---
title: "Which came first, Apple or email?"
description: "Apple vs email: email came first, by 5 years — 1971 against 1976. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-email/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Apple or email?

**Which came first, Apple or email?: email**

1971 — 5 years before Apple

email came first, by 5 years. Ray Tomlinson sent the first message between two computers and chose the @ sign.

## Side by side

|  | Apple | email |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1976 | 1971 |
| Date | 1976-04-01 | — |
| Category | company | technology |
| What happened | Jobs, Wozniak and Wayne founded Apple Computer Company. | Ray Tomlinson sent the first message between two computers and chose the @ sign. |

## Apple

Apple was founded on 1 April 1976, a year and a day after Microsoft. Ronald Wayne, the third founder, sold his 10% stake back for $800 twelve days later. The Apple I was a bare circuit board sold for $666.66; the Apple II of 1977 was the machine that made the company.

## email

Messages had been left for other users of the same machine since the mid-1960s. What Tomlinson did in 1971 was send one between two different computers on ARPANET, and pick @ to separate the user from the host because it was the only preposition on the keyboard that could not appear in a name. He did not record the first message and later said it was probably "QWERTYUIOP" or similar. Email is eighteen years older than the Web.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Apple or email?

email, by 5 years — 1971 against 1976.

### When did Apple start?

1976. Jobs, Wozniak and Wayne founded Apple Computer Company.

### When did email start?

1971. Ray Tomlinson sent the first message between two computers and chose the @ sign.

## Related pages

- [Apple or Nintendo?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-nintendo/)
- [Apple or the Ford Motor Company?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-ford/)
- [Apple or Coca-Cola?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-coca-cola/)
- [Apple or LEGO?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-lego/)
- [Apple or Samsung?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-samsung/)
- [Apple or McDonald's?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-mcdonalds/)
- [Apple or Microsoft?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-microsoft/)
- [Apple or the internet (ARPANET)?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-arpanet/)
- [Apple or the Macintosh?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-macintosh/)
- [Apple or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-windows/)
- [Apple or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-world-wide-web/)
- [Apple or Python?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-python/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]