Apple Computer

Apple Computer Inc., now known as Apple Inc., is a multinational technology company and was an early client of MacroMind, the predecessor of Macromedia.

MacroMind and Apple
MacroMind's first product, MusicWorks, was shipped in October 1984 for Apple's new Macintosh computer. Much of the MacroMind's early work also involved contracting for companies such as Apple Computer. In December 1985, MacroMind co-founder Jay Fenton implemented a customized version of VideoWorks with that was licensed to Apple to build training discs for their early Macintosh line. In 1988, Apple marketing veteran John Scull joined MacroMind as president and CEO after his business plan to pursue multimedia was not approved at Apple. Scull supervised the development of VideoWorks into MacroMind Director, which drove the desktop multimedia market on the Macintosh platform.

Macromedia and the return of Steve Jobs
Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs returned to Apple in December 1996 and soon became the acting CEO. He was received with a standing ovation during his keynote speech at the 8th annual Macromedia User Conference in October 1997, when he presented QuickTime 3.0 and VR Authoring Studio.

As interim CEO, Jobs expressed interest in Macromedia's Final Cut project after it had been shown at the 1998 NAB Show. Jobs had also asked Adobe Systems to provide a consumer version of its Adobe Premiere video editor that could be bundled with the upcoming iMac DV, code named Kihei. However, as Apple had been financially struggling at the time, Adobe declined and focused Premiere on the Windows platform. In response, Apple acquired the source code and development team of Final Cut from Macromedia on May 4, 1998. Adobe then met with Apple's management, seeking to shut down the Final Cut project. However, Jobs made a case that Final Cut was different than Premiere and would be beneficial to the overall desktop computer market. It was released as Final Cut Pro in April 1999.

In April 2010, Jobs wrote an open critique of Flash (which by then had been acquired by Adobe Systems) to justify his refusal to support the technology on Apple's successful iOS line, which included the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.