Apple's 50th anniversary: Tim Cook starts early celebration with "Thinking Different" letter

Apple is turning 50 soon, but it looks like the company has started celebrating early. Tim Cook shared his "50 Years of Thinking Different" letter.

Not many companies have had the chance to reach the milestone Apple is about to hit. The Cupertino giant will celebrate its 50th birthday next month, on April 1, 2026, and its current CEO has already started the celebrations.

Cook shared a letter on Apple.com titled "50 Years of Thinking Different," taking inspiration from Apple's famous "Think Different" marketing campaign from 1997 to 2002. The CEO thanked millions of customers, teams across the globe, and the developer community, whose collective contributions turned Apple into a wealthy tech giant.

"Fifty years ago in a small garage, a big idea was born. Apple was founded on the simple notion that technology should be personal, and that belief — radical at the time — changed everything," Cook wrote in the letter.

The letter recalls how Apple was started five decades ago in a small garage by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who had to sell their valuable possessions to secure the "Celebration" Board #0 from the Apple-1 era. Apple's journey has been a roller coaster ride. While the company has tasted so much success, there was a time when it was on the verge of bankruptcy and was saved by its rival, Microsoft.

Cook ended the letter with the famous lines from the Think Different campaign:

So here’s to the crazy ones.

 

The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

Apple also published an official post to mark its 50th anniversary, and said it will do more as part of the celebrations over the coming weeks. One thing Apple has been doing differently lately is to increase its social media presence.

Apple already has an official Instagram account, but it decided to set up a new one with the handle @helloapple. As of writing this, the new account currently has over 17,500 followers, a handful of posts, and its bio says, "Our stories, and yours."

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Posted Friday 13 March 2026 at 6:34 am AEST (my time).

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