To celebrate its 40th birthday today, Apple is flying a pirate flag, complete with rainbow-colored Apple logo for an eye, over its Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino. The company was started 40 years ago today, on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.
Apple’s use of the pirate flag dates back to the original Macintosh. While Apple and most of its employees focused on building Lisa back in the early ’80s, Jobs and his small Mac team were making the original Macintosh, which launched in 1984.
The flag, made by programmer Steve Capps, was hung in their office to symbolize their rebellion. “It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy,” Jobs said. The rainbow-colored Apple logo that was used for the pirate’s left eye was the actual Apple logo at the time; it switched to black in 1998.
A better angle. For those who don’t know: it’s Apples 40th anniversary on April 1st. pic.twitter.com/6qlvuHe6Sn
— Mohammed Jisrawi (@mjisrawi) April 1, 2016
In November 2014, Susan Kare, who designed fonts and icons for the original Macintosh, started selling replica pirate flags that contained the Apple logo. Each one was hand painted by Kare, and they started at $1,900 apiece.
On any other day, the pirate flag over Infinite Loop would be an Apple logo. However, Apple occasionally swaps it for something else to commemorate big events. One of its most recent changes was a rainbow Pride flag to support the LGBT community.
Apple has also produced a short video titled “40 Years in 40 Seconds” to celebrate its anniversary. It was first aired during the iPhone SE event last week, and you can watch it below.
https://youtu.be/mtY0K2fiFOA
[via 9to5Mac]
