The band's sound draws comparisons to the psychedelic rock of The Beatles and The Beach Boys during the 1960s, as well as to bands such as Electric Light Orchestra and Pavement, and also draws from lo-fi, garage rock, new wave, R&B, bubblegum pop, power pop, punk, electro-pop and experimental music.

[2] The band has appeared widely in television and film, including performances on The Colbert Report, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Last Call with Carson Daly, guest hosting on MTV, song placements in numerous television shows, commercials and motion pictures, the performance of the single "Energy" by the contestants on American Idol, and a song recorded for children's show Yo Gabba Gabba.

[3] Schneider then spent two weeks in Athens, Georgia recording music and spending time with his childhood friends Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss and Jeff Mangum.

[3][5] John Hill, a former bandmate of McIntyre's, would join the band as a rhythm guitarist while Schneider began to grow more comfortable playing lead guitar.

[3] In mid-1994, after Hypnotic Suggestion, McIntyre would be the second to leave the band, due to a number of personal distresses as well as stylistic changes that arose with Parfitt's departure.

This continued to be the makeup of the band as they toured the country in late 1994, recording the first half of their new album in Glendora, California.

In early 1995, the band finished the album, Fun Trick Noisemaker, at Kyle Jones's house (the birthplace of Schneider's Pet Sounds Studio).

[3] In 1998, Chris McDuffie joined the band, playing various instruments including organs, synthesizers and assorted percussion.

Several more albums were released by the band through the years, including the psychedelic "concept EP",[8] Her Wallpaper Reverie, The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone and Velocity of Sound; both of the latter of which were progressively aimed at capturing the live sound of the band, which continued to tighten as they continued to perform hundreds of live shows (about 100 a year).

Her replacement, John Dufilho, lead singer and principal songwriter of The Deathray Davies, was announced in October 2006.

[10] 2006 touring member Bill Doss of the Olivia Tremor Control also quietly joined the band "officially" as its new keyboardist.

John Ferguson of Big Fresh and Ulysses joined the Apples in 2007, also playing keyboards, and wearing a Doctor Who-esque space suit on stage.

Rights for all major releases by the Apples in Stereo on the label were subsequently acquired by One Little Indian Records, and have since reverted to the band.

[16] In early 2009, Robert appeared on ABC News's segment called "amplified" and gave some short performances of songs from New Magnetic Wonder and a song from his project "Robert Bobbert and the bubble machine" and he described the album as sounding like early 1970s R&B as it would sound played by aliens and emanating from an alien spaceship.He also confirmed that the band was recording their new album at Trout Recording in Brooklyn, New York.

The result was the band's seventh album Travellers in Space and Time, released on April 20, 2010, on Simian Records.

Described by Schneider as a "retro-futuristic" concept album intended as a time capsule for listeners of the future, Travellers has drawn comparisons to the style of Electric Light Orchestra.

[18] The band was invited by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that he curated in March 2012 in Minehead, England.

In recent years, Schneider has explored a number of experimental music projects, such as the Teletron mind-controlled synthesizer and Non-Pythagorean scale of his own invention.

"[21] The band went into hiatus in the fall of 2012, after Doss' death and Schneider's acceptance into the PhD program in Mathematics at Emory University.