It started in January 1968 when The Beatles (!) were looking for ways to pay lower tax and also support other artists. They came up with Apple Corps, which is a pun on apple core.
Anecdotally, Steve Jobs and The Woz had to file legal papers after their first computer started selling really well and they decided to form a company, but did not have a name yet, so chose the first word from the dictionary. Which is not apple and Jobs also claims differently.
Either way, it caused four lawsuits between the Beatles and Apple Computer between 1978 and 2006 regarding trademark infringement and who had the right to produce and sell music; as well as causing the BBC to interview the wrong Guy on live television. (Seriously, the BBC made that mistake in May 2006, read the transcript - it is hilarious).
The Beatles were responsible for stopping development of the Apple II in the late eighties, probably the first time that musicians influenced the growing tech industry, just because Apple Computer built MIDI and audio recording technology into it.
Apple Computer hit back in 1991 with a system sound called Chimes in the Macintosh operating system (the sound was later renamed to sosumi, read phonetically as “so sue me".
It all eventually ended in 2006, but the Beatles music was not available on iTunes until September 2010.
All over a fruit.
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