How Apple got its name

Posted by Kayla Phantom On Thursday, December 29th 2011 in Technology

In an old interview Steve Wozniak and the late Steve Jobs recall an important moment in the history of Silicon Valley - the moment when they named their computer company 35 years ago.

“I remember driving down Highway 85,” Wozniak said. “We’re on the freeway, and Steve mentions, ‘I’ve got a name: Apple Computer.’ We kept thinking of other alternatives to that name, and we couldn’t think of anything better.

Then Jobs added: “And also remember that I worked at Atari, and it got us ahead of Atari in the phonebook.”

The interview was recorded in the mid 1980s and was found among several materials that Apple had stored for a company museum. In 1997, after Jobs returned to the company, Apple offered the archive to Stanford University for the school’s Silicon Valley Archives.

“Through this one collection you can trace out the evolution of the personal computer,” said Stanford historian Leslie Berlin. “These sorts of documents are as close as you get to the unmediated story of what really happened.”

The interest in Apple and its founder grew tremendously after Steve Jobs died in October at only 56 years old. Before he died, he had stepped down as CEO and allowed Tim Cook to take his place. His death marked the end of an era both for the company and for Silicon Valley as a whole.

“Apple as a company is in a very, very select group,” said Stanford curator Henry Lowood. “It survived through multiple generations of technology. To the credit of Steve Jobs, it meant reinventing the company at several points.”