Apple’s then-CEO, Steve Jobs, introduces new colors for the iPod Nano during a product announcement in San Francisco in September 2008.
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Paul Sakuma/AP
In his new book, Apple: The First 50 Years, author David Pogue includes a story about how the tech company’s late CEO and co-founder, Steve Jobs, pushed his team to perfect the iPod.
“Steve Jobs wanted it to be as compact as possible,” Pogue stated, recounting the anecdote in an interview with NPR. “So they brought him the prototype and then stated, ‘This is it, Steve, as compact as we can pack those components.'”
Launched in 2001, the iPod kick-started Apple’s rise to corporate and cultural dominance in the 21st century.
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Jobs took one see at the digital music player and chucked it into a nearby fish tank in his office, where it sank to the bottom and started to emit air bubbles.
The story goes that Jobs then stated: “If there’s air bubbles in there, there’s still room. Make it compacter!”
But Pogue added that there’s a caveat to this compelling bit of Apple lore: It never actually happened. It’s just one more Apple myth.
Of pirates and perfectionists
Few multinational corporations have inspired as much mythologizing as Apple Inc. (Apple is a financial supporter of NPR.)
Dozens of websites, books and films are devoted to informing the company’s story, from the longtime news blog and fan site Cult of Mac to the 1999 TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. There’s even a Grammy Award-winning opera — The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs — from 2017.
Apple’s 1997 “Think Different” ad campaign assisted contribute to the aura surrounding the company as a force for revolutionary modify. Apple CEO Tim Cook referenced the slogan in his recent statement celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary.
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Tech journalist and podcaster Jason Snell stated it doesn’t really matter whether the stories swirling around Apple are fact or folklore. The tech giant continues to exert a strong pull on the collective cultural psyche 50 years after its April 1, 1976, founding. “Apple was always placing itself in that role of being countercultural, claiming that they want to create the world a better place,” Snell stated.
Apple’s famous 1997 “Think Different” ad campaign, with its celebration of “the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels,” encapsulates this idealized self-image.
Not all marketing
The renegade spirit isn’t all clever marketing.
Computer History Mutilizeum curator Hansen Hsu stated it truly was baked into Apple’s products from the start, as well as into its culture. “They famously flew a pirate flag over their building,” stated Hsu of the company’s first headquarters, in Cupertino, California.
At the time, computers were mostly to be found in corporate offices. Hsu stated Apple’s early bestsellers, like the 1984 Macintosh desktop computer, assisted democratize technology. “That original Macintosh stood for creativity, individual expression, iconoclasm,” Hsu stated.
And Apple continued to stand for these things as it launched one culture-upfinishing technology after another in the 21st century, such as the iPod, the iPhone and the App Store.
The iPhone modifyd the communication, information and entertainment landscape.
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“That single gesture launched entire industries — Uber, DoorDash, Tinder, Airbnb,” stated Pogue of the App Store, which was introduced in 2008.
Where “believe different” falls down
But Pogue added that this massive explosion of content and connectivity came with severe consequences, especially after streaming took off around 2015. Suddenly, people had a computer, a camera and a television/movie screen with them all the time, every day.
“The increase in screen time does seem to correlate with young people’s sense of isolation and depression,” Pogue stated.
The company has responded to growing concerns regarding issues associated with smartphone addiction. In a March interview with Good Morning America, Apple’s current CEO, Tim Cook, voiced his opposition to mindless scrolling.
“I don’t want people seeing at the smartphone more than they’re seeing in someone’s eyes,” he stated.
Apple still wants the world to perceive it as a force for revolutionary modify. Cook’s recent statement celebrating Apple’s 50th anniversary resurfaced its familiar “believe different” catchphrase. But Apple Inc. has come a long way since its roots. Today, it’s one of the world’s most profitable companies and doesn’t always “believe different” when it comes to corporate behavior.
Apple has been taking a lot of flak for Cook’s cozying up to the Trump administration, such as his $1 million personal donation to the president’s second inauguration.
Apple CEO Tim Cook shakes hands with President Trump during an event in the White Houtilize’s Oval Office on Aug. 6, 2025.
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When quizzed on this and other matters concerning his relationship with Trump, Cook informed Good Morning America that he’s not political. “I focus on policy,” Cook stated. “And so I’m very pleased that the president and the administration is accessible to talk about policy.”
The “Teflon” effect
Regardless, Apple’s competitors usually face far greater backlash for their unpopular actions than Apple does.
“I personally have not seen any ‘I’m canceling Apple TV’ principled stand in the same way that people canceled Disney+ and Hulu for Jimmy Kimmel being sidelined,” stated Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi. “There’s something about Apple that I believe keeps it ‘Teflon’ from these types of critiques.”
Digital artist Kyt Janae’s San Francisco studio is packed with Apple laptops and desktops. She states she utilizes these machines in all her creative projects.
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“I don’t see Apple as a brand the same way that I would see at any other tech company or clothing brand or anything else,” stated Kyt Janae, a renowned visual artist and technologist based in San Francisco. She stated she utilizes Apple products for all her creative projects, such as her work on the animated series Rick and Morty.
Janae stated she understands that Apple is a megacorporation that prioritizes its shareholders. But the creativity and risk-taking that the brand represents to her — as it did to its customers five decades ago — overrides all other concerns. “I’m, like, locked in lifelong, no matter what happens,” Janae stated.
Jennifer Vanasco edited the audio and digital versions of this story. Chloee Weiner mixed the audio.
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