---
title: "Which came first, Apple or Windows?"
description: "Apple vs Windows: Apple came first, by 9 years — 1976 against 1985. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-windows/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Apple or Windows?

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

1976 — 9 years before Windows

Apple came first, by 9 years. Jobs, Wozniak and Wayne founded Apple Computer Company.

## Side by side

|  | Apple | Windows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1976 | 1985 |
| Date | 1976-04-01 | 1985-11-20 |
| Category | company | technology |
| What happened | Jobs, Wozniak and Wayne founded Apple Computer Company. | Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0. |

## 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.

## Windows

Windows 1.0 shipped in November 1985, twenty-two months after the Macintosh, and it was not an operating system — it was a graphical shell running on top of MS-DOS, and remained so until Windows NT in 1993 and the consumer transition with Windows XP in 2001. Version 1.0 could not even overlap windows: they tiled, because Apple's legal position on overlapping windows was unresolved.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Apple or Windows?

Apple, by 9 years — 1976 against 1985.

### When did Apple start?

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

### When did Windows start?

1985. Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0.

## Related pages

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- [Apple or email?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-email/)
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- [Apple or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-world-wide-web/)

## Sources

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