Who named Apple? Steve Jobs of course! The story behind the naming of the company has been revealed in Steve Jobs’ official biography by Walter Isaacson.



The name “Apple” apparently reflects Steve Jobs’ early vagabonding years when he ventured north from California and into the state of Oregon.

According to excerpts from the WSJ and AP, after some time spent working on apple orchards in that state, Steve Jobs was in the midst of a “fruitarian diet” and thought the simple name was “fun, spirited, and not intimidating“, the rest, of course, is history.

Apple’s original logo showed famous physicist Isaac Newton sitting under an Apple tree. This is an obvious reference to Newtons theory of gravitation, but now in light of the companies naming history, seems to give that apple tree a dual meaning.

The Apple logo was then changed to the rainbow variation shown above, which lasted for many years until the color was removed to the current incarnation of a minimalist black or white silhouette in the early 2000’s (which can be typed on the Mac by hitting Shift+Option+K )

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak mentioned a similar story about the companies name history in an interview from 2010:





[ Apple on tree image from Steve Garfield on Flickr ]