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  "path": "/article/4144380/apple-says-its-upcoming-50th-birthday-treat-is-you.html",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-12T17:37:21.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.computerworld.com",
  "tags": [
    "Apple, Vendors and Providers",
    "Apple’s big product launches last week",
    "shared a letter",
    "Cook said",
    "conversation with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue",
    "written a book",
    "the company said",
    "AppleHolic’s bar & grill",
    "Apple Discussions",
    "Mastodon",
    "@helloapple"
  ],
  "textContent": "So soon after Apple’s big product launches last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a letter to mark the upcoming 50th anniversary since the founding of Apple on April 1, 1976.\n\nIt is strange to see Apple grapple with the concept of an anniversary. It isn’t usually a company that does this, as it tends to focus on what it is building rather than the history its work leaves behind. “We’re not a culture that looks back,” Cook said. “So, the group of people working on this have had to kind of build a different muscle for this, as our muscle is always about what’s next. We’ve really had to work hard on this to get in a reflective state, but when you really stop and pause and think about the last 50 years, it makes your heart sing. It really does.\n\n“I promise some celebration.”\n\n## **A party of one, but still a big celebration**\n\nCook took a look at the past in a conversation with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue, who has written a book about Apple’s first 50 years during which he observed the need for the company to have the right people and the right organizational culture. “I think Apple is such a unique place, it’s not possible to replicate it,” he said. “I know a lot of different companies, and I think Apple is just in a party of one.”\n\nThere seems to be a real focus on “the crazy ones” in Apple’s approach to the date. “Progress comes from those who challenge convention and imagine what could be,” the company said.\n\nCook’s anniversary letter references the cultural challenge Apple has with anniversaries, and also suggests that it will be Apple’s customers, teams, and former employees who will get headline billing in how the company celebrates in the coming weeks.\n\n“We couldn’t let this milestone pass without thanking the millions of people who make Apple what it is today — our incredible teams around the world, our developer community, and every customer who has joined us on this journey. Your ideas inspire our work. Your trust drives us to do better. Your stories remind us of all we can accomplish when we think different.”\n\n## **How will Apple celebrate?**\n\nThis begs the question of how Apple will celebrate the date. Speaking during a recent all-hands meeting at Apple, Cook dropped some hints of what the company’s 50-year anniversary might involve.\n\n“We’ve been going back through old archives, old photographs. We’ve been going back through the products, the services, the people, and I am struck by how much Apple has changed things, how much Apple has changed the world, how much Apple has given to the world.”\n\nIn the coming weeks, “Apple and its global community will celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary, recognizing the creativity, innovation, and impact that people around the world have made possible with Apple technology.”\n\nThat suggests the company will be focused on sharing some of the stories of what its customers have achieved during its existence. It also seems likely to embrace social media, given the company today introduced a new @helloapple handle on Instagram. (Famously, the word “Hello” appeared on the screen during the launch of the original Apple Macintosh.)\n\nBeyond cultural reflections, some might wonder whether the anniversary will include new hardware.\n\nGiven the very impressive recent launches – MacBooks Neo, Air, and Pro, new displays and a budget-price iPhone, that feels unlikely, but not impossible. It isn’t inconceivable the company might choose to link its fiftieth anniversary with the first glance at some of the new AI features in Siri, though doing so runs risks if that launch fails to impress.\n\n## **People, not product?**\n\nAt the same time, perhaps it’s right that in its 50th year it makes sense for the company to take stock of its achievements, which fundamentally is not the tools it has created but what its audience of creative humans has achieved with them.\n\n“Thinking different has always been at the heart of Apple,” wrote Cook. “It’s what has driven us to create products that empower people to express themselves, to connect, and to create something wonderful.”\n\nUltimately, Apple’s anniversary is about the impact its technology has enabled over five decades. The comparison with the upcoming 20‑year iPhone anniversary next January will be equally revealing.\n\n_Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in theAppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe. Also, now on Mastodon._",
  "title": "Apple says its upcoming 50th birthday treat is you"
}