page_title: History of Apple Inc.
section_title: Mac OS X
hierarchical_section_title: History of Apple Inc. / 1997–2001: Apple's comeback / Mac OS X
caption_attribution_description: English: Apple's headquarters at Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California, USA. Français&#160;: Le siège de la compagnie Apple sur Infinite Loop à Cupertino, en Californie (États-Unis).
context_page_description: Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer, Inc., is a multinational corporation that creates consumer electronics, personal computers, servers, and computer software, and is a digital distributor of media content. The company also has a chain of retail stores known as Apple Stores. Apple's core product lines are the iPhone smartphone, iPad tablet computer, iPod portable media players, and Macintosh computer line. Founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple Computer on April 1, 1976, and incorporated the company on January 3, 1977, in Cupertino, California.
  For more than three decades, Apple Computer was predominantly a manufacturer of personal computers, including the Apple II, Macintosh, and Power Mac lines, but it faced rocky sales and low market share during the 1990s. Jobs, who had been ousted from the company in 1985, returned to Apple in 1997 after his company NeXT was bought by Apple. The following year he became the company's interim CEO, which later became permanent. Jobs subsequently instilled a new corporate philosophy of recognizable products and simple design, starting with the original iMac in 1998.
context_section_description: In 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X (now known as macOS), an operating system based on NeXT's NeXTSTEP and incorporating parts of the FreeBSD kernel. Aimed at consumers and professionals alike, Mac OS X married the stability, reliability and security of Unix with the ease of a completely overhauled user interface. To aid users in transitioning their applications from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of Mac OS 9 applications through the Classic environment. Apple's Carbon API also allowed developers to adapt their Mac OS 9 software to use Mac OS X's features.
caption: Company headquarters on Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California
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