Apple 'Think Different' for Flickr Friday theme 'Fruit', Juneau, Alaska.

Ancient Treasures indeed, yet it seems like only yesterday when I traded in my Typewriter for a MAC, wow, what an amazing transition, truly an adventure into the unknown. But as you know, I love a good adventure and making the transition became one of the best moves I have ever made.

 

Yes of course, it was scary, I didn’t know where to begin, how do I turn this thing on. What’s a floppy, where does it go, what does it do, how do I use it. It was a whole new experience for me, I had so many questions and there was so much to learn.

 

There was no internet or on-line help where I could simply look up my questions and get instant answers, my only means was to study the manuals, pages and pages of information that appeared to be written in a foreign language. There was talk of RAM, ROM, bits, bytes, software, hardware, analog, digital, apples and windows, the list was endless.

 

Frankly, I love the computer era and feel fortunate to have become involved in its early stage of development and you know what, even after all these years, I still get excited each and every time I push the power-up button on my machine.

 

So please join me by saluting the genius of Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and all the other pioneers who truly transformed our way of life.

 

Thanks for a fantastic journey.

 

Listening to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s 60 Minutes interview in October 2021, the simplicity and impact of her allegation struck me: Facebook made its money from engagement (the more clicks and comments a post contained, the more money it made). And what caused the most engagement? Anger. Facebook was making millions of dollars financed by our anger. Haugen revealed that Facebook’s internal reports showed the company’s algorithms promoted political discord and anti-vaccination rhetoric, both domestically and internationally (in 2018, Myanmar’s military used Facebook to launch the Rohingya genocide). Company insiders warned Mark Zuckerberg, but he chose profit over the safety and well-being of its users. And despite numerous appearances before Congress, he consistently misled our legislators and us. I use Facebook to stay in contact with friends. I also moderate a cultural and political page as part of my work on the Chamomile Tea Party. I’ve created over 230 posters during the last decade that chronicle the devolution of American political discourse.

 

I don’t have to tell you, Americans are more polarized than ever. Donald Trump’s presidency and power were built on that divide. The Republican Party’s kowtowing to him, both during his tenure and even now, has created high levels of vigilance and anxiety. No matter where we stand on the political spectrum, we’ve had little power to do anything about it except to yell at each other. Our anger was and continues to be palatable. Trump’s defeat (even as he dangles a 2024 run for the presidency) has given us some room to breathe and to distance ourselves, if ever so slightly, from the precipice. But how have we fallen so far? How did we lose sight of what many believe is American Exceptionalism (a term I find a fabricated national myth)?

 

As parents of two young adults, my wife and I have found the “terrible twos” had nothing on the clueless early twenties. At 18, our daughters were legally adults. But they had little experience being adults. And with their prefrontal cortexes still developing, they rarely asked for help nor listened when we offered our expertise. Fair enough. I didn’t listen to my parents either at that age. But our challenge in helping them navigate adulthood is complicated because our twenties were so different from theirs. We cannot compare our pasts to their experiences as digital natives. As a technologist and a former teacher of technology, I never taught my students the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the net. In the late 1990s, teachers focused on using programs like Photoshop and PageMaker, not how to be good netizens. We didn’t have to. There was no need—yet.

 

At the beginning of the internet, the opportunity to meet new people to discuss ideas was a major attraction to me. As a teenager, I had pen pals in countries worldwide, and I saw the internet as an extension of that interest and my curiosity. As an artist, I saw the opportunity to bypass the impediments of gallery representation and the art market to convey my work to new audiences. But at a “town hall” back then, hastily organized to discuss a Washington Post article bemoaning DC’s lackluster arts community, I warned my fellow artists we needed to guard this new resource. If we didn’t make this concerted effort, companies and corporations would turn it into just another marketplace for their goods and services. I feel no pleasure in my prescience.

 

Enter social media. By the early 2000s, I was a technology strategist and frontend web designer at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where I helped shepherd our mission to new online audiences. And, in 2002, I proposed doing a blog as a way of posting current information about exhibitions and lectures weekly. Until that time, websites were static. They presented the basics and were rarely updated. But as we recognized the value of engaging these new audiences, we needed to find ways to interact and inform on an ongoing basis. The introduction of content management systems allowed us to create that fresh content easily. In 2005, my idea gained enough traction to launch the first blog at the Smithsonian, Eye Level. Everybody was trying to find ways to engage these new communities. In 2006, Facebook opened its membership to everyone. And in 2008, Twitter did the same. Both of these platforms became part of our museum’s toolkit for social engagement.

 

These apps heralded a revolution in social interaction. As these platforms grew, they looked to differentiate themselves from one another. When coworkers wondered if Twitter would supplant blogging, I told them, “you tweet to react and blog to reflect.” But the business of social media was developing too. As access and bandwidth increased, these companies grew exponentially. So did their power and their share prices. My ’90s prediction that capital would supplant real societal change came to be. There was money to be made, and by the late 2000s, the net’s fate was set. Net cognoscenti have been advocating for net neutrality ever since.

 

The internet’s future demanded a robust infrastructure to secure its future. Money poured in from venture capitalists. In Silicon Valley, just about every idea was a good one, that is until the bubble burst in the late 1990s. The wild, wild West was gone, but that didn’t stop the capital from flowing in, albeit with a little more restraint. And it began to coalesce. Companies bought up other companies. And as Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, and author of Sapiens, recently stated on 60 Minutes, platforms like Instagram and What’s App sold for millions. These apps had no tangible assets, so why were they valued so highly? It was their data that made those acquisitions so valuable. Their data on you and me. I decided if others coveted my interests, I wanted a piece of that pie. So, in 1999, I auctioned my personal demographics on eBay. When my children were young, I never mentioned their names or showed photos of them online. I wanted to protect their personal information for as long as possible.

 

Knowing all about our habits, companies could target content to each of us. Chris Anderson, the former editor of WIRED, called this “the longtail strategy.” Amazon may make a lot of money from the sale of their best sellers, but it was the other 90% of their inventory that made them rich. The number of small sales from a long list of niche books surpassed the volume of more well-known fare. However, Wharton professor, Serguei Netessine, found just the opposite. He felt people overwhelmed with choices would gravitate to bestsellers. The key was personalization. Develop algorithms that use your past searches to create a profile of your interests so that search results could show you precisely what you were looking for (even if you didn’t know what you were looking for).

 

This is exactly what Facebook does. It knows everything about us. Everything. Harai told Anderson Cooper, “I came out as gay when I was 21. It should’ve been obvious to me when I was 15 that I’m gay. But something in the mind blocked it. Now, if you think about a teenager today, Facebook can know that they are gay or Amazon can know that they are gay long before they do just based on analyzing patterns.” To understand the consequences such knowledge could reveal, Harai asked us to consider what that would mean to LGBT+ communities in Iran, Russia, or any other homophobic country where “the police know that you are gay even before you know it.”

 

The dystopian message of the film, Minority Report, is coming true. Based loosely on Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Minority Report, a special division of the police called “Precrime” uses “precogs”—psychics—to identify and arrest people before they can commit a crime. Substitute precogs with algorithms, and you have Facebook. The key is, as always, will this power be used for good or evil? Despite Zuckerberg’s assurances he is only interested in the former, Haugen’s purloined documents tell another story.

 

Before Haugen revealed herself on 60 Minutes, The Wall Street Journal published an investigation of these documents in a series called The Facebook Files. Here are a couple of the takeaways.

 

Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt. While Zuckerberg conveys Facebook’s role as neutrality-based, where the platform treats every user equally, the truth is just the opposite. A special class of high-profile users doesn’t always have to adhere to Facebook’s rules and algorithms. They are part of a program called “Cross Check” or “XCheck.” Facebook’s algorithms and content moderators can’t keep up with the abundance of user-generated content, so they wanted to give special attention to these very visible and vocal VIPs to ensure no PR problems for the company. Yet, many of these “special people” have used their privilege to harass and incite violence. As regular users, their posts would have been taken down and, as many of us have experienced for much lesser “crimes,” thrown into Facebook jail. This confidential review stated, “We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” and it called the company’s actions “a breach of trust.”

 

Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead. In 2018, the company changed its algorithm to make its platform kinder and gentler. Its goal was to emphasize sharing and resharing posts amongst friends and family. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Political parties and trolls used the algorithm to sensationalize content.

In March 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would use the platform to promote COVID vaccinations. His goal was to get 50 million people to get vaccinated. Despite this altruistic hope, his app’s formula stymied even his efforts by prioritizing resharing. Anti-vaxx comments and mis- and disinformation inundated pro-vaccination content. The Wall Street Journal stated that Facebook's problem was “its users create the content, but their comments, posts, and videos are hard to control.”

 

In the lead-up to the 2020 elections, Facebook attempted to address these issues by forming the Civic Integrity working group. When Haugen began working at Facebook, she was assigned to this group to help manage the misinformation. But after the election, the company decided to disband this unit. Haugen said, “They told us, ‘We're dissolving Civic Integrity.’ Like, they basically said, ‘Oh good, we made it through the election. There wasn't [sic] riots. We can get rid of Civic Integrity now.’ Fast forward a couple months, we got the insurrection. And when they got rid of Civic Integrity, it was the moment where I was like, ‘I don't trust that they're willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.’”

 

As a moderator on a political page, I often bought ads to promote messages from the posters I designed. Defining my audiences for these ads, I wanted to get the word out without the back and forth animosity and name-calling that was so rampant in most social media “tit-for-tats.” To do that, Facebook allowed me to target my audiences extensively. Building an audience profile was an art form in and of itself. They provided very niche groups I could address. Combining these groups allowed me to pinpoint my messages. For example, I could focus on liberal or conservative movements and interests in many granular ways. However, after the 2020 election, this specificity disappeared. I was only allowed to target more general audiences (“interested in politics” instead of liberal or conservative issues). With the election over, they felt hostilities would cease or, at least, lessen. They have not. My ability to define my audience has taken a big hit. My messages must now be broadcasted to a more general group of people, just perfect for more anger and increased clicks. Sure, I’d like a larger following, but not at this cost. Instead, I’d like a more significant audience. Show me how I can accomplish that, Mark.

 

In 2017, Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, stated, “The thought process that went into building these applications was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you more likes and comments [and more money for the company]. It’s a social-validation feedback loop, exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

 

I accept Parker’s reasoning. I know what I’m getting and giving up on the platform (and I’m constantly securing my data and watching what information I post). But it angers me that Zuckerberg et al. seem to have so much power with so little understanding and control over their platform. And I’m mad that he is misleading us, but not enough to yell and scream about it on Facebook. While everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter how distasteful or wrong I may think it is, no one has a right to spew that opinion on someone else. I live by that dictum. So I do most of my screaming into a pillow.

 

Above all, I will not let Facebook profit from my anger.

  

Feel free to pass this poster on. It's free to download here (click on the down arrow just to the lower right of the image).

 

See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.

 

Follow the history of our country's political intransigence from 2010-2020 through a seven-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.

Aninovo , nas cores do corazon

Lembrando os dias diferentes , eses de luz , de augas no cais

Saudades do contorno e o noso eterno espriguicao

da trilha que sobe ata o niño da auga , redonda ,brilhante .

  

28 Days of Layouts, created for LOAD211 Day 28. An idea popped into my head this month about creating a layout like a newspaper page; I rediscovered it last night when I was thinking about a new way to display all the pages I made during LOAD211. I created the photo collage in Picasa and since I don't have Quark or PageMaker on my computer, I used WordPerfect (yay! it works again after the crash!) I made the title as word art, wrote the date in a text box, inserted the photo collage, printed and journaled in my own handwriting.

 

This month went by fast! I completed each challenge and now have 28 new layouts in scrapbooks.

 

I want to say thanks to everyone that viewed my layouts and left wonderful comments. You are all filled with creative talent and I look forward to scrappin' with you again in May.

The color association that is carried throughout the product brands, makes complete sense. All the products are grouped together relative to their functionality. Adobe's step to strip the brands of their illustrative elements was 'ballsy" and may take some getting used to, but I think works well.

Proof that not only do I still have my Apple //e, but it works and I have software. It's booting off the DuoDisk floppy because I'd have to hunt for the cable to the 10mb Sider drive at left (if the machine were booted off the hard drive, it'd be Publish It! 4 onscreen instead of Newsroom).

The internal arrangement was this:

 

Slot 0 - 1mb RAM [big card at left]

Slot 1 - SuperSerial for the printer [the ImageWriter 1 behind]

Slot 2 - SuperSerial for the modem [pictured is an AppleModem 2400 for laughs, but usually I was using a Boca 33.6 until I got my USRobotics 56k]

Slot 3 - Titan Technologies Turbo 3.5mhz card [not shown]

Slot 4 - two Disk// box drives [card not shown, one drive at right]

Slot 6 - DuoDisk

Slot 7 - SASI card (a subset of SCSI) to boot the Sider 10mb.

 

And at the left side was a power switch with fan to keep the baby cool inside.

I also have one of those clock chipset things under one of the chips (see note).

 

I used this computer from when I "borrowed" it from school in 1988 until 1998, when I boxed this up to move -- but I'd been using an Apple //gs primarily for a couple of years by that point, and that machine I used until early 2000 (and only got off of it because the two BBSs I was using for Internet email and functions went down for not being Y2K compliant -- and because no one developed functional apps for the Marinetti TCP/IP stack [probably because the stack author was a self-righteous prick who took suggestions and observations as flaming criticisms and personal attacks]). I used Newsroom to write the school paper in high school and for the first two years of college. Amazingly low-tech but we didn't have IBM-type PCs in high school and the 286's with 20mb hard drives in college couldn't run Aldus PageMaker.

 

Since I've got this out, I'm gonna play me some LodeRunner. :)

[Told you I'd be back sometime with this, fotoFluke...]

 

Family of personal computers made by Apple

This article is about the family of personal computers. For the series of all-in-one computers, see iMac. For other uses, see Mac.

"Macintosh" redirects here. For the original Macintosh, see Macintosh 128K. For other uses, see Macintosh (disambiguation).

Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh apple. The current product lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro desktops. Macs are currently sold with Apple's UNIX-based macOS operating system, which is not licensed to other manufacturers and exclusively bundled with Mac computers. This operating system replaced Apple's original Macintosh operating system, which has variously been named System, Mac OS, and Classic Mac OS.

 

Quick Facts Also known as, Developer ...

Jef Raskin conceived the Macintosh project in 1979, which was usurped and redefined by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 1981. The original Macintosh was launched in January 1984, after Apple's "1984" advertisement during Super Bowl XVIII. A series of incrementally improved models followed, sharing the same integrated case design. In 1987, the Macintosh II brought color graphics, but priced as a professional workstation and not a personal computer. Beginning in 1994 with the Power Macintosh, the Mac transitioned from Motorola 68000 series processors to PowerPC. Macintosh clones by other manufacturers were also briefly sold afterwards. The line was refreshed in 1998 with the launch of the iMac G3, reinvigorating the line's competitiveness against commodity IBM PC compatibles. Macs transitioned to Intel x86 processors by 2006 along with new sub-product lines MacBook and Mac Pro. Since 2020, Macs have transitioned to Apple silicon chips based on ARM64.

 

History

See also: History of Apple Inc.

1979–1996: "Macintosh" era

With a red background, Steve Jobs rests his forearms on a Macintosh computer.

Steve Jobs debuted the Macintosh in January 1984, photographed by Bernard Gotfryd. The Mac displays the shin-hanga (Japanese: 髪梳ける女; lit. 'hair combing woman') (original) by Goyō Hashiguchi.

In the late 1970s, the Apple II became one of the most popular computers, especially in education. After IBM introduced the IBM PC in 1981, its sales surpassed the Apple II. In response, Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983.[1] The Lisa's graphical user interface was inspired by strategically licensed demonstrations of the Xerox Star. Lisa surpassed the Star with intuitive direct manipulation, like the ability to drag and drop files, double-click to launch applications, and move or resize windows by clicking and dragging instead of going through a menu.[2][3] However, hampered by its high price of $9,995 (equivalent to $35,000 in 2024) and lack of available software, the Lisa was commercially unsuccessful.[1]

 

Parallel to the Lisa's development, a skunkworks team at Apple was working on the Macintosh project. Conceived in 1979 by Jef Raskin, Macintosh was envisioned as an affordable, easy-to-use computer for the masses. Raskin named the computer after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh. The initial team consisted of Raskin, hardware engineer Burrell Smith, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. In 1981, Steve Jobs was removed from the Lisa team and joined Macintosh, and was able to gradually take control of the project due to Wozniak's temporary absence after an airplane crash. Under Jobs, the Mac grew to resemble the Lisa, with a mouse and a more intuitive graphical interface, at a quarter of the Lisa's price.[4]

 

Upon its January 1984 launch, the first Macintosh was described as "revolutionary" by The New York Times.[5] Sales initially met projections, but dropped due to the machine's low performance, single floppy disk drive requiring frequent disk swapping, and initial lack of applications. Author Douglas Adams said of it, "…what I (and I think everybody else who bought the machine in the early days) fell in love with was not the machine itself, which was ridiculously slow and underpowered, but a romantic idea of the machine. And that romantic idea had to sustain me through the realities of actually working on the 128K Mac."[6] Most of the original Macintosh team left Apple, and some followed Jobs to found NeXT after he was forced out by CEO John Sculley.[7]

 

The first Macintosh nevertheless generated enthusiasm among buyers and some developers, who rushed to develop entirely new programs for the platform, including PageMaker, MORE, and Excel.[8] Apple soon released the Macintosh 512K with improved performance and an external floppy drive.[9] The Macintosh is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface,[10] Jobs's fascination with typography gave it an unprecedented variety of fonts and type styles like italics, bold, shadow, and outline.[11] It is the first WYSIWYG computer, and due in large part to PageMaker and Apple's LaserWriter printer, it ignited the desktop publishing market, turning the Macintosh from an early let-down into a notable success.[12] Levy called desktop publishing the Mac's "Trojan horse" in the enterprise market, as colleagues and executives tried these Macs and were seduced into requesting one for themselves. PageMaker creator Paul Brainerd said: "You would see the pattern. A large corporation would buy PageMaker and a couple of Macs to do the company newsletter. The next year you'd come back and there would be thirty Macintoshes. The year after that, three hundred".[13] Ease of use for computer novices was another incentive.[14] Peat Marwick was the first, largest, and for some time the only large corporate customer;[15] although the company said that its auditors used Macs because of their portability and not the user interface,[16] after it merged with the IBM PC-using KMG to form KPMG in 1987, the combined company retained Macs after studying both platforms.[14]

 

In late 1985, Bill Atkinson, one of the few remaining employees to have been on the original Macintosh team, proposed that Apple create a Dynabook, Alan Kay's concept for a tablet computer that stores and organizes knowledge. Sculley rebuffed him, so he adapted the idea into a Mac program, HyperCard, whose cards store any information—text, image, audio, video—with the memex-like ability to semantically link cards together. HyperCard was released in 1987 and bundled with every Macintosh.[17]

  

Macintosh Portable

In the late 1980s, Jean-Louis Gassée, a Sculley protégé who had succeeded Jobs as head of the Macintosh division, made the Mac more expandable and powerful to appeal to tech enthusiasts and enterprise customers.[18] This strategy led to the successful 1987 release of the Macintosh II, which appealed to power users and gave the lineup momentum. However, Gassée's "no-compromise" approach foiled Apple's first laptop, the Macintosh Portable, which has many uncommon power user features, but is almost as heavy as the original Macintosh at twice its price. Soon after its launch, Gassée was fired.[19]

 

Since the Mac's debut, Sculley had opposed lowering the company's profit margins, and Macintoshes were priced far above entry-level MS-DOS compatible computers. Steven Levy said that though Macintoshes were superior, the cheapest Mac cost almost twice as much as the cheapest IBM PC compatible.[20][page needed] Sculley also resisted licensing the Mac OS to competing hardware vendors, who could have undercut Apple on pricing and jeopardized its hardware sales, as IBM PC compatibles had done to IBM. These early strategic steps caused the Macintosh to lose its chance at becoming the dominant personal computer platform.[21][22] Though senior management demanded high-margin products, a few employees disobeyed and set out to create a computer that would live up to the original Macintosh's slogan, "[a] computer for the rest of us", which the market clamored for. In a pattern typical of Apple's early era, of skunkworks projects like Macintosh and Macintosh II lacking adoption by upper management who were late to realize the projects' merit, this once-renegade project was actually endorsed by senior management following market pressures. In 1990 came the Macintosh LC and the more affordable Macintosh Classic, the first model under $1,000 (equivalent to $2,400 in 2024). Between 1984 and 1989, Apple had sold one million Macs, and another 10 million over the following five years.[23]

  

PowerBook 100

In 1991, the Macintosh Portable was replaced with the smaller and lighter PowerBook 100, the first laptop with a palm rest and trackball in front of the keyboard. The PowerBook brought $1 billion of revenue within one year, and became a status symbol.[24] By then, the Macintosh represented 10% to 15% of the personal computer market.[25] Fearing a decline in market share, Sculley co-founded the AIM alliance with IBM and Motorola to create a new standardized computing platform, which led to the creation of the PowerPC processor architecture, and the Taligent operating system.[26] In 1992, Apple introduced the Macintosh Performa line, which "grew like ivy" into a disorienting number of barely differentiated models in an attempt to gain market share. This backfired by confusing customers, but the same strategy soon afflicted the PowerBook line.[27] Michael Spindler continued this approach when he succeeded Sculley as CEO in 1993.[28] He oversaw the Mac's transition from Motorola 68000 series to PowerPC and the release of Apple's first PowerPC machine, the well-received Power Macintosh.[29]

 

Many new Macintoshes suffered from inventory and quality control problems. The 1995 PowerBook 5300 was plagued with quality problems, with several recalls as some units even caught fire[citation needed]. Pessimistic about Apple's future, Spindler repeatedly attempted to sell Apple to other companies, including IBM, Kodak, AT&T, Sun, and Philips. In a last-ditch attempt to fend off Windows, Apple yielded and started a Macintosh clone program, which allowed other manufacturers to make System 7 computers.[29] However, this only cannibalized the sales of Apple's higher-margin machines.[30] Meanwhile, Windows 95 was an instant hit with customers. Apple was struggling financially as its attempts to produce a System 7 successor had all failed with Taligent, Star Trek, and Copland, and its hardware was stagnant. The Mac was no longer competitive, and its sales entered a tailspin.[31] Corporations abandoned Macintosh in droves, replacing it with cheaper and more technically sophisticated Windows NT machines for which far more applications and peripherals existed. Even some Apple loyalists saw no future for the Macintosh.[32] Once the world's second largest computer vendor after IBM, Apple's market share declined precipitously from 9.4% in 1993 to 3.1% in 1997.[33][34] Bill Gates was ready to abandon Microsoft Office for Mac, which would have slashed any remaining business appeal the Mac had. Gil Amelio, Spindler's successor, failed to negotiate a deal with Gates.[35]

 

In 1996, Spindler was succeeded by Amelio, who searched for an established operating system to acquire or license for the foundation of a new Macintosh operating system. He considered BeOS, Solaris, Windows NT, and NeXT's NeXTSTEP, eventually choosing the last. Announced on December 20, 1996, Apple acquired NeXT on February 7, 1997, returning its co-founder, Steve Jobs.[31][36]

 

1997–2011: Steve Jobs era

 

Mac worldwide quarterly sales from 2006 to 2023

NeXT had developed the mature NeXTSTEP operating system with strong multimedia and Internet capabilities.[37] NeXTSTEP was also popular among programmers, financial firms, and academia for its object-oriented programming tools for rapid application development.[38][39] In an eagerly anticipated speech at the January 1997 Macworld trade show, Steve Jobs previewed Rhapsody, a merger of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS as the foundation of Apple's new operating system strategy.[40] At the time, Jobs only served as advisor, and Amelio was released in July 1997. Jobs was formally appointed interim CEO in September, and permanent CEO in January 2000.[41] To continue turning the company around, Jobs streamlined Apple's operations and began layoffs.[42] He negotiated a deal with Bill Gates in which Microsoft committed to releasing new versions of Office for Mac for five years, investing $150 million in Apple, and settling an ongoing lawsuit in which Apple alleged that Windows had copied the Mac's interface. In exchange, Apple made Internet Explorer the default Mac browser. The deal was closed hours before Jobs announced it at the August 1997 Macworld.[43]

 

Jobs returned focus to Apple. The Mac lineup had been incomprehensible, with dozens of hard-to-distinguish models. He streamlined it into four quadrants, a laptop and a desktop each for consumers and professionals. Apple also discontinued several Mac accessories, including the StyleWriter printer and the Newton PDA.[44] These changes were meant to refocus Apple's engineering, marketing, and manufacturing efforts so that more care could be dedicated to each product.[45] Jobs also stopped licensing Mac OS to clone manufacturers, which had cost Apple ten times more in lost sales than it received in licensing fees.[46] Jobs made a deal with the largest computer reseller, CompUSA, to carry a store-within-a-store that would better showcase Macs and their software and peripherals. According to Apple, the Mac's share of computer sales in those stores went from 3% to 14%. In November, the online Apple Store launched with built-to-order Mac configurations without a middleman.[41] When Tim Cook was hired as chief operations officer in March 1998, he closed Apple's inefficient factories and outsourced Mac production to Taiwan. Within months, he rolled out a new ERP system and implemented just-in-time manufacturing principles. This practically eliminated Apple's costly unsold inventory, and within one year, Apple had the industry's most efficient inventory turnover.[47]

  

The iMac G3's marketing heavily emphasizes its design and Internet capabilities for consumers.

 

The Power Mac G4 Cube advanced Apple's industrial design culture and manufacturing processes.

Jobs's top priority was "to ship a great new product".[48] The first is the iMac G3, an all-in-one computer that was meant to make the Internet intuitive and easy to access. While PCs came in functional beige boxes, Jony Ive gave the iMac a radical and futuristic design, meant to make the product less intimidating. Its oblong case is made of translucent plastic in Bondi blue, later revised with many colors. Ive added a handle on the back to make the computer more approachable. Jobs declared the iMac would be "legacy-free", succeeding ADB and SCSI with an infrared port and cutting-edge USB ports. Though USB had industry backing, it was still absent from most PCs and USB 1.1 was only standardized one month after the iMac's release.[49] He also controversially removed the floppy disk drive and replaced it with a CD drive. The iMac was unveiled in May 1998, and released in August. It was an immediate commercial success and became the fastest-selling computer in Apple's history, with 800,000 units sold before the year ended. Vindicating Jobs on the Internet's appeal to consumers, 32% of iMac buyers had never used a computer before, and 12% were switching from PCs.[50] The iMac reestablished the Mac's reputation as a trendsetter: for the next few years, translucent plastic became the dominant design trend in numerous consumer products.[51]

 

Apple knew it had lost its chance to compete in the Windows-dominated enterprise market, so it prioritized design and ease of use to make the Mac more appealing to average consumers, and even teens[citation needed]. The "Apple New Product Process" was launched as a more collaborative product development process for the Mac, with concurrent engineering principles. From then, product development was no longer driven primarily by engineering and with design as an afterthought. Instead, Ive and Jobs first defined a new product's "soul", before it was jointly developed by the marketing, engineering, and operations teams.[52] The engineering team was led by the product design group, and Ive's design studio was the dominant voice throughout the development process.[53]

 

The next two Mac products in 1999, the Power Mac G3 (nicknamed "Blue and White") and the iBook, introduced industrial designs influenced by the iMac, incorporating colorful translucent plastic and carrying handles. The iBook introduced several innovations: a strengthened hinge instead of a mechanical latch to keep it closed, ports on the sides rather than on the back, and the first laptop with built-in Wi-Fi.[54] It became the best selling laptop in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 1999.[55] The professional-oriented Titanium PowerBook G4 was released in 2001, becoming the lightest and thinnest laptop in its class, and the first laptop with a wide-screen display; it also debuted a magnetic latch that secures the lid elegantly.[56]

  

The Dual USB "Ice" iBook represents a design shift away from color, toward white polycarbonate.

The design language of consumer Macs shifted again from colored plastics to white polycarbonate with the introduction of the 2001 Dual USB "Ice" iBook. To increase the iBook's durability, it eliminated doors and handles, and gained a more minimalistic exterior. Ive attempted to go beyond the quadrant with Power Mac G4 Cube, an innovation beyond the computer tower in a professional desktop far smaller than the Power Mac. The Cube failed in the market and was withdrawn from sale after one year. However, Ive considered it beneficial, because it helped Apple gain experience in complex machining and miniaturization.[57]

 

The development of a successor to the old Mac OS was well underway. Rhapsody had been previewed at WWDC 1997, featuring a Mach kernel and BSD foundations, a virtualization layer for old Mac OS apps (codenamed Blue Box), and an implementation of NeXTSTEP APIs called OpenStep (codenamed Yellow Box). Apple open-sourced the core of Rhapsody as the Darwin operating system. After several developer previews, Apple also introduced the Carbon API, which provided a way for developers to more easily make their apps native to Mac OS X without rewriting them in Yellow Box. Mac OS X was publicly unveiled in January 2000, introducing the modern Aqua graphical user interface, and a far more stable Unix foundation, with memory protection and preemptive multitasking. Blue Box became the Classic environment, and Yellow Box was renamed Cocoa. Following a public beta, the first version of Mac OS X, version 10.0 Cheetah, was released in March 2001.[58]

  

The "Sunflower" iMac G4 is an industrial design innovation.

In 1999, Apple launched its new "digital lifestyle" strategy of which the Mac became a "digital hub" and centerpiece with several new applications. In October 1999, the iMac DV gained FireWire ports, allowing users to connect camcorders and easily create movies with iMovie; the iMac gained a CD burner and iTunes, allowing users to rip CDs, make playlists, and burn them to blank discs. Other applications include iPhoto for organizing and editing photos, and GarageBand for creating and mixing music and other audio. The digital lifestyle strategy entered other markets, with the iTunes Store, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and the 2007 renaming from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. By January 2007, the iPod was half of Apple's revenues.[59]

 

New Macs include the white "Sunflower" iMac G4. Ive designed a display to swivel with one finger, so that it "appear[ed] to defy gravity".[60] In 2003, Apple released the aluminum 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBook G4, proclaiming the "Year of the Notebook". With the Microsoft deal expiring, Apple also replaced Internet Explorer with its new browser, Safari.[61] The first Mac Mini was intended to be assembled in the U.S., but domestic manufacturers were slow and had insufficient quality processes, leading Apple to Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn.[62] The affordably priced Mac Mini desktop was introduced at Macworld 2005, alongside the introduction of the iWork office suite.[63]

 

Serlet and Tevanian were both initiating the secret project asked by Steve Jobs to propose to Sony executives, in 2001, to sell Mac OS X on Vaio laptops.[64] They showed them a demonstration at a golf party in Hawaii, with the most expensive Vaio laptop they could have acquired.[65] But due to bad timing, Sony refused, arguing their Vaio sales just started to grow after years of difficulties.[66]

 

Intel transition and "back to the Mac"

With PowerPC chips falling behind in performance, price, and efficiency, Steve Jobs announced in 2005 the Mac transition to Intel processors, because the operating system had been developed for both architectures since the beginning.[67][68] PowerPC apps run using transparent Rosetta emulation,[69] and Windows boots natively using Boot Camp.[70] This transition helped contribute to a few years of growth in Mac sales.[71]

  

Steve Jobs unveiled the first MacBook Air at Macworld 2008.

After the iPhone's 2007 release, Apple began a multi-year effort to bring many iPhone innovations "back to the Mac", including multi-touch gesture support, instant wake from sleep, and fast flash storage.[72][73] At Macworld 2008, Jobs introduced the first MacBook Air by taking it out of a manila envelope, touting it as the "world's thinnest notebook".[74] The MacBook Air favors wireless technologies over physical ports, and lacks FireWire, an optical drive, or a replaceable battery. The Remote Disc feature accesses discs in other networked computers.[75] A decade after its launch, journalist Tom Warren wrote that the MacBook Air had "immediately changed the future of laptops", starting the ultrabook trend.[76] OS X Lion added new software features first introduced with the iPad, such as FaceTime, full-screen apps, document autosaving and versioning, and a bundled Mac App Store to replace software install discs with online downloads. It gained support for Retina displays, which had been introduced earlier with the iPhone 4.[77] iPhone-like multi-touch technology was progressively added to all MacBook trackpads, and to desktop Macs through the Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad.[78][79] The 2010 MacBook Air added an iPad-inspired standby mode, "instant-on" wake from sleep, and flash memory storage.[80][81]

 

After criticism by Greenpeace, Apple improved the ecological performance of its products.[82] The 2008 MacBook Air is free of toxic chemicals like mercury, bromide, and PVC, and with smaller packaging.[74] The enclosures of the iMac and unibody MacBook Pro were redesigned with the more recyclable aluminum and glass.[83][84]

 

On February 24, 2011, the MacBook Pro became the first computer to support Intel's new Thunderbolt connector, with two-way transfer speeds of 10 Gbit/s, and backward compatibility with Mini DisplayPort.[85]

 

2012–present: Tim Cook era

 

The 2013 Mac Pro was controversial among professional users. One of the reasons was the lack of internal expandibility due to the absence of expansion slots or the like, which was a side-effect of the exotic and compact design (height c. 25 cm).

Due to deteriorating health, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO on August 24, 2011, after which he died that year on October 5. Tim Cook was named as his successor.[86] Cook's first keynote address launched iCloud, moving the digital hub from the Mac to the cloud.[87][88] In 2012, the MacBook Pro was refreshed with a Retina display, and the iMac was slimmed and lost its SuperDrive.[89][90]

 

During Cook's first few years as CEO, Apple fought media criticisms that it could no longer innovate without Jobs.[91] In 2013, Apple introduced a new cylindrical Mac Pro, with marketing chief Phil Schiller exclaiming "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!"[citation needed]. The new model had a miniaturized design with a glossy dark gray cylindrical body and internal components organized around a central cooling system. Tech reviewers praised the 2013 Mac Pro for its power and futuristic design;[92][93] however, it was poorly received by professional users, who criticized its lack of upgradability and the removal of expansion slots.[94][95]

 

The iMac was refreshed with a 5K Retina display in 2014, making it the highest-resolution all-in-one desktop computer.[96] The MacBook was reintroduced in 2015, with a completely redesigned aluminum unibody chassis, a 12-inch Retina display, a fanless low-power Intel Core M processor, a much smaller logic board, a new Butterfly keyboard, a single USB-C port, and a solid-state Force Touch trackpad with pressure sensitivity. It was praised for its portability, but criticized for its lack of performance, the need to use adapters to use most USB peripherals, and a high starting price of $1,299 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2024).[97] In 2015, Apple started a service program to address a widespread GPU defect in the 15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro, which could cause graphical artifacts or prevent the machine from functioning entirely.[98]

 

Neglect of professional users

 

The 13 inches (330 mm) and 15 inches (380 mm) MacBook Pros (2016–19) were criticized for its keyboard's unreliability, and the USB-C-only port configuration.

The Touch Bar MacBook Pro was released in October 2016. It was the thinnest MacBook Pro ever made, replaced all ports with four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, gained a thinner "Butterfly" keyboard, and replaced function keys with the Touch Bar. The Touch Bar was criticized for making it harder to use the function keys by feel, as it offered no tactile feedback. Many users were also frustrated by the need to buy dongles, particularly professional users who relied on traditional USB-A devices, SD cards, and HDMI for video output.[99][100] A few months after its release, users reported a problem with stuck keys and letters being skipped or repeated. iFixit attributed this to the ingress of dust or food crumbs under the keys, jamming them. Since the Butterfly keyboard was riveted into the laptop's case, it could only be serviced at an Apple Store or authorized service center.[101][102][103] Apple settled a $50M class-action lawsuit over these keyboards in 2022.[104][105] These same models were afflicted by "flexgate": when users closed and opened the machine, they would risk progressively damaging the cable responsible for the display backlight, which was too short. The $6 cable was soldered to the screen, requiring a $700 repair.[106][107]

 

Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive continued to guide product designs towards simplicity and minimalism.[108] Critics argued that he had begun to prioritize form over function, and was excessively focused on product thinness. His role in the decisions to switch to fragile Butterfly keyboards, to make the Mac Pro non-expandable, and to remove USB-A, HDMI and the SD card slot from the MacBook Pro were criticized.[109][110][111]

 

The long-standing keyboard issue on MacBook Pros, Apple's abandonment of the Aperture professional photography app, and the lack of Mac Pro upgrades led to declining sales and a widespread belief that Apple was no longer committed to professional users.[112][113][114][115] After several years without any significant updates to the Mac Pro, Apple executives admitted in 2017 that the 2013 Mac Pro had not met expectations, and said that the company had designed themselves into a "thermal corner", preventing them from releasing a planned dual-GPU successor.[116] Apple also unveiled their future product roadmap for professional products, including plans for an iMac Pro as a stopgap and an expandable Mac Pro to be released later.[117][118] The iMac Pro was revealed at WWDC 2017, featuring updated Intel Xeon W processors and Radeon Pro Vega graphics.[119]

 

In 2018, Apple released a redesigned MacBook Air with a Retina display, Butterfly keyboard, Force Touch trackpad, and Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports.[120][121] The Butterfly keyboard went through three revisions, incorporating silicone gaskets in the key mechanism to prevent keys from being jammed by dust or other particles. However, many users continued to experience reliability issues with these keyboards,[122] leading Apple to launch a program to repair affected keyboards free of charge.[123] Higher-end models of the 15-inch 2018 MacBook Pro faced another issue where the Core i9 processor reached unusually high temperatures, resulting in reduced CPU performance from thermal throttling. Apple issued a patch to address this issue via a macOS supplemental update, blaming a "missing digital key" in the thermal management firmware.[124]

 

The 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro and 2020 MacBook Air replaced the unreliable Butterfly keyboard with a redesigned scissor-switch Magic Keyboard. On the MacBook Pros, the Touch Bar and Touch ID were made standard, and the Esc key was detached from the Touch Bar and returned to being a physical key.[125] At WWDC 2019, Apple unveiled a new Mac Pro with a larger case design that allows for hardware expandability, and introduced a new expansion module system (MPX) for modules such as the Afterburner card for faster video encoding.[126][127] Almost every part of the new Mac Pro is user-replaceable, with iFixit praising its high user-repairability.[128] It received positive reviews, with reviewers praising its power, modularity, quiet cooling, and Apple's increased focus on professional workflows.[129][130]

 

Apple silicon transition

 

The 2021 iMac was praised for its colorful and slim design.

 

The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros (2021-present) received widespread acclaim for its significantly improved port selection (pictured) and thermals.

In April 2018, Bloomberg reported Apple's plan to replace Intel chips with ARM processors similar to those in its phones, causing Intel's shares to drop by 9.2%.[131] The Verge commented on the rumors, that such a decision made sense, as Intel was failing to make significant improvements to its processors, and could not compete with ARM chips on battery life.[132][133]

 

At WWDC 2020, Tim Cook announced that the Mac would be transitioning to Apple silicon chips, built upon an ARM architecture, over a two-year timeline.[134] The Rosetta 2 translation layer was also introduced, enabling Apple silicon Macs to run Intel apps.[135] On November 10, 2020, Apple announced their first system-on-a-chip designed for the Mac, the Apple M1, and a series of Macs that would ship with the M1: the MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro.[136] These new Macs received highly positive reviews, with reviewers highlighting significant improvements in battery life, performance, and heat management compared to previous generations.[137][138][139]

 

The iMac Pro was discontinued on March 6, 2021.[140] On April 20, 2021, a new 24-inch iMac was revealed, featuring the M1 chip, seven new colors, thinner white bezels, a higher-resolution 1080p webcam, and an enclosure made entirely from recycled aluminum.[141][142]

 

On October 18, 2021, Apple announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, featuring the more powerful M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, a bezel-less mini-LED 120 Hz ProMotion display, and the return of MagSafe and HDMI ports, and the SD card slot.[143][144][145]

 

On March 8, 2022, the Mac Studio was unveiled, also featuring the M1 Max chip and the new M1 Ultra chip in a similar form factor to the Mac Mini. It drew highly positive reviews for its flexibility and wide range of available ports.[146] Its performance was deemed "impressive", beating the highest-end Mac Pro with a 28-core Intel Xeon chip, while being significantly more power efficient and compact.[147] It was introduced alongside the Studio Display, meant to replace the 27-inch iMac, which was discontinued on the same day.[148]

 

Post-Apple silicon transition

At WWDC 2022, Apple announced an updated MacBook Air based on a new M2 chip. It incorporates several changes from the 14-inch MacBook Pro, such as a flat, slab-shaped design, full-sized function keys, MagSafe charging, and a Liquid Retina display, with rounded corners and a display cutout incorporating a 1080p webcam.[149]

 

The Mac Studio with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips and the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra chip was unveiled at WWDC 2023, and the Intel-based Mac Pro was discontinued on the same day, completing the Mac transition to Apple silicon chips.[150] The Mac Studio was received positively as a modest upgrade over the previous generation, albeit similarly priced PCs could be equipped with faster GPUs.[151] However, the Apple silicon-based Mac Pro was criticized for several regressions, including memory capacity and a complete lack of CPU or GPU expansion options.[150][152] A 15-inch MacBook Air was also introduced, and is the largest display included on a consumer-level Apple laptop.[153]

 

The MacBook Pro was updated on October 30, 2023, with updated M3 Pro and M3 Max chips using a 3 nm process node, as well as the standard M3 chip in a refreshed iMac and a new base model MacBook Pro.[154] Reviewers lamented the base memory configuration of 8 GB on the standard M3 MacBook Pro.[155] In March 2024, the MacBook Air was also updated to include the M3 chip.[156] In October 2024, several Macs were announced with the M4 series of chips, including the iMac, a redesigned Mac Mini, and the MacBook Pro; all of which included 16 GB of memory as standard. The MacBook Air was also upgraded with 16 GB for the same price.[157]

 

Current Mac models

See also: List of Mac models

Overview of current Mac lineup

MacBook Air, entry-level lightweight laptop

MacBook Air, entry-level lightweight laptop

MacBook Pro, high-performance workstation laptop

MacBook Pro, high-performance workstation laptop

iMac, all-in-one desktop

iMac, all-in-one desktop

Mac Mini, entry-level desktop

Mac Mini, entry-level desktop

Mac Studio, compact workstation desktop

Mac Studio, compact workstation desktop

Mac Pro, expandable workstation tower

Mac Pro, expandable workstation tower

More information Release date, Model ...

Marketing

 

The "1984" advertisement debuted during Super Bowl XVIII.

The original Macintosh was marketed at Super Bowl XVIII with the highly acclaimed "1984" ad, directed by Ridley Scott. The ad alluded to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and symbolized Apple's desire to "rescue" humanity from the conformity of computer industry giant IBM.[160][161][162] The ad is now considered a "watershed event" and a "masterpiece."[163][164] Before the Macintosh, high-tech marketing catered to industry insiders rather than consumers, so journalists covered technology like the "steel or automobiles" industries, with articles written for a highly technical audience.[165][166] The Macintosh launch event pioneered event marketing techniques that have since become "widely emulated" in Silicon Valley, by creating a mystique about the product and giving an inside look into its creation.[167] Apple took a new "multiple exclusives" approach regarding the press, giving "over one hundred interviews to journalists that lasted over six hours apiece", and introduced a new "Test Drive a Macintosh" campaign.[168][169]

 

Apple's brand, which established a "heartfelt connection with consumers", is cited as one of the keys to the Mac's success.[170] After Steve Jobs's return to the company, he launched the Think different ad campaign, positioning the Mac as the best computer for "creative people who believe that one person can change the world".[171] The campaign featured black-and-white photographs of luminaries like Albert Einstein, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., with Jobs saying: "if they ever used a computer, it would have been a Mac".[172][173] The ad campaign was critically acclaimed and won several awards, including a Primetime Emmy.[174] In the 2000s, Apple continued to use successful marketing campaigns to promote the Mac line, including the Switch and Get a Mac campaigns.[175][176]

 

Apple's focus on design and build quality has helped establish the Mac as a high-end, premium brand. The company's emphasis on creating iconic and visually appealing designs for its computers has given them a "human face" and made them stand out in a crowded market.[177] Apple has long made product placements in high-profile movies and television shows to showcase Mac computers, like Mission: Impossible, Legally Blonde, and Sex and the City.[178] Apple is known for not allowing producers to show villains using Apple products.[179] Its own shows produced for the Apple TV+ streaming service feature prominent use of MacBooks.[180]

 

The Mac is known for its highly loyal customer base. In 2022, the American Customer Satisfaction Index gave the Mac the highest customer satisfaction score of any personal computer, at 82 out of 100.[181] In that year, Apple was the fourth largest vendor of personal computers, with a market share of 8.9%.[182]

 

Hardware

 

A Mac Pro from 2019 being used for color grading.

Apple outsources the production of its hardware to Asian manufacturers like Foxconn and Pegatron.[183][184] As a highly vertically integrated company developing its own operating system and chips, it has tight control over all aspects of its products and deep integration between hardware and software.[185]

 

All Macs in production use ARM-based Apple silicon processors and have been praised for their performance and power efficiency.[186] They can run Intel apps through the Rosetta 2 translation layer, and iOS and iPadOS apps distributed via the App Store.[187] These Mac models come equipped with high-speed Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 connectivity, with speeds up to 40 Gbit/s.[188][189] Apple silicon Macs have custom integrated graphics rather than graphics cards.[190] MacBooks are recharged with either USB-C or MagSafe connectors, depending on the model.[191]

 

Apple sells accessories for the Mac, including the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR external monitors,[192] the AirPods line of wireless headphones,[193] and keyboards and mice such as the Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Mouse.[194]

 

Software

 

The latest release of macOS, Sequoia, was released in 2024.

Main article: macOS

See also: Architecture of macOS and Mac operating systems

Macs run the macOS operating system, which is the second most widely used desktop OS according to StatCounter.[195] Macs can also run Windows, Linux, or other operating systems through virtualization, emulation, or multi-booting.[196][197][198]

 

macOS is the successor of the classic Mac OS, which had nine releases between 1984 and 1999. The last version of classic Mac OS, Mac OS 9, was introduced in 1999. Mac OS 9 was succeeded by Mac OS X in 2001.[199] Over the years, Mac OS X was rebranded first to OS X and later to macOS.[200]

 

macOS is a derivative of NextSTEP and FreeBSD. It uses the XNU kernel, and the core of macOS has been open-sourced as the Darwin operating system.[201] macOS features the Aqua user interface, the Cocoa set of frameworks, and the Objective-C and Swift programming languages.[202] Macs are deeply integrated with other Apple devices, including the iPhone and iPad, through Continuity features like Handoff, Sidecar, Universal Control, and Universal Clipboard.[203]

 

The first version of Mac OS X, version 10.0, was released in March 2001.[204] Subsequent releases introduced major changes and features to the operating system. 10.4 Tiger added Spotlight search;[205] 10.6 Snow Leopard brought refinements, stability, and full 64-bit support;[206] 10.7 Lion introduced many iPad-inspired features;[69] 10.10 Yosemite introduced a complete user interface revamp, replacing skeuomorphic designs with iOS 7-esque flat designs;[207] 10.12 Sierra added the Siri voice assistant and Apple File System (APFS) support;[208] 10.14 Mojave added a dark user interface mode;[209] 10.15 Catalina dropped support for 32-bit apps;[210] 11 Big Sur introduced an iOS-inspired redesign of the user interface,[211] 12 Monterey added the Shortcuts app, Low Power Mode, and AirPlay to Mac;[212] and 13 Ventura added Stage Manager, Continuity Camera, and passkeys.[213]

 

The Mac has a variety of apps available, including cross-platform apps like Google Chrome, Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, Mathematica, Visual Studio Code, Ableton Live, and Cinema 4D.[214] Apple has also developed several apps for the Mac, including Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, iWork, GarageBand, and iMovie.[215] A large amount of open-source software applications run natively on macOS, such as LibreOffice, VLC, and GIMP,[216] and command-line programs, which can be installed through Macports and Homebrew.[217] Many applications for Linux or BSD also run on macOS, often using X11.[218] Apple's official integrated development environment (IDE) is Xcode, allowing developers to create apps for the Mac and other Apple platforms.[219]

 

The latest release of macOS is macOS 15 Sequoia, released on September 16, 2024.[220]

 

Timeline

Timeline of Mac model families

vte

 

See also: Timeline of the Apple II series, List of Mac models, and Timeline of Apple Inc. products

Source: Glen Sanford, Apple History, apple-history.com

 

References

Further reading

External links

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Yesterday I got a box from BzzAgent, full of Nutella -- which is the most delicious chocolatey hazelnut spread, and if you have never had any, you are not living -- including a whole jar, some Nutella-related items, magnets and a history and trivia booklet [they sell it in 3,000-gram jars in Europe!] and a bunch of dollar-off coupons and single-serving samples to share.

 

Today was a copy of Megan Nicolay's totally awesome Generation T [which is about reconstructing T-shirts into A. something cuter and/or B. something else entirely, you can buy it here from Workman Publishing]

 

AND

 

a bunch of swag from the fine folks at flickr HQ to be distributed at the Oakland flickr-photo meetup #2 this Saturday. You should come get yours, there are even Crackerjack box-style tattoos. I'll bring the Nutella, too.

 

eta:

BY THE WAY, IF YOU ARE NOT LOCAL AND

ARE INTERESTED IN SIMILAR FLICKR GOODIES:

Organize your own meetup [it's easy, you just start a new topic on your local-area flickr group saying, "I am going to be at this place at this time taking photos and you should all come join me"] then follow directions here.

Anyone who can identify this machine is telling me their age. Back when Adobe was an idea being hatched between John Warnock and Chuck Geschke over lunch at PARC and PageMaker was floating around in Paul Brainard's brain and Apple operated out of a California back street garage and Microsoft was a tiny little startup over the hill in Seattle that we tried to find one day but couldn't (no Google map back then) and Douglas Engelbart was working away at ARC on something called a mouse-

 

Mrs. McFadden and student. it was faster than setting type on a stick and you didn't have to deal with a Linotype operator. But you had better know the coding info on the screen. No spell checker either. It's output was a twelve inch wide strip of photo paper from a roll in the machine that the students hung from wires and pipes in the lab to dry after being processed in a chemical bath. They were then cut up into repros to be pasted on a mechanical. And we thought it was the most modern system possible.

Typography Exercise <> Paul Rand Adobe PageMaker Bauer Bodoni 8.5x5.5 in

In 1990, my pal loaned me a 20MB Jasmine BackPac so I could run PageMaker on my 2-floppy SE. It allowed me to earn my first regular dough after college. Crappy newsletters and such.

 

This thing? This? Four HUNDRED times more capacity, and it's about the size of two pinky nails.

 

I will just go ahead and be 42 and say, "Holy. Fucking. Shit."

 

Hey, achei q esse ficou mais bonitinho aindaaaa, hehehehehehe !!! =^^=

 

1.

Dimas

e Tchuco, 2. Eu e

Jim, 3. The Light In

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Sunset, 25. Green

Light, 26. On

Fire, 27. Johnny - In

Memorian -, 28. Concentrate,

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Yellow Betta, 30. Let Me See

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Blue, 32. Eyes,

33. Light My

Fire

  

Obrigada a todos vcs, viu !!! ;D

 

Bjoks keridos. =*

 

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Surreal set design featured in this 1987 Apple Macintosh brochure. An early example of desktop reprographics produced on a Macintosh computer using Aldus Pagemaker and Quark Xpress software, output to Linotronic imagesetter.

Ha! I didn't have to add any animals to this one.

 

-------------------

Context is the killer application for mobile

 

We live in a world of diverse mobile devices. Laptops, smartphones and everything in between define the mobile experience of the 21st century. But what is the killer application for mobile computing? We all know the theory of killer apps -- they're the reason and the purpose people invest in new devices. The killer app in the early days of PCs was the VisiCalc spreadsheet. PageMaker and the creation of desktop publishing were the killer apps for the GUI-based PC, most notably the Macintosh. But for mobile, it's not as clear; some people think the killer app for mobile is email, while other say it's the mobile web. Personally, I don't think there's one specific killer application -- I think the killer app for mobile is simply context.

 

Historically, we've tailored the devices we use to the places where we are. We distinguished between business users and consumer users because the functionally required was often tied to the location the user was sitting. Mobility was often dead space. People found ways to distract themselves during travel time, and were generally disconnected when out and about. Today, the mobile space is connected, and that makes it quite unique: it's neither home or work, work nor play. Your context shifts rapidly depending on what you're doing, where you are, and what devices or devices you may be carrying -- in our age of digital ubiquity, you can access the relevant information, either personal or professional, wherever you are, on whatever screen you choose. Delivering the contextual information users need, when they need it, is what's critical -- not any particular application or service.

 

Context contradicts conventional wisdom. For one thing, feeds and speeds are no longer the defining metrics for value. The fastest and most powerful laptop won't do much for a user on the road if it weighs 10 pounds and gets barely an hour of battery life -- or can't open in a coach seat on a plane. By contrast, the ability to check email, browse the web or listen to music doesn't matter if your phone won't make a call when you need it to. Smart vendors will learn technology applied to context for users is what matters -- especially since I think there's an upper limit on the number of devices most people will carry with them at any given time. As I've said in the past, for most of us that's two, with a maximum of three.

 

It's time to be liberated and connected. The dream is real -- now it's time to see more devices execute and deliver the vision.

 

www.engadget.com/2010/02/07/entelligence-context-is-the-k...

-------------------------------------

Family of personal computers made by Apple

This article is about the family of personal computers. For the series of all-in-one computers, see iMac. For other uses, see Mac.

"Macintosh" redirects here. For the original Macintosh, see Macintosh 128K. For other uses, see Macintosh (disambiguation).

Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh apple. The current product lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro desktops. Macs are currently sold with Apple's UNIX-based macOS operating system, which is not licensed to other manufacturers and exclusively bundled with Mac computers. This operating system replaced Apple's original Macintosh operating system, which has variously been named System, Mac OS, and Classic Mac OS.

 

Quick Facts Also known as, Developer ...

Jef Raskin conceived the Macintosh project in 1979, which was usurped and redefined by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 1981. The original Macintosh was launched in January 1984, after Apple's "1984" advertisement during Super Bowl XVIII. A series of incrementally improved models followed, sharing the same integrated case design. In 1987, the Macintosh II brought color graphics, but priced as a professional workstation and not a personal computer. Beginning in 1994 with the Power Macintosh, the Mac transitioned from Motorola 68000 series processors to PowerPC. Macintosh clones by other manufacturers were also briefly sold afterwards. The line was refreshed in 1998 with the launch of the iMac G3, reinvigorating the line's competitiveness against commodity IBM PC compatibles. Macs transitioned to Intel x86 processors by 2006 along with new sub-product lines MacBook and Mac Pro. Since 2020, Macs have transitioned to Apple silicon chips based on ARM64.

 

History

See also: History of Apple Inc.

1979–1996: "Macintosh" era

With a red background, Steve Jobs rests his forearms on a Macintosh computer.

Steve Jobs debuted the Macintosh in January 1984, photographed by Bernard Gotfryd. The Mac displays the shin-hanga (Japanese: 髪梳ける女; lit. 'hair combing woman') (original) by Goyō Hashiguchi.

In the late 1970s, the Apple II became one of the most popular computers, especially in education. After IBM introduced the IBM PC in 1981, its sales surpassed the Apple II. In response, Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983.[1] The Lisa's graphical user interface was inspired by strategically licensed demonstrations of the Xerox Star. Lisa surpassed the Star with intuitive direct manipulation, like the ability to drag and drop files, double-click to launch applications, and move or resize windows by clicking and dragging instead of going through a menu.[2][3] However, hampered by its high price of $9,995 (equivalent to $35,000 in 2024) and lack of available software, the Lisa was commercially unsuccessful.[1]

 

Parallel to the Lisa's development, a skunkworks team at Apple was working on the Macintosh project. Conceived in 1979 by Jef Raskin, Macintosh was envisioned as an affordable, easy-to-use computer for the masses. Raskin named the computer after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh. The initial team consisted of Raskin, hardware engineer Burrell Smith, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. In 1981, Steve Jobs was removed from the Lisa team and joined Macintosh, and was able to gradually take control of the project due to Wozniak's temporary absence after an airplane crash. Under Jobs, the Mac grew to resemble the Lisa, with a mouse and a more intuitive graphical interface, at a quarter of the Lisa's price.[4]

 

Upon its January 1984 launch, the first Macintosh was described as "revolutionary" by The New York Times.[5] Sales initially met projections, but dropped due to the machine's low performance, single floppy disk drive requiring frequent disk swapping, and initial lack of applications. Author Douglas Adams said of it, "…what I (and I think everybody else who bought the machine in the early days) fell in love with was not the machine itself, which was ridiculously slow and underpowered, but a romantic idea of the machine. And that romantic idea had to sustain me through the realities of actually working on the 128K Mac."[6] Most of the original Macintosh team left Apple, and some followed Jobs to found NeXT after he was forced out by CEO John Sculley.[7]

 

The first Macintosh nevertheless generated enthusiasm among buyers and some developers, who rushed to develop entirely new programs for the platform, including PageMaker, MORE, and Excel.[8] Apple soon released the Macintosh 512K with improved performance and an external floppy drive.[9] The Macintosh is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface,[10] Jobs's fascination with typography gave it an unprecedented variety of fonts and type styles like italics, bold, shadow, and outline.[11] It is the first WYSIWYG computer, and due in large part to PageMaker and Apple's LaserWriter printer, it ignited the desktop publishing market, turning the Macintosh from an early let-down into a notable success.[12] Levy called desktop publishing the Mac's "Trojan horse" in the enterprise market, as colleagues and executives tried these Macs and were seduced into requesting one for themselves. PageMaker creator Paul Brainerd said: "You would see the pattern. A large corporation would buy PageMaker and a couple of Macs to do the company newsletter. The next year you'd come back and there would be thirty Macintoshes. The year after that, three hundred".[13] Ease of use for computer novices was another incentive.[14] Peat Marwick was the first, largest, and for some time the only large corporate customer;[15] although the company said that its auditors used Macs because of their portability and not the user interface,[16] after it merged with the IBM PC-using KMG to form KPMG in 1987, the combined company retained Macs after studying both platforms.[14]

 

In late 1985, Bill Atkinson, one of the few remaining employees to have been on the original Macintosh team, proposed that Apple create a Dynabook, Alan Kay's concept for a tablet computer that stores and organizes knowledge. Sculley rebuffed him, so he adapted the idea into a Mac program, HyperCard, whose cards store any information—text, image, audio, video—with the memex-like ability to semantically link cards together. HyperCard was released in 1987 and bundled with every Macintosh.[17]

  

Macintosh Portable

In the late 1980s, Jean-Louis Gassée, a Sculley protégé who had succeeded Jobs as head of the Macintosh division, made the Mac more expandable and powerful to appeal to tech enthusiasts and enterprise customers.[18] This strategy led to the successful 1987 release of the Macintosh II, which appealed to power users and gave the lineup momentum. However, Gassée's "no-compromise" approach foiled Apple's first laptop, the Macintosh Portable, which has many uncommon power user features, but is almost as heavy as the original Macintosh at twice its price. Soon after its launch, Gassée was fired.[19]

 

Since the Mac's debut, Sculley had opposed lowering the company's profit margins, and Macintoshes were priced far above entry-level MS-DOS compatible computers. Steven Levy said that though Macintoshes were superior, the cheapest Mac cost almost twice as much as the cheapest IBM PC compatible.[20][page needed] Sculley also resisted licensing the Mac OS to competing hardware vendors, who could have undercut Apple on pricing and jeopardized its hardware sales, as IBM PC compatibles had done to IBM. These early strategic steps caused the Macintosh to lose its chance at becoming the dominant personal computer platform.[21][22] Though senior management demanded high-margin products, a few employees disobeyed and set out to create a computer that would live up to the original Macintosh's slogan, "[a] computer for the rest of us", which the market clamored for. In a pattern typical of Apple's early era, of skunkworks projects like Macintosh and Macintosh II lacking adoption by upper management who were late to realize the projects' merit, this once-renegade project was actually endorsed by senior management following market pressures. In 1990 came the Macintosh LC and the more affordable Macintosh Classic, the first model under $1,000 (equivalent to $2,400 in 2024). Between 1984 and 1989, Apple had sold one million Macs, and another 10 million over the following five years.[23]

  

PowerBook 100

In 1991, the Macintosh Portable was replaced with the smaller and lighter PowerBook 100, the first laptop with a palm rest and trackball in front of the keyboard. The PowerBook brought $1 billion of revenue within one year, and became a status symbol.[24] By then, the Macintosh represented 10% to 15% of the personal computer market.[25] Fearing a decline in market share, Sculley co-founded the AIM alliance with IBM and Motorola to create a new standardized computing platform, which led to the creation of the PowerPC processor architecture, and the Taligent operating system.[26] In 1992, Apple introduced the Macintosh Performa line, which "grew like ivy" into a disorienting number of barely differentiated models in an attempt to gain market share. This backfired by confusing customers, but the same strategy soon afflicted the PowerBook line.[27] Michael Spindler continued this approach when he succeeded Sculley as CEO in 1993.[28] He oversaw the Mac's transition from Motorola 68000 series to PowerPC and the release of Apple's first PowerPC machine, the well-received Power Macintosh.[29]

 

Many new Macintoshes suffered from inventory and quality control problems. The 1995 PowerBook 5300 was plagued with quality problems, with several recalls as some units even caught fire[citation needed]. Pessimistic about Apple's future, Spindler repeatedly attempted to sell Apple to other companies, including IBM, Kodak, AT&T, Sun, and Philips. In a last-ditch attempt to fend off Windows, Apple yielded and started a Macintosh clone program, which allowed other manufacturers to make System 7 computers.[29] However, this only cannibalized the sales of Apple's higher-margin machines.[30] Meanwhile, Windows 95 was an instant hit with customers. Apple was struggling financially as its attempts to produce a System 7 successor had all failed with Taligent, Star Trek, and Copland, and its hardware was stagnant. The Mac was no longer competitive, and its sales entered a tailspin.[31] Corporations abandoned Macintosh in droves, replacing it with cheaper and more technically sophisticated Windows NT machines for which far more applications and peripherals existed. Even some Apple loyalists saw no future for the Macintosh.[32] Once the world's second largest computer vendor after IBM, Apple's market share declined precipitously from 9.4% in 1993 to 3.1% in 1997.[33][34] Bill Gates was ready to abandon Microsoft Office for Mac, which would have slashed any remaining business appeal the Mac had. Gil Amelio, Spindler's successor, failed to negotiate a deal with Gates.[35]

 

In 1996, Spindler was succeeded by Amelio, who searched for an established operating system to acquire or license for the foundation of a new Macintosh operating system. He considered BeOS, Solaris, Windows NT, and NeXT's NeXTSTEP, eventually choosing the last. Announced on December 20, 1996, Apple acquired NeXT on February 7, 1997, returning its co-founder, Steve Jobs.[31][36]

 

1997–2011: Steve Jobs era

 

Mac worldwide quarterly sales from 2006 to 2023

NeXT had developed the mature NeXTSTEP operating system with strong multimedia and Internet capabilities.[37] NeXTSTEP was also popular among programmers, financial firms, and academia for its object-oriented programming tools for rapid application development.[38][39] In an eagerly anticipated speech at the January 1997 Macworld trade show, Steve Jobs previewed Rhapsody, a merger of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS as the foundation of Apple's new operating system strategy.[40] At the time, Jobs only served as advisor, and Amelio was released in July 1997. Jobs was formally appointed interim CEO in September, and permanent CEO in January 2000.[41] To continue turning the company around, Jobs streamlined Apple's operations and began layoffs.[42] He negotiated a deal with Bill Gates in which Microsoft committed to releasing new versions of Office for Mac for five years, investing $150 million in Apple, and settling an ongoing lawsuit in which Apple alleged that Windows had copied the Mac's interface. In exchange, Apple made Internet Explorer the default Mac browser. The deal was closed hours before Jobs announced it at the August 1997 Macworld.[43]

 

Jobs returned focus to Apple. The Mac lineup had been incomprehensible, with dozens of hard-to-distinguish models. He streamlined it into four quadrants, a laptop and a desktop each for consumers and professionals. Apple also discontinued several Mac accessories, including the StyleWriter printer and the Newton PDA.[44] These changes were meant to refocus Apple's engineering, marketing, and manufacturing efforts so that more care could be dedicated to each product.[45] Jobs also stopped licensing Mac OS to clone manufacturers, which had cost Apple ten times more in lost sales than it received in licensing fees.[46] Jobs made a deal with the largest computer reseller, CompUSA, to carry a store-within-a-store that would better showcase Macs and their software and peripherals. According to Apple, the Mac's share of computer sales in those stores went from 3% to 14%. In November, the online Apple Store launched with built-to-order Mac configurations without a middleman.[41] When Tim Cook was hired as chief operations officer in March 1998, he closed Apple's inefficient factories and outsourced Mac production to Taiwan. Within months, he rolled out a new ERP system and implemented just-in-time manufacturing principles. This practically eliminated Apple's costly unsold inventory, and within one year, Apple had the industry's most efficient inventory turnover.[47]

  

The iMac G3's marketing heavily emphasizes its design and Internet capabilities for consumers.

 

The Power Mac G4 Cube advanced Apple's industrial design culture and manufacturing processes.

Jobs's top priority was "to ship a great new product".[48] The first is the iMac G3, an all-in-one computer that was meant to make the Internet intuitive and easy to access. While PCs came in functional beige boxes, Jony Ive gave the iMac a radical and futuristic design, meant to make the product less intimidating. Its oblong case is made of translucent plastic in Bondi blue, later revised with many colors. Ive added a handle on the back to make the computer more approachable. Jobs declared the iMac would be "legacy-free", succeeding ADB and SCSI with an infrared port and cutting-edge USB ports. Though USB had industry backing, it was still absent from most PCs and USB 1.1 was only standardized one month after the iMac's release.[49] He also controversially removed the floppy disk drive and replaced it with a CD drive. The iMac was unveiled in May 1998, and released in August. It was an immediate commercial success and became the fastest-selling computer in Apple's history, with 800,000 units sold before the year ended. Vindicating Jobs on the Internet's appeal to consumers, 32% of iMac buyers had never used a computer before, and 12% were switching from PCs.[50] The iMac reestablished the Mac's reputation as a trendsetter: for the next few years, translucent plastic became the dominant design trend in numerous consumer products.[51]

 

Apple knew it had lost its chance to compete in the Windows-dominated enterprise market, so it prioritized design and ease of use to make the Mac more appealing to average consumers, and even teens[citation needed]. The "Apple New Product Process" was launched as a more collaborative product development process for the Mac, with concurrent engineering principles. From then, product development was no longer driven primarily by engineering and with design as an afterthought. Instead, Ive and Jobs first defined a new product's "soul", before it was jointly developed by the marketing, engineering, and operations teams.[52] The engineering team was led by the product design group, and Ive's design studio was the dominant voice throughout the development process.[53]

 

The next two Mac products in 1999, the Power Mac G3 (nicknamed "Blue and White") and the iBook, introduced industrial designs influenced by the iMac, incorporating colorful translucent plastic and carrying handles. The iBook introduced several innovations: a strengthened hinge instead of a mechanical latch to keep it closed, ports on the sides rather than on the back, and the first laptop with built-in Wi-Fi.[54] It became the best selling laptop in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 1999.[55] The professional-oriented Titanium PowerBook G4 was released in 2001, becoming the lightest and thinnest laptop in its class, and the first laptop with a wide-screen display; it also debuted a magnetic latch that secures the lid elegantly.[56]

  

The Dual USB "Ice" iBook represents a design shift away from color, toward white polycarbonate.

The design language of consumer Macs shifted again from colored plastics to white polycarbonate with the introduction of the 2001 Dual USB "Ice" iBook. To increase the iBook's durability, it eliminated doors and handles, and gained a more minimalistic exterior. Ive attempted to go beyond the quadrant with Power Mac G4 Cube, an innovation beyond the computer tower in a professional desktop far smaller than the Power Mac. The Cube failed in the market and was withdrawn from sale after one year. However, Ive considered it beneficial, because it helped Apple gain experience in complex machining and miniaturization.[57]

 

The development of a successor to the old Mac OS was well underway. Rhapsody had been previewed at WWDC 1997, featuring a Mach kernel and BSD foundations, a virtualization layer for old Mac OS apps (codenamed Blue Box), and an implementation of NeXTSTEP APIs called OpenStep (codenamed Yellow Box). Apple open-sourced the core of Rhapsody as the Darwin operating system. After several developer previews, Apple also introduced the Carbon API, which provided a way for developers to more easily make their apps native to Mac OS X without rewriting them in Yellow Box. Mac OS X was publicly unveiled in January 2000, introducing the modern Aqua graphical user interface, and a far more stable Unix foundation, with memory protection and preemptive multitasking. Blue Box became the Classic environment, and Yellow Box was renamed Cocoa. Following a public beta, the first version of Mac OS X, version 10.0 Cheetah, was released in March 2001.[58]

  

The "Sunflower" iMac G4 is an industrial design innovation.

In 1999, Apple launched its new "digital lifestyle" strategy of which the Mac became a "digital hub" and centerpiece with several new applications. In October 1999, the iMac DV gained FireWire ports, allowing users to connect camcorders and easily create movies with iMovie; the iMac gained a CD burner and iTunes, allowing users to rip CDs, make playlists, and burn them to blank discs. Other applications include iPhoto for organizing and editing photos, and GarageBand for creating and mixing music and other audio. The digital lifestyle strategy entered other markets, with the iTunes Store, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and the 2007 renaming from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. By January 2007, the iPod was half of Apple's revenues.[59]

 

New Macs include the white "Sunflower" iMac G4. Ive designed a display to swivel with one finger, so that it "appear[ed] to defy gravity".[60] In 2003, Apple released the aluminum 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBook G4, proclaiming the "Year of the Notebook". With the Microsoft deal expiring, Apple also replaced Internet Explorer with its new browser, Safari.[61] The first Mac Mini was intended to be assembled in the U.S., but domestic manufacturers were slow and had insufficient quality processes, leading Apple to Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn.[62] The affordably priced Mac Mini desktop was introduced at Macworld 2005, alongside the introduction of the iWork office suite.[63]

 

Serlet and Tevanian were both initiating the secret project asked by Steve Jobs to propose to Sony executives, in 2001, to sell Mac OS X on Vaio laptops.[64] They showed them a demonstration at a golf party in Hawaii, with the most expensive Vaio laptop they could have acquired.[65] But due to bad timing, Sony refused, arguing their Vaio sales just started to grow after years of difficulties.[66]

 

Intel transition and "back to the Mac"

With PowerPC chips falling behind in performance, price, and efficiency, Steve Jobs announced in 2005 the Mac transition to Intel processors, because the operating system had been developed for both architectures since the beginning.[67][68] PowerPC apps run using transparent Rosetta emulation,[69] and Windows boots natively using Boot Camp.[70] This transition helped contribute to a few years of growth in Mac sales.[71]

  

Steve Jobs unveiled the first MacBook Air at Macworld 2008.

After the iPhone's 2007 release, Apple began a multi-year effort to bring many iPhone innovations "back to the Mac", including multi-touch gesture support, instant wake from sleep, and fast flash storage.[72][73] At Macworld 2008, Jobs introduced the first MacBook Air by taking it out of a manila envelope, touting it as the "world's thinnest notebook".[74] The MacBook Air favors wireless technologies over physical ports, and lacks FireWire, an optical drive, or a replaceable battery. The Remote Disc feature accesses discs in other networked computers.[75] A decade after its launch, journalist Tom Warren wrote that the MacBook Air had "immediately changed the future of laptops", starting the ultrabook trend.[76] OS X Lion added new software features first introduced with the iPad, such as FaceTime, full-screen apps, document autosaving and versioning, and a bundled Mac App Store to replace software install discs with online downloads. It gained support for Retina displays, which had been introduced earlier with the iPhone 4.[77] iPhone-like multi-touch technology was progressively added to all MacBook trackpads, and to desktop Macs through the Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad.[78][79] The 2010 MacBook Air added an iPad-inspired standby mode, "instant-on" wake from sleep, and flash memory storage.[80][81]

 

After criticism by Greenpeace, Apple improved the ecological performance of its products.[82] The 2008 MacBook Air is free of toxic chemicals like mercury, bromide, and PVC, and with smaller packaging.[74] The enclosures of the iMac and unibody MacBook Pro were redesigned with the more recyclable aluminum and glass.[83][84]

 

On February 24, 2011, the MacBook Pro became the first computer to support Intel's new Thunderbolt connector, with two-way transfer speeds of 10 Gbit/s, and backward compatibility with Mini DisplayPort.[85]

 

2012–present: Tim Cook era

 

The 2013 Mac Pro was controversial among professional users. One of the reasons was the lack of internal expandibility due to the absence of expansion slots or the like, which was a side-effect of the exotic and compact design (height c. 25 cm).

Due to deteriorating health, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO on August 24, 2011, after which he died that year on October 5. Tim Cook was named as his successor.[86] Cook's first keynote address launched iCloud, moving the digital hub from the Mac to the cloud.[87][88] In 2012, the MacBook Pro was refreshed with a Retina display, and the iMac was slimmed and lost its SuperDrive.[89][90]

 

During Cook's first few years as CEO, Apple fought media criticisms that it could no longer innovate without Jobs.[91] In 2013, Apple introduced a new cylindrical Mac Pro, with marketing chief Phil Schiller exclaiming "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!"[citation needed]. The new model had a miniaturized design with a glossy dark gray cylindrical body and internal components organized around a central cooling system. Tech reviewers praised the 2013 Mac Pro for its power and futuristic design;[92][93] however, it was poorly received by professional users, who criticized its lack of upgradability and the removal of expansion slots.[94][95]

 

The iMac was refreshed with a 5K Retina display in 2014, making it the highest-resolution all-in-one desktop computer.[96] The MacBook was reintroduced in 2015, with a completely redesigned aluminum unibody chassis, a 12-inch Retina display, a fanless low-power Intel Core M processor, a much smaller logic board, a new Butterfly keyboard, a single USB-C port, and a solid-state Force Touch trackpad with pressure sensitivity. It was praised for its portability, but criticized for its lack of performance, the need to use adapters to use most USB peripherals, and a high starting price of $1,299 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2024).[97] In 2015, Apple started a service program to address a widespread GPU defect in the 15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro, which could cause graphical artifacts or prevent the machine from functioning entirely.[98]

 

Neglect of professional users

 

The 13 inches (330 mm) and 15 inches (380 mm) MacBook Pros (2016–19) were criticized for its keyboard's unreliability, and the USB-C-only port configuration.

The Touch Bar MacBook Pro was released in October 2016. It was the thinnest MacBook Pro ever made, replaced all ports with four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, gained a thinner "Butterfly" keyboard, and replaced function keys with the Touch Bar. The Touch Bar was criticized for making it harder to use the function keys by feel, as it offered no tactile feedback. Many users were also frustrated by the need to buy dongles, particularly professional users who relied on traditional USB-A devices, SD cards, and HDMI for video output.[99][100] A few months after its release, users reported a problem with stuck keys and letters being skipped or repeated. iFixit attributed this to the ingress of dust or food crumbs under the keys, jamming them. Since the Butterfly keyboard was riveted into the laptop's case, it could only be serviced at an Apple Store or authorized service center.[101][102][103] Apple settled a $50M class-action lawsuit over these keyboards in 2022.[104][105] These same models were afflicted by "flexgate": when users closed and opened the machine, they would risk progressively damaging the cable responsible for the display backlight, which was too short. The $6 cable was soldered to the screen, requiring a $700 repair.[106][107]

 

Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive continued to guide product designs towards simplicity and minimalism.[108] Critics argued that he had begun to prioritize form over function, and was excessively focused on product thinness. His role in the decisions to switch to fragile Butterfly keyboards, to make the Mac Pro non-expandable, and to remove USB-A, HDMI and the SD card slot from the MacBook Pro were criticized.[109][110][111]

 

The long-standing keyboard issue on MacBook Pros, Apple's abandonment of the Aperture professional photography app, and the lack of Mac Pro upgrades led to declining sales and a widespread belief that Apple was no longer committed to professional users.[112][113][114][115] After several years without any significant updates to the Mac Pro, Apple executives admitted in 2017 that the 2013 Mac Pro had not met expectations, and said that the company had designed themselves into a "thermal corner", preventing them from releasing a planned dual-GPU successor.[116] Apple also unveiled their future product roadmap for professional products, including plans for an iMac Pro as a stopgap and an expandable Mac Pro to be released later.[117][118] The iMac Pro was revealed at WWDC 2017, featuring updated Intel Xeon W processors and Radeon Pro Vega graphics.[119]

 

In 2018, Apple released a redesigned MacBook Air with a Retina display, Butterfly keyboard, Force Touch trackpad, and Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports.[120][121] The Butterfly keyboard went through three revisions, incorporating silicone gaskets in the key mechanism to prevent keys from being jammed by dust or other particles. However, many users continued to experience reliability issues with these keyboards,[122] leading Apple to launch a program to repair affected keyboards free of charge.[123] Higher-end models of the 15-inch 2018 MacBook Pro faced another issue where the Core i9 processor reached unusually high temperatures, resulting in reduced CPU performance from thermal throttling. Apple issued a patch to address this issue via a macOS supplemental update, blaming a "missing digital key" in the thermal management firmware.[124]

 

The 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro and 2020 MacBook Air replaced the unreliable Butterfly keyboard with a redesigned scissor-switch Magic Keyboard. On the MacBook Pros, the Touch Bar and Touch ID were made standard, and the Esc key was detached from the Touch Bar and returned to being a physical key.[125] At WWDC 2019, Apple unveiled a new Mac Pro with a larger case design that allows for hardware expandability, and introduced a new expansion module system (MPX) for modules such as the Afterburner card for faster video encoding.[126][127] Almost every part of the new Mac Pro is user-replaceable, with iFixit praising its high user-repairability.[128] It received positive reviews, with reviewers praising its power, modularity, quiet cooling, and Apple's increased focus on professional workflows.[129][130]

 

Apple silicon transition

 

The 2021 iMac was praised for its colorful and slim design.

 

The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros (2021-present) received widespread acclaim for its significantly improved port selection (pictured) and thermals.

In April 2018, Bloomberg reported Apple's plan to replace Intel chips with ARM processors similar to those in its phones, causing Intel's shares to drop by 9.2%.[131] The Verge commented on the rumors, that such a decision made sense, as Intel was failing to make significant improvements to its processors, and could not compete with ARM chips on battery life.[132][133]

 

At WWDC 2020, Tim Cook announced that the Mac would be transitioning to Apple silicon chips, built upon an ARM architecture, over a two-year timeline.[134] The Rosetta 2 translation layer was also introduced, enabling Apple silicon Macs to run Intel apps.[135] On November 10, 2020, Apple announced their first system-on-a-chip designed for the Mac, the Apple M1, and a series of Macs that would ship with the M1: the MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro.[136] These new Macs received highly positive reviews, with reviewers highlighting significant improvements in battery life, performance, and heat management compared to previous generations.[137][138][139]

 

The iMac Pro was discontinued on March 6, 2021.[140] On April 20, 2021, a new 24-inch iMac was revealed, featuring the M1 chip, seven new colors, thinner white bezels, a higher-resolution 1080p webcam, and an enclosure made entirely from recycled aluminum.[141][142]

 

On October 18, 2021, Apple announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, featuring the more powerful M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, a bezel-less mini-LED 120 Hz ProMotion display, and the return of MagSafe and HDMI ports, and the SD card slot.[143][144][145]

 

On March 8, 2022, the Mac Studio was unveiled, also featuring the M1 Max chip and the new M1 Ultra chip in a similar form factor to the Mac Mini. It drew highly positive reviews for its flexibility and wide range of available ports.[146] Its performance was deemed "impressive", beating the highest-end Mac Pro with a 28-core Intel Xeon chip, while being significantly more power efficient and compact.[147] It was introduced alongside the Studio Display, meant to replace the 27-inch iMac, which was discontinued on the same day.[148]

 

Post-Apple silicon transition

At WWDC 2022, Apple announced an updated MacBook Air based on a new M2 chip. It incorporates several changes from the 14-inch MacBook Pro, such as a flat, slab-shaped design, full-sized function keys, MagSafe charging, and a Liquid Retina display, with rounded corners and a display cutout incorporating a 1080p webcam.[149]

 

The Mac Studio with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips and the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra chip was unveiled at WWDC 2023, and the Intel-based Mac Pro was discontinued on the same day, completing the Mac transition to Apple silicon chips.[150] The Mac Studio was received positively as a modest upgrade over the previous generation, albeit similarly priced PCs could be equipped with faster GPUs.[151] However, the Apple silicon-based Mac Pro was criticized for several regressions, including memory capacity and a complete lack of CPU or GPU expansion options.[150][152] A 15-inch MacBook Air was also introduced, and is the largest display included on a consumer-level Apple laptop.[153]

 

The MacBook Pro was updated on October 30, 2023, with updated M3 Pro and M3 Max chips using a 3 nm process node, as well as the standard M3 chip in a refreshed iMac and a new base model MacBook Pro.[154] Reviewers lamented the base memory configuration of 8 GB on the standard M3 MacBook Pro.[155] In March 2024, the MacBook Air was also updated to include the M3 chip.[156] In October 2024, several Macs were announced with the M4 series of chips, including the iMac, a redesigned Mac Mini, and the MacBook Pro; all of which included 16 GB of memory as standard. The MacBook Air was also upgraded with 16 GB for the same price.[157]

 

Current Mac models

See also: List of Mac models

Overview of current Mac lineup

MacBook Air, entry-level lightweight laptop

MacBook Air, entry-level lightweight laptop

MacBook Pro, high-performance workstation laptop

MacBook Pro, high-performance workstation laptop

iMac, all-in-one desktop

iMac, all-in-one desktop

Mac Mini, entry-level desktop

Mac Mini, entry-level desktop

Mac Studio, compact workstation desktop

Mac Studio, compact workstation desktop

Mac Pro, expandable workstation tower

Mac Pro, expandable workstation tower

More information Release date, Model ...

Marketing

 

The "1984" advertisement debuted during Super Bowl XVIII.

The original Macintosh was marketed at Super Bowl XVIII with the highly acclaimed "1984" ad, directed by Ridley Scott. The ad alluded to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and symbolized Apple's desire to "rescue" humanity from the conformity of computer industry giant IBM.[160][161][162] The ad is now considered a "watershed event" and a "masterpiece."[163][164] Before the Macintosh, high-tech marketing catered to industry insiders rather than consumers, so journalists covered technology like the "steel or automobiles" industries, with articles written for a highly technical audience.[165][166] The Macintosh launch event pioneered event marketing techniques that have since become "widely emulated" in Silicon Valley, by creating a mystique about the product and giving an inside look into its creation.[167] Apple took a new "multiple exclusives" approach regarding the press, giving "over one hundred interviews to journalists that lasted over six hours apiece", and introduced a new "Test Drive a Macintosh" campaign.[168][169]

 

Apple's brand, which established a "heartfelt connection with consumers", is cited as one of the keys to the Mac's success.[170] After Steve Jobs's return to the company, he launched the Think different ad campaign, positioning the Mac as the best computer for "creative people who believe that one person can change the world".[171] The campaign featured black-and-white photographs of luminaries like Albert Einstein, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., with Jobs saying: "if they ever used a computer, it would have been a Mac".[172][173] The ad campaign was critically acclaimed and won several awards, including a Primetime Emmy.[174] In the 2000s, Apple continued to use successful marketing campaigns to promote the Mac line, including the Switch and Get a Mac campaigns.[175][176]

 

Apple's focus on design and build quality has helped establish the Mac as a high-end, premium brand. The company's emphasis on creating iconic and visually appealing designs for its computers has given them a "human face" and made them stand out in a crowded market.[177] Apple has long made product placements in high-profile movies and television shows to showcase Mac computers, like Mission: Impossible, Legally Blonde, and Sex and the City.[178] Apple is known for not allowing producers to show villains using Apple products.[179] Its own shows produced for the Apple TV+ streaming service feature prominent use of MacBooks.[180]

 

The Mac is known for its highly loyal customer base. In 2022, the American Customer Satisfaction Index gave the Mac the highest customer satisfaction score of any personal computer, at 82 out of 100.[181] In that year, Apple was the fourth largest vendor of personal computers, with a market share of 8.9%.[182]

 

Hardware

 

A Mac Pro from 2019 being used for color grading.

Apple outsources the production of its hardware to Asian manufacturers like Foxconn and Pegatron.[183][184] As a highly vertically integrated company developing its own operating system and chips, it has tight control over all aspects of its products and deep integration between hardware and software.[185]

 

All Macs in production use ARM-based Apple silicon processors and have been praised for their performance and power efficiency.[186] They can run Intel apps through the Rosetta 2 translation layer, and iOS and iPadOS apps distributed via the App Store.[187] These Mac models come equipped with high-speed Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 connectivity, with speeds up to 40 Gbit/s.[188][189] Apple silicon Macs have custom integrated graphics rather than graphics cards.[190] MacBooks are recharged with either USB-C or MagSafe connectors, depending on the model.[191]

 

Apple sells accessories for the Mac, including the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR external monitors,[192] the AirPods line of wireless headphones,[193] and keyboards and mice such as the Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Mouse.[194]

 

Software

 

The latest release of macOS, Sequoia, was released in 2024.

Main article: macOS

See also: Architecture of macOS and Mac operating systems

Macs run the macOS operating system, which is the second most widely used desktop OS according to StatCounter.[195] Macs can also run Windows, Linux, or other operating systems through virtualization, emulation, or multi-booting.[196][197][198]

 

macOS is the successor of the classic Mac OS, which had nine releases between 1984 and 1999. The last version of classic Mac OS, Mac OS 9, was introduced in 1999. Mac OS 9 was succeeded by Mac OS X in 2001.[199] Over the years, Mac OS X was rebranded first to OS X and later to macOS.[200]

 

macOS is a derivative of NextSTEP and FreeBSD. It uses the XNU kernel, and the core of macOS has been open-sourced as the Darwin operating system.[201] macOS features the Aqua user interface, the Cocoa set of frameworks, and the Objective-C and Swift programming languages.[202] Macs are deeply integrated with other Apple devices, including the iPhone and iPad, through Continuity features like Handoff, Sidecar, Universal Control, and Universal Clipboard.[203]

 

The first version of Mac OS X, version 10.0, was released in March 2001.[204] Subsequent releases introduced major changes and features to the operating system. 10.4 Tiger added Spotlight search;[205] 10.6 Snow Leopard brought refinements, stability, and full 64-bit support;[206] 10.7 Lion introduced many iPad-inspired features;[69] 10.10 Yosemite introduced a complete user interface revamp, replacing skeuomorphic designs with iOS 7-esque flat designs;[207] 10.12 Sierra added the Siri voice assistant and Apple File System (APFS) support;[208] 10.14 Mojave added a dark user interface mode;[209] 10.15 Catalina dropped support for 32-bit apps;[210] 11 Big Sur introduced an iOS-inspired redesign of the user interface,[211] 12 Monterey added the Shortcuts app, Low Power Mode, and AirPlay to Mac;[212] and 13 Ventura added Stage Manager, Continuity Camera, and passkeys.[213]

 

The Mac has a variety of apps available, including cross-platform apps like Google Chrome, Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, Mathematica, Visual Studio Code, Ableton Live, and Cinema 4D.[214] Apple has also developed several apps for the Mac, including Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, iWork, GarageBand, and iMovie.[215] A large amount of open-source software applications run natively on macOS, such as LibreOffice, VLC, and GIMP,[216] and command-line programs, which can be installed through Macports and Homebrew.[217] Many applications for Linux or BSD also run on macOS, often using X11.[218] Apple's official integrated development environment (IDE) is Xcode, allowing developers to create apps for the Mac and other Apple platforms.[219]

 

The latest release of macOS is macOS 15 Sequoia, released on September 16, 2024.[220]

 

Timeline

Timeline of Mac model families

vte

 

See also: Timeline of the Apple II series, List of Mac models, and Timeline of Apple Inc. products

Source: Glen Sanford, Apple History, apple-history.com

 

References

Further reading

External links

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Family of personal computers made by Apple

This article is about the family of personal computers. For the series of all-in-one computers, see iMac. For other uses, see Mac.

"Macintosh" redirects here. For the original Macintosh, see Macintosh 128K. For other uses, see Macintosh (disambiguation).

Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh apple. The current product lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro desktops. Macs are currently sold with Apple's UNIX-based macOS operating system, which is not licensed to other manufacturers and exclusively bundled with Mac computers. This operating system replaced Apple's original Macintosh operating system, which has variously been named System, Mac OS, and Classic Mac OS.

 

Quick Facts Also known as, Developer ...

Jef Raskin conceived the Macintosh project in 1979, which was usurped and redefined by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 1981. The original Macintosh was launched in January 1984, after Apple's "1984" advertisement during Super Bowl XVIII. A series of incrementally improved models followed, sharing the same integrated case design. In 1987, the Macintosh II brought color graphics, but priced as a professional workstation and not a personal computer. Beginning in 1994 with the Power Macintosh, the Mac transitioned from Motorola 68000 series processors to PowerPC. Macintosh clones by other manufacturers were also briefly sold afterwards. The line was refreshed in 1998 with the launch of the iMac G3, reinvigorating the line's competitiveness against commodity IBM PC compatibles. Macs transitioned to Intel x86 processors by 2006 along with new sub-product lines MacBook and Mac Pro. Since 2020, Macs have transitioned to Apple silicon chips based on ARM64.

 

History

See also: History of Apple Inc.

1979–1996: "Macintosh" era

With a red background, Steve Jobs rests his forearms on a Macintosh computer.

Steve Jobs debuted the Macintosh in January 1984, photographed by Bernard Gotfryd. The Mac displays the shin-hanga (Japanese: 髪梳ける女; lit. 'hair combing woman') (original) by Goyō Hashiguchi.

In the late 1970s, the Apple II became one of the most popular computers, especially in education. After IBM introduced the IBM PC in 1981, its sales surpassed the Apple II. In response, Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983.[1] The Lisa's graphical user interface was inspired by strategically licensed demonstrations of the Xerox Star. Lisa surpassed the Star with intuitive direct manipulation, like the ability to drag and drop files, double-click to launch applications, and move or resize windows by clicking and dragging instead of going through a menu.[2][3] However, hampered by its high price of $9,995 (equivalent to $35,000 in 2024) and lack of available software, the Lisa was commercially unsuccessful.[1]

 

Parallel to the Lisa's development, a skunkworks team at Apple was working on the Macintosh project. Conceived in 1979 by Jef Raskin, Macintosh was envisioned as an affordable, easy-to-use computer for the masses. Raskin named the computer after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh. The initial team consisted of Raskin, hardware engineer Burrell Smith, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. In 1981, Steve Jobs was removed from the Lisa team and joined Macintosh, and was able to gradually take control of the project due to Wozniak's temporary absence after an airplane crash. Under Jobs, the Mac grew to resemble the Lisa, with a mouse and a more intuitive graphical interface, at a quarter of the Lisa's price.[4]

 

Upon its January 1984 launch, the first Macintosh was described as "revolutionary" by The New York Times.[5] Sales initially met projections, but dropped due to the machine's low performance, single floppy disk drive requiring frequent disk swapping, and initial lack of applications. Author Douglas Adams said of it, "…what I (and I think everybody else who bought the machine in the early days) fell in love with was not the machine itself, which was ridiculously slow and underpowered, but a romantic idea of the machine. And that romantic idea had to sustain me through the realities of actually working on the 128K Mac."[6] Most of the original Macintosh team left Apple, and some followed Jobs to found NeXT after he was forced out by CEO John Sculley.[7]

 

The first Macintosh nevertheless generated enthusiasm among buyers and some developers, who rushed to develop entirely new programs for the platform, including PageMaker, MORE, and Excel.[8] Apple soon released the Macintosh 512K with improved performance and an external floppy drive.[9] The Macintosh is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface,[10] Jobs's fascination with typography gave it an unprecedented variety of fonts and type styles like italics, bold, shadow, and outline.[11] It is the first WYSIWYG computer, and due in large part to PageMaker and Apple's LaserWriter printer, it ignited the desktop publishing market, turning the Macintosh from an early let-down into a notable success.[12] Levy called desktop publishing the Mac's "Trojan horse" in the enterprise market, as colleagues and executives tried these Macs and were seduced into requesting one for themselves. PageMaker creator Paul Brainerd said: "You would see the pattern. A large corporation would buy PageMaker and a couple of Macs to do the company newsletter. The next year you'd come back and there would be thirty Macintoshes. The year after that, three hundred".[13] Ease of use for computer novices was another incentive.[14] Peat Marwick was the first, largest, and for some time the only large corporate customer;[15] although the company said that its auditors used Macs because of their portability and not the user interface,[16] after it merged with the IBM PC-using KMG to form KPMG in 1987, the combined company retained Macs after studying both platforms.[14]

 

In late 1985, Bill Atkinson, one of the few remaining employees to have been on the original Macintosh team, proposed that Apple create a Dynabook, Alan Kay's concept for a tablet computer that stores and organizes knowledge. Sculley rebuffed him, so he adapted the idea into a Mac program, HyperCard, whose cards store any information—text, image, audio, video—with the memex-like ability to semantically link cards together. HyperCard was released in 1987 and bundled with every Macintosh.[17]

  

Macintosh Portable

In the late 1980s, Jean-Louis Gassée, a Sculley protégé who had succeeded Jobs as head of the Macintosh division, made the Mac more expandable and powerful to appeal to tech enthusiasts and enterprise customers.[18] This strategy led to the successful 1987 release of the Macintosh II, which appealed to power users and gave the lineup momentum. However, Gassée's "no-compromise" approach foiled Apple's first laptop, the Macintosh Portable, which has many uncommon power user features, but is almost as heavy as the original Macintosh at twice its price. Soon after its launch, Gassée was fired.[19]

 

Since the Mac's debut, Sculley had opposed lowering the company's profit margins, and Macintoshes were priced far above entry-level MS-DOS compatible computers. Steven Levy said that though Macintoshes were superior, the cheapest Mac cost almost twice as much as the cheapest IBM PC compatible.[20][page needed] Sculley also resisted licensing the Mac OS to competing hardware vendors, who could have undercut Apple on pricing and jeopardized its hardware sales, as IBM PC compatibles had done to IBM. These early strategic steps caused the Macintosh to lose its chance at becoming the dominant personal computer platform.[21][22] Though senior management demanded high-margin products, a few employees disobeyed and set out to create a computer that would live up to the original Macintosh's slogan, "[a] computer for the rest of us", which the market clamored for. In a pattern typical of Apple's early era, of skunkworks projects like Macintosh and Macintosh II lacking adoption by upper management who were late to realize the projects' merit, this once-renegade project was actually endorsed by senior management following market pressures. In 1990 came the Macintosh LC and the more affordable Macintosh Classic, the first model under $1,000 (equivalent to $2,400 in 2024). Between 1984 and 1989, Apple had sold one million Macs, and another 10 million over the following five years.[23]

  

PowerBook 100

In 1991, the Macintosh Portable was replaced with the smaller and lighter PowerBook 100, the first laptop with a palm rest and trackball in front of the keyboard. The PowerBook brought $1 billion of revenue within one year, and became a status symbol.[24] By then, the Macintosh represented 10% to 15% of the personal computer market.[25] Fearing a decline in market share, Sculley co-founded the AIM alliance with IBM and Motorola to create a new standardized computing platform, which led to the creation of the PowerPC processor architecture, and the Taligent operating system.[26] In 1992, Apple introduced the Macintosh Performa line, which "grew like ivy" into a disorienting number of barely differentiated models in an attempt to gain market share. This backfired by confusing customers, but the same strategy soon afflicted the PowerBook line.[27] Michael Spindler continued this approach when he succeeded Sculley as CEO in 1993.[28] He oversaw the Mac's transition from Motorola 68000 series to PowerPC and the release of Apple's first PowerPC machine, the well-received Power Macintosh.[29]

 

Many new Macintoshes suffered from inventory and quality control problems. The 1995 PowerBook 5300 was plagued with quality problems, with several recalls as some units even caught fire[citation needed]. Pessimistic about Apple's future, Spindler repeatedly attempted to sell Apple to other companies, including IBM, Kodak, AT&T, Sun, and Philips. In a last-ditch attempt to fend off Windows, Apple yielded and started a Macintosh clone program, which allowed other manufacturers to make System 7 computers.[29] However, this only cannibalized the sales of Apple's higher-margin machines.[30] Meanwhile, Windows 95 was an instant hit with customers. Apple was struggling financially as its attempts to produce a System 7 successor had all failed with Taligent, Star Trek, and Copland, and its hardware was stagnant. The Mac was no longer competitive, and its sales entered a tailspin.[31] Corporations abandoned Macintosh in droves, replacing it with cheaper and more technically sophisticated Windows NT machines for which far more applications and peripherals existed. Even some Apple loyalists saw no future for the Macintosh.[32] Once the world's second largest computer vendor after IBM, Apple's market share declined precipitously from 9.4% in 1993 to 3.1% in 1997.[33][34] Bill Gates was ready to abandon Microsoft Office for Mac, which would have slashed any remaining business appeal the Mac had. Gil Amelio, Spindler's successor, failed to negotiate a deal with Gates.[35]

 

In 1996, Spindler was succeeded by Amelio, who searched for an established operating system to acquire or license for the foundation of a new Macintosh operating system. He considered BeOS, Solaris, Windows NT, and NeXT's NeXTSTEP, eventually choosing the last. Announced on December 20, 1996, Apple acquired NeXT on February 7, 1997, returning its co-founder, Steve Jobs.[31][36]

 

1997–2011: Steve Jobs era

 

Mac worldwide quarterly sales from 2006 to 2023

NeXT had developed the mature NeXTSTEP operating system with strong multimedia and Internet capabilities.[37] NeXTSTEP was also popular among programmers, financial firms, and academia for its object-oriented programming tools for rapid application development.[38][39] In an eagerly anticipated speech at the January 1997 Macworld trade show, Steve Jobs previewed Rhapsody, a merger of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS as the foundation of Apple's new operating system strategy.[40] At the time, Jobs only served as advisor, and Amelio was released in July 1997. Jobs was formally appointed interim CEO in September, and permanent CEO in January 2000.[41] To continue turning the company around, Jobs streamlined Apple's operations and began layoffs.[42] He negotiated a deal with Bill Gates in which Microsoft committed to releasing new versions of Office for Mac for five years, investing $150 million in Apple, and settling an ongoing lawsuit in which Apple alleged that Windows had copied the Mac's interface. In exchange, Apple made Internet Explorer the default Mac browser. The deal was closed hours before Jobs announced it at the August 1997 Macworld.[43]

 

Jobs returned focus to Apple. The Mac lineup had been incomprehensible, with dozens of hard-to-distinguish models. He streamlined it into four quadrants, a laptop and a desktop each for consumers and professionals. Apple also discontinued several Mac accessories, including the StyleWriter printer and the Newton PDA.[44] These changes were meant to refocus Apple's engineering, marketing, and manufacturing efforts so that more care could be dedicated to each product.[45] Jobs also stopped licensing Mac OS to clone manufacturers, which had cost Apple ten times more in lost sales than it received in licensing fees.[46] Jobs made a deal with the largest computer reseller, CompUSA, to carry a store-within-a-store that would better showcase Macs and their software and peripherals. According to Apple, the Mac's share of computer sales in those stores went from 3% to 14%. In November, the online Apple Store launched with built-to-order Mac configurations without a middleman.[41] When Tim Cook was hired as chief operations officer in March 1998, he closed Apple's inefficient factories and outsourced Mac production to Taiwan. Within months, he rolled out a new ERP system and implemented just-in-time manufacturing principles. This practically eliminated Apple's costly unsold inventory, and within one year, Apple had the industry's most efficient inventory turnover.[47]

  

The iMac G3's marketing heavily emphasizes its design and Internet capabilities for consumers.

 

The Power Mac G4 Cube advanced Apple's industrial design culture and manufacturing processes.

Jobs's top priority was "to ship a great new product".[48] The first is the iMac G3, an all-in-one computer that was meant to make the Internet intuitive and easy to access. While PCs came in functional beige boxes, Jony Ive gave the iMac a radical and futuristic design, meant to make the product less intimidating. Its oblong case is made of translucent plastic in Bondi blue, later revised with many colors. Ive added a handle on the back to make the computer more approachable. Jobs declared the iMac would be "legacy-free", succeeding ADB and SCSI with an infrared port and cutting-edge USB ports. Though USB had industry backing, it was still absent from most PCs and USB 1.1 was only standardized one month after the iMac's release.[49] He also controversially removed the floppy disk drive and replaced it with a CD drive. The iMac was unveiled in May 1998, and released in August. It was an immediate commercial success and became the fastest-selling computer in Apple's history, with 800,000 units sold before the year ended. Vindicating Jobs on the Internet's appeal to consumers, 32% of iMac buyers had never used a computer before, and 12% were switching from PCs.[50] The iMac reestablished the Mac's reputation as a trendsetter: for the next few years, translucent plastic became the dominant design trend in numerous consumer products.[51]

 

Apple knew it had lost its chance to compete in the Windows-dominated enterprise market, so it prioritized design and ease of use to make the Mac more appealing to average consumers, and even teens[citation needed]. The "Apple New Product Process" was launched as a more collaborative product development process for the Mac, with concurrent engineering principles. From then, product development was no longer driven primarily by engineering and with design as an afterthought. Instead, Ive and Jobs first defined a new product's "soul", before it was jointly developed by the marketing, engineering, and operations teams.[52] The engineering team was led by the product design group, and Ive's design studio was the dominant voice throughout the development process.[53]

 

The next two Mac products in 1999, the Power Mac G3 (nicknamed "Blue and White") and the iBook, introduced industrial designs influenced by the iMac, incorporating colorful translucent plastic and carrying handles. The iBook introduced several innovations: a strengthened hinge instead of a mechanical latch to keep it closed, ports on the sides rather than on the back, and the first laptop with built-in Wi-Fi.[54] It became the best selling laptop in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 1999.[55] The professional-oriented Titanium PowerBook G4 was released in 2001, becoming the lightest and thinnest laptop in its class, and the first laptop with a wide-screen display; it also debuted a magnetic latch that secures the lid elegantly.[56]

  

The Dual USB "Ice" iBook represents a design shift away from color, toward white polycarbonate.

The design language of consumer Macs shifted again from colored plastics to white polycarbonate with the introduction of the 2001 Dual USB "Ice" iBook. To increase the iBook's durability, it eliminated doors and handles, and gained a more minimalistic exterior. Ive attempted to go beyond the quadrant with Power Mac G4 Cube, an innovation beyond the computer tower in a professional desktop far smaller than the Power Mac. The Cube failed in the market and was withdrawn from sale after one year. However, Ive considered it beneficial, because it helped Apple gain experience in complex machining and miniaturization.[57]

 

The development of a successor to the old Mac OS was well underway. Rhapsody had been previewed at WWDC 1997, featuring a Mach kernel and BSD foundations, a virtualization layer for old Mac OS apps (codenamed Blue Box), and an implementation of NeXTSTEP APIs called OpenStep (codenamed Yellow Box). Apple open-sourced the core of Rhapsody as the Darwin operating system. After several developer previews, Apple also introduced the Carbon API, which provided a way for developers to more easily make their apps native to Mac OS X without rewriting them in Yellow Box. Mac OS X was publicly unveiled in January 2000, introducing the modern Aqua graphical user interface, and a far more stable Unix foundation, with memory protection and preemptive multitasking. Blue Box became the Classic environment, and Yellow Box was renamed Cocoa. Following a public beta, the first version of Mac OS X, version 10.0 Cheetah, was released in March 2001.[58]

  

The "Sunflower" iMac G4 is an industrial design innovation.

In 1999, Apple launched its new "digital lifestyle" strategy of which the Mac became a "digital hub" and centerpiece with several new applications. In October 1999, the iMac DV gained FireWire ports, allowing users to connect camcorders and easily create movies with iMovie; the iMac gained a CD burner and iTunes, allowing users to rip CDs, make playlists, and burn them to blank discs. Other applications include iPhoto for organizing and editing photos, and GarageBand for creating and mixing music and other audio. The digital lifestyle strategy entered other markets, with the iTunes Store, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and the 2007 renaming from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. By January 2007, the iPod was half of Apple's revenues.[59]

 

New Macs include the white "Sunflower" iMac G4. Ive designed a display to swivel with one finger, so that it "appear[ed] to defy gravity".[60] In 2003, Apple released the aluminum 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBook G4, proclaiming the "Year of the Notebook". With the Microsoft deal expiring, Apple also replaced Internet Explorer with its new browser, Safari.[61] The first Mac Mini was intended to be assembled in the U.S., but domestic manufacturers were slow and had insufficient quality processes, leading Apple to Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn.[62] The affordably priced Mac Mini desktop was introduced at Macworld 2005, alongside the introduction of the iWork office suite.[63]

 

Serlet and Tevanian were both initiating the secret project asked by Steve Jobs to propose to Sony executives, in 2001, to sell Mac OS X on Vaio laptops.[64] They showed them a demonstration at a golf party in Hawaii, with the most expensive Vaio laptop they could have acquired.[65] But due to bad timing, Sony refused, arguing their Vaio sales just started to grow after years of difficulties.[66]

 

Intel transition and "back to the Mac"

With PowerPC chips falling behind in performance, price, and efficiency, Steve Jobs announced in 2005 the Mac transition to Intel processors, because the operating system had been developed for both architectures since the beginning.[67][68] PowerPC apps run using transparent Rosetta emulation,[69] and Windows boots natively using Boot Camp.[70] This transition helped contribute to a few years of growth in Mac sales.[71]

  

Steve Jobs unveiled the first MacBook Air at Macworld 2008.

After the iPhone's 2007 release, Apple began a multi-year effort to bring many iPhone innovations "back to the Mac", including multi-touch gesture support, instant wake from sleep, and fast flash storage.[72][73] At Macworld 2008, Jobs introduced the first MacBook Air by taking it out of a manila envelope, touting it as the "world's thinnest notebook".[74] The MacBook Air favors wireless technologies over physical ports, and lacks FireWire, an optical drive, or a replaceable battery. The Remote Disc feature accesses discs in other networked computers.[75] A decade after its launch, journalist Tom Warren wrote that the MacBook Air had "immediately changed the future of laptops", starting the ultrabook trend.[76] OS X Lion added new software features first introduced with the iPad, such as FaceTime, full-screen apps, document autosaving and versioning, and a bundled Mac App Store to replace software install discs with online downloads. It gained support for Retina displays, which had been introduced earlier with the iPhone 4.[77] iPhone-like multi-touch technology was progressively added to all MacBook trackpads, and to desktop Macs through the Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad.[78][79] The 2010 MacBook Air added an iPad-inspired standby mode, "instant-on" wake from sleep, and flash memory storage.[80][81]

 

After criticism by Greenpeace, Apple improved the ecological performance of its products.[82] The 2008 MacBook Air is free of toxic chemicals like mercury, bromide, and PVC, and with smaller packaging.[74] The enclosures of the iMac and unibody MacBook Pro were redesigned with the more recyclable aluminum and glass.[83][84]

 

On February 24, 2011, the MacBook Pro became the first computer to support Intel's new Thunderbolt connector, with two-way transfer speeds of 10 Gbit/s, and backward compatibility with Mini DisplayPort.[85]

 

2012–present: Tim Cook era

 

The 2013 Mac Pro was controversial among professional users. One of the reasons was the lack of internal expandibility due to the absence of expansion slots or the like, which was a side-effect of the exotic and compact design (height c. 25 cm).

Due to deteriorating health, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO on August 24, 2011, after which he died that year on October 5. Tim Cook was named as his successor.[86] Cook's first keynote address launched iCloud, moving the digital hub from the Mac to the cloud.[87][88] In 2012, the MacBook Pro was refreshed with a Retina display, and the iMac was slimmed and lost its SuperDrive.[89][90]

 

During Cook's first few years as CEO, Apple fought media criticisms that it could no longer innovate without Jobs.[91] In 2013, Apple introduced a new cylindrical Mac Pro, with marketing chief Phil Schiller exclaiming "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!"[citation needed]. The new model had a miniaturized design with a glossy dark gray cylindrical body and internal components organized around a central cooling system. Tech reviewers praised the 2013 Mac Pro for its power and futuristic design;[92][93] however, it was poorly received by professional users, who criticized its lack of upgradability and the removal of expansion slots.[94][95]

 

The iMac was refreshed with a 5K Retina display in 2014, making it the highest-resolution all-in-one desktop computer.[96] The MacBook was reintroduced in 2015, with a completely redesigned aluminum unibody chassis, a 12-inch Retina display, a fanless low-power Intel Core M processor, a much smaller logic board, a new Butterfly keyboard, a single USB-C port, and a solid-state Force Touch trackpad with pressure sensitivity. It was praised for its portability, but criticized for its lack of performance, the need to use adapters to use most USB peripherals, and a high starting price of $1,299 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2024).[97] In 2015, Apple started a service program to address a widespread GPU defect in the 15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro, which could cause graphical artifacts or prevent the machine from functioning entirely.[98]

 

Neglect of professional users

 

The 13 inches (330 mm) and 15 inches (380 mm) MacBook Pros (2016–19) were criticized for its keyboard's unreliability, and the USB-C-only port configuration.

The Touch Bar MacBook Pro was released in October 2016. It was the thinnest MacBook Pro ever made, replaced all ports with four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, gained a thinner "Butterfly" keyboard, and replaced function keys with the Touch Bar. The Touch Bar was criticized for making it harder to use the function keys by feel, as it offered no tactile feedback. Many users were also frustrated by the need to buy dongles, particularly professional users who relied on traditional USB-A devices, SD cards, and HDMI for video output.[99][100] A few months after its release, users reported a problem with stuck keys and letters being skipped or repeated. iFixit attributed this to the ingress of dust or food crumbs under the keys, jamming them. Since the Butterfly keyboard was riveted into the laptop's case, it could only be serviced at an Apple Store or authorized service center.[101][102][103] Apple settled a $50M class-action lawsuit over these keyboards in 2022.[104][105] These same models were afflicted by "flexgate": when users closed and opened the machine, they would risk progressively damaging the cable responsible for the display backlight, which was too short. The $6 cable was soldered to the screen, requiring a $700 repair.[106][107]

 

Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive continued to guide product designs towards simplicity and minimalism.[108] Critics argued that he had begun to prioritize form over function, and was excessively focused on product thinness. His role in the decisions to switch to fragile Butterfly keyboards, to make the Mac Pro non-expandable, and to remove USB-A, HDMI and the SD card slot from the MacBook Pro were criticized.[109][110][111]

 

The long-standing keyboard issue on MacBook Pros, Apple's abandonment of the Aperture professional photography app, and the lack of Mac Pro upgrades led to declining sales and a widespread belief that Apple was no longer committed to professional users.[112][113][114][115] After several years without any significant updates to the Mac Pro, Apple executives admitted in 2017 that the 2013 Mac Pro had not met expectations, and said that the company had designed themselves into a "thermal corner", preventing them from releasing a planned dual-GPU successor.[116] Apple also unveiled their future product roadmap for professional products, including plans for an iMac Pro as a stopgap and an expandable Mac Pro to be released later.[117][118] The iMac Pro was revealed at WWDC 2017, featuring updated Intel Xeon W processors and Radeon Pro Vega graphics.[119]

 

In 2018, Apple released a redesigned MacBook Air with a Retina display, Butterfly keyboard, Force Touch trackpad, and Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports.[120][121] The Butterfly keyboard went through three revisions, incorporating silicone gaskets in the key mechanism to prevent keys from being jammed by dust or other particles. However, many users continued to experience reliability issues with these keyboards,[122] leading Apple to launch a program to repair affected keyboards free of charge.[123] Higher-end models of the 15-inch 2018 MacBook Pro faced another issue where the Core i9 processor reached unusually high temperatures, resulting in reduced CPU performance from thermal throttling. Apple issued a patch to address this issue via a macOS supplemental update, blaming a "missing digital key" in the thermal management firmware.[124]

 

The 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro and 2020 MacBook Air replaced the unreliable Butterfly keyboard with a redesigned scissor-switch Magic Keyboard. On the MacBook Pros, the Touch Bar and Touch ID were made standard, and the Esc key was detached from the Touch Bar and returned to being a physical key.[125] At WWDC 2019, Apple unveiled a new Mac Pro with a larger case design that allows for hardware expandability, and introduced a new expansion module system (MPX) for modules such as the Afterburner card for faster video encoding.[126][127] Almost every part of the new Mac Pro is user-replaceable, with iFixit praising its high user-repairability.[128] It received positive reviews, with reviewers praising its power, modularity, quiet cooling, and Apple's increased focus on professional workflows.[129][130]

 

Apple silicon transition

 

The 2021 iMac was praised for its colorful and slim design.

 

The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros (2021-present) received widespread acclaim for its significantly improved port selection (pictured) and thermals.

In April 2018, Bloomberg reported Apple's plan to replace Intel chips with ARM processors similar to those in its phones, causing Intel's shares to drop by 9.2%.[131] The Verge commented on the rumors, that such a decision made sense, as Intel was failing to make significant improvements to its processors, and could not compete with ARM chips on battery life.[132][133]

 

At WWDC 2020, Tim Cook announced that the Mac would be transitioning to Apple silicon chips, built upon an ARM architecture, over a two-year timeline.[134] The Rosetta 2 translation layer was also introduced, enabling Apple silicon Macs to run Intel apps.[135] On November 10, 2020, Apple announced their first system-on-a-chip designed for the Mac, the Apple M1, and a series of Macs that would ship with the M1: the MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro.[136] These new Macs received highly positive reviews, with reviewers highlighting significant improvements in battery life, performance, and heat management compared to previous generations.[137][138][139]

 

The iMac Pro was discontinued on March 6, 2021.[140] On April 20, 2021, a new 24-inch iMac was revealed, featuring the M1 chip, seven new colors, thinner white bezels, a higher-resolution 1080p webcam, and an enclosure made entirely from recycled aluminum.[141][142]

 

On October 18, 2021, Apple announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, featuring the more powerful M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, a bezel-less mini-LED 120 Hz ProMotion display, and the return of MagSafe and HDMI ports, and the SD card slot.[143][144][145]

 

On March 8, 2022, the Mac Studio was unveiled, also featuring the M1 Max chip and the new M1 Ultra chip in a similar form factor to the Mac Mini. It drew highly positive reviews for its flexibility and wide range of available ports.[146] Its performance was deemed "impressive", beating the highest-end Mac Pro with a 28-core Intel Xeon chip, while being significantly more power efficient and compact.[147] It was introduced alongside the Studio Display, meant to replace the 27-inch iMac, which was discontinued on the same day.[148]

 

Post-Apple silicon transition

At WWDC 2022, Apple announced an updated MacBook Air based on a new M2 chip. It incorporates several changes from the 14-inch MacBook Pro, such as a flat, slab-shaped design, full-sized function keys, MagSafe charging, and a Liquid Retina display, with rounded corners and a display cutout incorporating a 1080p webcam.[149]

 

The Mac Studio with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips and the Mac Pro with M2 Ultra chip was unveiled at WWDC 2023, and the Intel-based Mac Pro was discontinued on the same day, completing the Mac transition to Apple silicon chips.[150] The Mac Studio was received positively as a modest upgrade over the previous generation, albeit similarly priced PCs could be equipped with faster GPUs.[151] However, the Apple silicon-based Mac Pro was criticized for several regressions, including memory capacity and a complete lack of CPU or GPU expansion options.[150][152] A 15-inch MacBook Air was also introduced, and is the largest display included on a consumer-level Apple laptop.[153]

 

The MacBook Pro was updated on October 30, 2023, with updated M3 Pro and M3 Max chips using a 3 nm process node, as well as the standard M3 chip in a refreshed iMac and a new base model MacBook Pro.[154] Reviewers lamented the base memory configuration of 8 GB on the standard M3 MacBook Pro.[155] In March 2024, the MacBook Air was also updated to include the M3 chip.[156] In October 2024, several Macs were announced with the M4 series of chips, including the iMac, a redesigned Mac Mini, and the MacBook Pro; all of which included 16 GB of memory as standard. The MacBook Air was also upgraded with 16 GB for the same price.[157]

 

Current Mac models

See also: List of Mac models

Overview of current Mac lineup

MacBook Air, entry-level lightweight laptop

MacBook Air, entry-level lightweight laptop

MacBook Pro, high-performance workstation laptop

MacBook Pro, high-performance workstation laptop

iMac, all-in-one desktop

iMac, all-in-one desktop

Mac Mini, entry-level desktop

Mac Mini, entry-level desktop

Mac Studio, compact workstation desktop

Mac Studio, compact workstation desktop

Mac Pro, expandable workstation tower

Mac Pro, expandable workstation tower

More information Release date, Model ...

Marketing

 

The "1984" advertisement debuted during Super Bowl XVIII.

The original Macintosh was marketed at Super Bowl XVIII with the highly acclaimed "1984" ad, directed by Ridley Scott. The ad alluded to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and symbolized Apple's desire to "rescue" humanity from the conformity of computer industry giant IBM.[160][161][162] The ad is now considered a "watershed event" and a "masterpiece."[163][164] Before the Macintosh, high-tech marketing catered to industry insiders rather than consumers, so journalists covered technology like the "steel or automobiles" industries, with articles written for a highly technical audience.[165][166] The Macintosh launch event pioneered event marketing techniques that have since become "widely emulated" in Silicon Valley, by creating a mystique about the product and giving an inside look into its creation.[167] Apple took a new "multiple exclusives" approach regarding the press, giving "over one hundred interviews to journalists that lasted over six hours apiece", and introduced a new "Test Drive a Macintosh" campaign.[168][169]

 

Apple's brand, which established a "heartfelt connection with consumers", is cited as one of the keys to the Mac's success.[170] After Steve Jobs's return to the company, he launched the Think different ad campaign, positioning the Mac as the best computer for "creative people who believe that one person can change the world".[171] The campaign featured black-and-white photographs of luminaries like Albert Einstein, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., with Jobs saying: "if they ever used a computer, it would have been a Mac".[172][173] The ad campaign was critically acclaimed and won several awards, including a Primetime Emmy.[174] In the 2000s, Apple continued to use successful marketing campaigns to promote the Mac line, including the Switch and Get a Mac campaigns.[175][176]

 

Apple's focus on design and build quality has helped establish the Mac as a high-end, premium brand. The company's emphasis on creating iconic and visually appealing designs for its computers has given them a "human face" and made them stand out in a crowded market.[177] Apple has long made product placements in high-profile movies and television shows to showcase Mac computers, like Mission: Impossible, Legally Blonde, and Sex and the City.[178] Apple is known for not allowing producers to show villains using Apple products.[179] Its own shows produced for the Apple TV+ streaming service feature prominent use of MacBooks.[180]

 

The Mac is known for its highly loyal customer base. In 2022, the American Customer Satisfaction Index gave the Mac the highest customer satisfaction score of any personal computer, at 82 out of 100.[181] In that year, Apple was the fourth largest vendor of personal computers, with a market share of 8.9%.[182]

 

Hardware

 

A Mac Pro from 2019 being used for color grading.

Apple outsources the production of its hardware to Asian manufacturers like Foxconn and Pegatron.[183][184] As a highly vertically integrated company developing its own operating system and chips, it has tight control over all aspects of its products and deep integration between hardware and software.[185]

 

All Macs in production use ARM-based Apple silicon processors and have been praised for their performance and power efficiency.[186] They can run Intel apps through the Rosetta 2 translation layer, and iOS and iPadOS apps distributed via the App Store.[187] These Mac models come equipped with high-speed Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 connectivity, with speeds up to 40 Gbit/s.[188][189] Apple silicon Macs have custom integrated graphics rather than graphics cards.[190] MacBooks are recharged with either USB-C or MagSafe connectors, depending on the model.[191]

 

Apple sells accessories for the Mac, including the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR external monitors,[192] the AirPods line of wireless headphones,[193] and keyboards and mice such as the Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Mouse.[194]

 

Software

 

The latest release of macOS, Sequoia, was released in 2024.

Main article: macOS

See also: Architecture of macOS and Mac operating systems

Macs run the macOS operating system, which is the second most widely used desktop OS according to StatCounter.[195] Macs can also run Windows, Linux, or other operating systems through virtualization, emulation, or multi-booting.[196][197][198]

 

macOS is the successor of the classic Mac OS, which had nine releases between 1984 and 1999. The last version of classic Mac OS, Mac OS 9, was introduced in 1999. Mac OS 9 was succeeded by Mac OS X in 2001.[199] Over the years, Mac OS X was rebranded first to OS X and later to macOS.[200]

 

macOS is a derivative of NextSTEP and FreeBSD. It uses the XNU kernel, and the core of macOS has been open-sourced as the Darwin operating system.[201] macOS features the Aqua user interface, the Cocoa set of frameworks, and the Objective-C and Swift programming languages.[202] Macs are deeply integrated with other Apple devices, including the iPhone and iPad, through Continuity features like Handoff, Sidecar, Universal Control, and Universal Clipboard.[203]

 

The first version of Mac OS X, version 10.0, was released in March 2001.[204] Subsequent releases introduced major changes and features to the operating system. 10.4 Tiger added Spotlight search;[205] 10.6 Snow Leopard brought refinements, stability, and full 64-bit support;[206] 10.7 Lion introduced many iPad-inspired features;[69] 10.10 Yosemite introduced a complete user interface revamp, replacing skeuomorphic designs with iOS 7-esque flat designs;[207] 10.12 Sierra added the Siri voice assistant and Apple File System (APFS) support;[208] 10.14 Mojave added a dark user interface mode;[209] 10.15 Catalina dropped support for 32-bit apps;[210] 11 Big Sur introduced an iOS-inspired redesign of the user interface,[211] 12 Monterey added the Shortcuts app, Low Power Mode, and AirPlay to Mac;[212] and 13 Ventura added Stage Manager, Continuity Camera, and passkeys.[213]

 

The Mac has a variety of apps available, including cross-platform apps like Google Chrome, Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, Mathematica, Visual Studio Code, Ableton Live, and Cinema 4D.[214] Apple has also developed several apps for the Mac, including Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, iWork, GarageBand, and iMovie.[215] A large amount of open-source software applications run natively on macOS, such as LibreOffice, VLC, and GIMP,[216] and command-line programs, which can be installed through Macports and Homebrew.[217] Many applications for Linux or BSD also run on macOS, often using X11.[218] Apple's official integrated development environment (IDE) is Xcode, allowing developers to create apps for the Mac and other Apple platforms.[219]

 

The latest release of macOS is macOS 15 Sequoia, released on September 16, 2024.[220]

 

Timeline

Timeline of Mac model families

vte

 

See also: Timeline of the Apple II series, List of Mac models, and Timeline of Apple Inc. products

Source: Glen Sanford, Apple History, apple-history.com

 

References

Further reading

External links

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I5WEBX is an established Web Developement company in chennai, delivering Web Solution and Mass Media Production & Post Production services of any complexity to clients worldwide. Being in business for over 5 years now I5WEBX has a strong team of skilled experienced experts.Our domain expertise and technological ability pan a very broad spectrum. Some of our business verticals include educational institutes, logistics services, human resources, marketing services and manufacturing sector.

 

I5WEBX is dedicated to increasing the profitability and business success of large number of companies in India and overseas. Our key areas of expertise include Web Development, Web Application , All Mass Media production & post-production and more. We work closely with our clients to fulfill their needs. We believe in establishing long-term relationships with our clients by delivering value-added services of high quality. Our services are aimed at helping business in the long run and the short run as well. Ourlong term and in-depth understanding of the industry helps us deliver solutions to our clients, therebyproviding them with a competitive advantage. What makes us different from others is that we are passionate about our job. Our consultants are experienced and technologically adept, giving them the capability to offer unmatched services. Our technological adeptness is multiplied by our proactive team, always aiming at building long term relationships with clients.

 

# 2A, Agasthiyar Street,

Gandhi Nagar,Saligramam,

Chennai-600 093.TN, INDIA.

Hp: 988 40500 41,

Off: 044 - 2362 1993

  

Thanks & Regards

Veera- BDM

Hp: +91 988 40 500 41 /+91 988 4562 303 / Off: 044 - 23621993

E-mail: i5webx@gmail.com / E-mail: info@i5webx.com

Website: www.i5webx.com

I5WEBX is an established Web Developement company in chennai, delivering Web Solution and Mass Media Production & Post Production services of any complexity to clients worldwide. Being in business for over 5 years now I5WEBX has a strong team of skilled experienced experts.Our domain expertise and technological ability pan a very broad spectrum. Some of our business verticals include educational institutes, logistics services, human resources, marketing services and manufacturing sector.

 

I5WEBX is dedicated to increasing the profitability and business success of large number of companies in India and overseas. Our key areas of expertise include Web Development, Web Application , All Mass Media production & post-production and more. We work closely with our clients to fulfill their needs. We believe in establishing long-term relationships with our clients by delivering value-added services of high quality. Our services are aimed at helping business in the long run and the short run as well. Ourlong term and in-depth understanding of the industry helps us deliver solutions to our clients, therebyproviding them with a competitive advantage. What makes us different from others is that we are passionate about our job. Our consultants are experienced and technologically adept, giving them the capability to offer unmatched services. Our technological adeptness is multiplied by our proactive team, always aiming at building long term relationships with clients.

 

# 2A, Agasthiyar Street,

Gandhi Nagar,Saligramam,

Chennai-600 093.TN, INDIA.

Hp: 988 40500 41,

Off: 044 - 2362 1993

  

Thanks & Regards

Veera- BDM

Hp: +91 988 40 500 41 /+91 988 4562 303 / Off: 044 - 23621993

E-mail: i5webx@gmail.com / E-mail: info@i5webx.com

Website: www.i5webx.com

I5WEBX is an established Web Developement company in chennai, delivering Web Solution and Mass Media Production & Post Production services of any complexity to clients worldwide. Being in business for over 5 years now I5WEBX has a strong team of skilled experienced experts.Our domain expertise and technological ability pan a very broad spectrum. Some of our business verticals include educational institutes, logistics services, human resources, marketing services and manufacturing sector.

 

I5WEBX is dedicated to increasing the profitability and business success of large number of companies in India and overseas. Our key areas of expertise include Web Development, Web Application , All Mass Media production & post-production and more. We work closely with our clients to fulfill their needs. We believe in establishing long-term relationships with our clients by delivering value-added services of high quality. Our services are aimed at helping business in the long run and the short run as well. Ourlong term and in-depth understanding of the industry helps us deliver solutions to our clients, therebyproviding them with a competitive advantage. What makes us different from others is that we are passionate about our job. Our consultants are experienced and technologically adept, giving them the capability to offer unmatched services. Our technological adeptness is multiplied by our proactive team, always aiming at building long term relationships with clients.

 

# 2A, Agasthiyar Street,

Gandhi Nagar,Saligramam,

Chennai-600 093.TN, INDIA.

Hp: 988 40500 41,

Off: 044 - 2362 1993

  

Thanks & Regards

Veera- BDM

Hp: +91 988 40 500 41 /+91 988 4562 303 / Off: 044 - 23621993

E-mail: i5webx@gmail.com / E-mail: info@i5webx.com

Website: www.i5webx.com

Took Eleanor and Mad to New College today.

 

This is the student union where an extraordinary amount of my early 20s was spent eating bad cafeteria food, checking my mail, listening to the jukebox, laying things out in Aldus PageMaker, and drinking one thing or another.

 

I also -- for one amazing semester in 1989 -- had the uncanny ability to defecate in the Ham Center Men's Room precisely at noon every weekday. It was a gift. An extraordinary gift.

I5WEBX is an established Web Developement company in chennai, delivering Web Solution and Mass Media Production & Post Production services of any complexity to clients worldwide. Being in business for over 5 years now I5WEBX has a strong team of skilled experienced experts.Our domain expertise and technological ability pan a very broad spectrum. Some of our business verticals include educational institutes, logistics services, human resources, marketing services and manufacturing sector.

 

I5WEBX is dedicated to increasing the profitability and business success of large number of companies in India and overseas. Our key areas of expertise include Web Development, Web Application , All Mass Media production & post-production and more. We work closely with our clients to fulfill their needs. We believe in establishing long-term relationships with our clients by delivering value-added services of high quality. Our services are aimed at helping business in the long run and the short run as well. Ourlong term and in-depth understanding of the industry helps us deliver solutions to our clients, therebyproviding them with a competitive advantage. What makes us different from others is that we are passionate about our job. Our consultants are experienced and technologically adept, giving them the capability to offer unmatched services. Our technological adeptness is multiplied by our proactive team, always aiming at building long term relationships with clients.

 

# 2A, Agasthiyar Street,

Gandhi Nagar,Saligramam,

Chennai-600 093.TN, INDIA.

Hp: 988 40500 41,

Off: 044 - 2362 1993

  

Thanks & Regards

Veera- BDM

Hp: +91 988 40 500 41 /+91 988 4562 303 / Off: 044 - 23621993

E-mail: i5webx@gmail.com / E-mail: info@i5webx.com

Website: www.i5webx.com

I5WEBX is an established Web Developement company in chennai, delivering Web Solution and Mass Media Production & Post Production services of any complexity to clients worldwide. Being in business for over 5 years now I5WEBX has a strong team of skilled experienced experts.Our domain expertise and technological ability pan a very broad spectrum. Some of our business verticals include educational institutes, logistics services, human resources, marketing services and manufacturing sector.

 

I5WEBX is dedicated to increasing the profitability and business success of large number of companies in India and overseas. Our key areas of expertise include Web Development, Web Application , All Mass Media production & post-production and more. We work closely with our clients to fulfill their needs. We believe in establishing long-term relationships with our clients by delivering value-added services of high quality. Our services are aimed at helping business in the long run and the short run as well. Ourlong term and in-depth understanding of the industry helps us deliver solutions to our clients, therebyproviding them with a competitive advantage. What makes us different from others is that we are passionate about our job. Our consultants are experienced and technologically adept, giving them the capability to offer unmatched services. Our technological adeptness is multiplied by our proactive team, always aiming at building long term relationships with clients.

 

# 2A, Agasthiyar Street,

Gandhi Nagar,Saligramam,

Chennai-600 093.TN, INDIA.

Hp: 988 40500 41,

Off: 044 - 2362 1993

  

Thanks & Regards

Veera- BDM

Hp: +91 988 40 500 41 /+91 988 4562 303 / Off: 044 - 23621993

E-mail: i5webx@gmail.com / E-mail: info@i5webx.com

Website: www.i5webx.com

I5WEBX is an established Web Developement company in chennai, delivering Web Solution and Mass Media Production & Post Production services of any complexity to clients worldwide. Being in business for over 5 years now I5WEBX has a strong team of skilled experienced experts.Our domain expertise and technological ability pan a very broad spectrum. Some of our business verticals include educational institutes, logistics services, human resources, marketing services and manufacturing sector.

 

I5WEBX is dedicated to increasing the profitability and business success of large number of companies in India and overseas. Our key areas of expertise include Web Development, Web Application , All Mass Media production & post-production and more. We work closely with our clients to fulfill their needs. We believe in establishing long-term relationships with our clients by delivering value-added services of high quality. Our services are aimed at helping business in the long run and the short run as well. Ourlong term and in-depth understanding of the industry helps us deliver solutions to our clients, therebyproviding them with a competitive advantage. What makes us different from others is that we are passionate about our job. Our consultants are experienced and technologically adept, giving them the capability to offer unmatched services. Our technological adeptness is multiplied by our proactive team, always aiming at building long term relationships with clients.

 

# 2A, Agasthiyar Street,

Gandhi Nagar,Saligramam,

Chennai-600 093.TN, INDIA.

Hp: 988 40500 41,

Off: 044 - 2362 1993

  

Thanks & Regards

Veera- BDM

Hp: +91 988 40 500 41 /+91 988 4562 303 / Off: 044 - 23621993

E-mail: i5webx@gmail.com / E-mail: info@i5webx.com

Website: www.i5webx.com

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Every other day and I do mean every other day, a so-called tech reporter writes a predictable article about how Apple is screwing themselves out of market share by not being "open." You probably know where this is going. Invariably they compare the current iPhone versus Android controversy to the Mac versus Windows drama that played out about twenty-six years ago.

 

Their wise argument usually sounds something like this:

 

"Back in 1984, Apple leapt way ahead in the PC market when it released the original Macintosh, the first popular computer to employ a graphical user interface. It took Microsoft six years to come up with something that could compare to the Mac, in the form of Windows 3.0. Six years! For all that time, Apple had the market to itself. Nevertheless, Windows took over the world and now holds more than 90 percent market share, while Apple squeaks by with less than 5 percent worldwide."

 

Actually those are the exact words used in a Newsweek column by the link baiting Dan Lyons, who ironically, masquerades as a parody of Steve Jobs in his popular blog. His words will sound ironic in a minute, so just hear me out.

 

On the surface, the comparison to Windows sounds not only prophetic, but if you believe the angst of the tech media at large, absolutely karmic. After all, Apple has been painted as the modern day Anti-Christ for their oppressive censorship of the App Store.

 

www.esarcasm.com/4212/apple-china-to-collectively-oppress...

 

Who better to bring us out of the darkness of iTunes than the "do-no-evil" Google? It sounds only natural, right?

 

Well, not exactly. There are at least three good reasons why the current situation with the iPhone and Android is nothing like 1984.

 

(1) Windows licensing is much more restrictive than Android licensing.

 

Much has been made of Google's licensing of Android to various cell phone manufacturers, inferring with it the promise of Microsoft-style world domination. Of course, there is a fundamental difference in the approach of Google and Microsoft. When you buy a Dell, you don't get a Dell user interface. You get Windows. When you buy a HP, you don't get a HP version of Windows, you get Windows. While Microsoft's Windows license is open in the sense that it doesn't restrict the installation of Windows on hardware, it does prevent PC manufacturers from modifying the underlying Windows foundation, and that restriction has had a positive affect on Windows app development.

 

In other words, when you code for Windows you know that the OS is going to be the same on all computers. When you code for Android, there is a different version for every phone (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0), which means that when you write an app, you might have to debug for 3 different platforms. And even worse, Android is featured on different phone hardware and different cell phone carriers, who all dictate different features for their phones and want their phones integrated with their native services. Some companies, like HTC and Motorola, have even modified the user interface, firmware and internal ROMs, making Android compatibility a mess of epic proportions.

 

As our illustrious Dan Lyons admitted under the guise of his alter ego:

 

"Dear friends, this is only going to get worse, not better. Think about it. Every handset maker wants its device to be different. And special. So they intentionally tweak the OS to give themselves what they think of as an “advantage,” when really it’s nothing of the sort, because all it does is prevent ISVs from writing apps for them. Even if the handset makers weren’t totally short-sighted and evil, there’s the competency issue."

 

This brings me to another problem: what happens when all the Android partners start to compete with each other, if they aren't already? What company is willing to put money and development time into a unique app, only to have it stolen by another Android partner? Why insure compatibility when you can just as well make a modification that ensures the app only works on your Android phone? The implications of the "open" nature of Android is actually a hindrance to vibrant app development.

 

Currently, the App Store is the de facto standard for smartphones, whether the tech media wants to admit it or not. That may change in the coming future, assuming Google gets their act together, but developers tend to pick what they like at an early stage and stick with it, especially if they're making money. And as I've argued in the past, Android's ecosystem isn't exactly turning into Walmart right now.

 

www.flickr.com/photos/pacman3000/4127815088/

 

(2) Android has no equivalent of iTunes.

 

One of the most fundamental issues that tech reporters often leave out of their discussions about Windows is the reality of the situation with the Mac back in 1984. First of all, the Mac never had anything approaching the market share of the iPhone, which is currently at 17 percent worldwide. Furthermore, the forerunner of the Mac, the LISA, which featured the original graphical user interface, was an outright failure.

 

MS-DOS, the command line forerunner to Windows is actually the platform that garnered much of the original market share credited to Microsoft. The first two versions of Windows failed in the market. It was only after the release of Windows 3.0, with its native ability to run legacy DOS programs, that Windows became popular. In much the same way that the success of Windows was predicated upon the early success of MS-DOS, so it is with the iPhone.

 

In other words, iTunes is to the App Store as MS-DOS is to Windows.

 

(3) The iPhone is a premium phone without the premium pricing.

 

I think this doesn't need too much explanation, but the original Mac was sorta pricey. In fact, it was so pricey that Steve Jobs himself was pissed about it! If you know anything about the history of Apple, it was John Sculley, the Pepsi marketing genius that Jobs lured to the position of CEO, who jacked up the price of the original Mac. Apparently Sculley wanted to recoup the costs of an expensive marketing campaign (yes, that expensive 1.5 million 1984 Superbowl commercial). As a result, the Mac was relegated to niche status.*

 

This, however, isn't the case with the iPhone. Apple has vigorously lowered the price of the phone since the beginning, even going so far as to sell it at Walmart.

 

www.businessinsider.com/2009/2/99-iphone-coming-this-summer

 

So just to recap, I've established why Android licensing is nothing like Windows licensing. If anything, it has more in common with the platform on which it is based, Linux. Apple on the other hand, has broad appeal, thanks to the early success of iTunes (which resembles the DOS model), and the standardization of mobile apps because of the App Store (which resembles the eventual ascendance of Windows). And the iPhone, like early PCs, is reasonably priced.

 

So why is Android being compared to Windows again?

  

*Note: Mac sales were later revitalized by the introduction of the LaserWriter and Pagemaker, but in comparison to the mass adoption of DOS, that is a minor caveat in the scheme of things.

  

Related Links:

 

www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/android-fragmentation/

 

www.newsweek.com/id/222141

 

www.fakesteve.net/2009/11/developers-only-now-realizing-t...

 

www.russellbeattie.com/blog/android-is-splintering-just-n...

 

www.wirelessweek.com/Articles/2009/12/Android-Fragmentation/

Version 1.0

I've always been interested in computers and in 1985 I started a new career at an Apple dealership. I worked there for nine years and eventually became a partner in the dealership. The digital print revolution started in 1985 with the Macintosh, Laserswriter and Aldus Pagemaker and transformed a whole industry. This industry has been a career for me since 1985.

 

Steve Jobs was a great visionary.

   

One Alien Bee from above.

Lorem Ipsum è un testo segnaposto utilizzato nel settore della tipografia e della stampa. Lorem Ipsum è considerato il testo segnaposto standard sin dal sedicesimo secolo, quando un anonimo tipografo prese una cassetta di caratteri e li assemblò per preparare un testo campione. È sopravvissuto non solo a più di cinque secoli, ma anche al passaggio alla videoimpaginazione, pervenendoci sostanzialmente inalterato. Fu reso popolare, negli anni ’60, con la diffusione dei fogli di caratteri trasferibili “Letraset”, che contenevano passaggi del Lorem Ipsum, e più recentemente da software di impaginazione come Aldus PageMaker, che includeva versioni del Lorem Ipsum.

To the left of the pole - see the upward spray of green light!!!? THAT is a Sprite!!! … Or possibly a Blue Jet or a Pixie. At any rate, Tougher to capture than lightning! Some have said they're not even supposed to be visible to the naked eye -- but obviously they are, even if just barely!!! They are usually very difficult to see.

 

I took this at the Balloon Fiesta Park, 4th of July (Independance Day) celebrations - In Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. It was 07/04/2006 approximately 8:45pm local mountain daylight time (20:45 MDT on 07/04/06, or 02:45 UTC on 07/50/06).

 

I appologize that this is the largest viewable size - I had to crop (& lighten a bit) so we could really see it better. There was a row of food vendor tents a few yards behind me (a little light coming from them). And please forgive that pole being in the way - but I needed the lightning in there too and unfortunately, this is just how it worked out. Some dude walked in front of the lightning just as it happened (SLAP him, Please!)... so I almost deleted this one... but when I looked closely at the shot, THAT is when I realized that I caught the illusive sprite in the shot!!!! This is a pride & joy of mine.

 

I know it may not mean much to many or most of you, but to anyone who knows anything about the studies of lightning - Sprites are only recently discovered companion phenomenon of lighting. Lighting happens in the cloud and under the cloud and the sprites were recently discovered to spray upwards above the cloud -- Sprites can occur up to 50 km from the location of the lightning strike, and with a time delay of up to 100 milliseconds.

For more info on Lightning and Sprites - I provide some links here:

www.fma-research.com/Papers&presentations/spr-view-1....

www.lightning.nmt.edu/sprites/sprites.html

www.fma-research.com/spriteres.htm

www.stunned.org/weblog/archives/001842.html

www.dukeresearch.duke.edu/database/pagemaker.cgi?992631142