1. Apple in general words. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and manufactures consumer electronics , computer software , and commercial servers . The company's best-known hardware products include Macintosh computers, the iPod , the iPhone and the iPad . Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system ; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture , a professional photography package; Final Cut Studio , a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; and Logic Studio , a suite of audio tools. As of January 2010 the company operates 284 retail stores in ten countries, and an online store where hardware and software products are sold.

8. On May 19, 2001, Apple opened the first official Apple Retail Stores in Virginia and California.The same year, Apple introduced the iPod portable digital audio player . The product was phenomenally successful — over 100 million units were sold within six years.In 2003, Apple's iTunes Store was introduced, offering online music downloads for $0.99 a song and integration with the iPod. The service quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 5 billion downloads by June 19, 2008. Since 2001 Apple's design team has progressively abandoned the use of translucent colored plastics first used in the iMac G3 . This began with the titanium PowerBook and was followed by the white polycarbonate iBook and the flat-panel iMac .