Apple Just Turned 50. Its Greatest Innovation Has Always Been Version 2

As Apple celebrates its 50th birthday, it’s useful to remember the thing that has most defined the company over half a century.

EXPERT OPINION BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST @JASONATEN

10 July 2025, USA, New York: The Apple logo, taken at the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa (Photo by Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Apple was founded 50 years ago, on April 1, 1976. Today, the company is worth more than $3 trillion, has sold billions of devices, and is widely considered the greatest product company in history. That reputation is certainly deserved. Apple is known for creating some of the most iconic products in history—the iPhone, the iPod, MacBook Air, AirPods, Apple Watch, and, of course, the Mac.

The thing is, as fondly as so many of Apple’s fans remember those products, if we’re really honest, many of them weren’t actually that great when they first came out. They were revolutionary in their way, sure, but it often wasn’t until version two that they became the products everyone loved.

The myth of perfect products

That’s because, contrary to the mythology that every swing Apple takes is a home run, the company’s key to success isn’t really about shipping perfect products the first time. In fact, I think you could argue that a much more important factor is its ability to get things right the second time. It’s something the company has been doing deliberately and brilliantly for fifty years.

To be clear, I’m not just talking about iteration. Every technology company, including Apple, iterates. What I’m talking about is something more specific—a philosophy that has defined Apple since not long after it was founded in a garage in Los Altos, California.

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Apple ships a product when it has a clear vision, even if it isn’t perfect. Then, it learns what the world does with it and builds the version it actually imagined. In a number of cases, it’s almost as though the first version is a proof of concept. Version two is where it really becomes the product.

The iPhone is probably the best example. Everyone who remembers the introduction of the iPhone thinks of it as the device that changed computing. When Steve Jobs introduced it in January 2007, he called it five years ahead of any other phone. He wasn’t wrong, it definitely was—at least, in concept.

But, the original iPhone wasn’t actually a great device. It had no App Store, no third-party apps, no MMS, and no 3G. It instead ran on the ridiculously slow EDGE network. It didn’t even have GPS.

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