other two people who founded that company with him, each named Steve, became legends in the world of technology. I would like to inform you that Ronald G. Wayne is not just the guy who gave up his 10% stake in Apple after just two weeks. He is so much more than that, a polymath, a creative, a writer, a talented artist, and the guy who meticulously got Atari’s stockroom in order. Today’s Tedium talks about the other 90+ years of Ronald G. Wayne’s 91 years on this planet where he didn’t work for Apple.

I learned a ton about Ron Wayne reading this, and I suspect you will, too.

Anniversaries and birthdays serve as an opportunity to both reflect on where you’ve been and think about where you are going… whether you’re turning 16, planning your 20-year high school reunion, or celebrating 35 years of marriage.

In the tech world, a milestone anniversary is a chance to revisit a product’s launch or a particularly meaningful update, inviting us to remember how far things have come.

Just like in relationships, as the numbers get bigger, those reflections can get harder to make. Memories fade, and as the decades pass, there are fewer miles on the road ahead.

Today, Apple marks 50 years in business. In our current era of VC-funded startups and AI-powered workflows, it’s difficult to believe that anything could last that long in the technology industry.

Apple is one of just a handful of modern tech companies with roots in the 1970s, and it’s hard to overstate the differences between the early days of the company and where it is today.

Gone are the days of hand-building computers, replaced by one of the world’s most intricate supply chains. The A18 Pro just beneath the keyboard of the MacBook Neo I am typing on would astound the men and women who worked on the original Macintosh. If the dreamers who designed the Newton were handed an iPhone Air, their heads would explode. Showing someone in the garage a photo of Apple Park would have brought work to a halt for the day.

That is just how things are, especially in tech. The more time passes, the more extraordinary the ordinary things in life become.

This nostalgia can be powerful. For long-time Apple fans, it may come from writing programs on an Apple II after school or flipping through copies of MacUser or Macworld to learn about the move to PowerPC. For me, those early experiences with Mac OS X in high school and college—often set to an iPod soundtrack—still resonate. For younger users, perhaps it’s their first MacBook, iPhone, or iPad.

For those who closely follow Apple, it may be for the days of a smaller company and a more close-knit community of weirdos who love their Macs. Some still wonder what Steve Jobs would do in any given situation.

Whatever your feelings are today, they are valid, even if they are messy.

That is just how things are, especially in the 21st century. Companies like Apple have the pull once reserved for countries. AI — like the Internet before it — has brought both good and evil into the world. Social media and the app ecosystem have generated untold wealth for some and unimaginable sorrow for others. Apple is not merely good nor bad for the world.

In 2001, I sat down at a beige Power Mac G3 All-in-One at my high school newspaper and began to learn Photoshop and QuarkXPress. I had no idea where things would lead, but the feeling I discovered back then resonates with me today: that technology — especially the Mac — was a tool to express myself. That feeling was only amplified during my years at my college newspaper, where I designed thousands of pages over the course of five and a half years.

25 years later, I still have that feeling when I record on a podcast, publish a blog post, or help release an app update.

In 2007, I was working at my local Apple Store when the original iPhone went on sale. I got to use one a few hours before sales started and was blown away. I remember calling my wife, excited to tell her that I was talking to her on an iPhone. As primitive as the first model was, I knew that the flip phone, iPod, and paper calendar in my employee locker were not long for this world.

Late the following year, I began writing this very website. I wanted to share my thoughts on the Mac and related products with the world, following in the footsteps of writers I had been reading for years.

In March of 2011, I recorded my first podcast with Myke, not knowing that three years later we would launch our own network, and definitely not knowing we would still be doing it 12 years after that.

Just this week, I have had FaceTime calls with friends in other states, been sent jokes from my kids over iMessage, and looked through old photos with my wife at bedtime.

All of those important moments were made possible by the Apple products in my life.

I’m often asked about tech by friends. What will the next iPhone do that the current one can’t? Is AI going to take our jobs? Should they get a new MacBook Air for their college kid, or let them use an old one for another year? Is social media as bad for us as it seems? Why should anyone pay for more iCloud space?

Some of these questions are easy, while others are not.

That is just how things are, especially when predicting the future. Technology moves both faster and slower than it seems that it should. We don’t have flying cars, but we are carrying supercomputers in our pockets. We haven’t cured cancer, but we have explored the far reaches of our solar system. Apple’s bets on the future haven’t always come to pass, but the products they make have allowed millions of people to make their own bets.

I don’t know what the next half-century looks like, but I’m betting Apple remains a constant — delivering the tools I use to create and cultivating the joy that comes with using a well-made product.