An Apple museum has opened in the Netherlands to mark the company’s 50th anniversary
A new Apple museum has opened in Utrecht, where visitors are invited to trace the company’s journey from a small start-up to one of the world’s most influential technology brands. The exhibition features early models from the 1970s, the original Macintosh, phones, iPads, iPhones and other Apple products.
At the start of the tour, visitors enter a recreated garage associated with Apple’s early history. It was there, as the museum reminds us, that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak officially registered Apple Computer Company on 1 April 1976. The museum’s founder, Ed Bindles, explained that the layout of the exhibition is intended to showcase not only the company’s origins but also the mindset of its co-founders, their vision and approach to product design.
One of the centrepieces is the Apple I – the company’s first product, which Wozniak designed and assembled by hand. This computer was not sold as a finished device, but only as a motherboard, so buyers had to add the other components themselves. Antonie de Kok, a member of the museum’s board of directors, emphasised that this is precisely what makes the Apple I not merely a technical artefact, but the starting point of Apple’s entire history.
Today, only a few such computers remain, making them rare collector’s items. The museum notes that one of them was recently sold for over $1 million. According to De Kok, this is because the Apple I is effectively the company’s first creation in the form in which the world knows it.
The museum houses over 5,000 exhibits and is described as the largest Apple museum in Europe. However, less than 10% of the entire collection is on public display. The museum explains this by stating that the objects should not overshadow the history itself, but rather support it. That is why only a selection of artefacts has been chosen for the permanent exhibition.
The tour concludes with an exhibition dedicated to the iPhone, which the museum describes as one of the key products that has transformed communication, design and everyday life over the past 50 years. The museum officially opens to the public on 2 April.
As a reminder, March was a whirlwind for Apple: we saw the MacBook Neo and said goodbye to the Mac Pro. But this is just a warm-up, as the main surprises are yet to come. The company is preparing a real revolution in our pockets and homes, which the entire tech world is already buzzing about
