The first Macintosh computer was introduced 30 years ago today. Happy birthday MAC. We can't wait to see what you come up with next.
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from Apple“We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people — as remarkable as the telephone.”— Steve Jobs1984 - Original Mac - The one that started it all wasn’t just a computer. It was a declaration that the power of the computer now belonged to everyone. At the time, most people didn’t even know how to use one. But thanks to the simple graphical interface of the Macintosh, they didn’t have to. It was approachable and friendly, starting with the smiley face that greeted you.
1985 - Macintosh XL - The design of the Macintosh XL was based on the predecessor of the original Macintosh, the Apple Lisa. Modified to run the Mac operating system, the Macintosh XL featured 1MB of RAM, a 400K disk drive, and a beautiful (for the time) 12-inch monochrome display.
1986 - Macintosh Plus - The first expandable Macintosh, it introduced the SCSI port to the Mac, enabling the connection of external hard drives, scanners, modems, and printers. Thanks to Apple’s new LocalTalk networking technology, anyone with PageMaker software and a LaserWriter printer could design and print documents with beautiful text and graphics. Desktop publishing was born.
1986 - Macintosh II - The Macintosh II featured a new modular design that could support a much broader range of displays — including some that offered color. With the simple addition of a video card, the Macintosh II could display 256 glorious colors from a palette of 16.7 million.
1989 - Macintosh Portable - The Macintosh Portable was Apple’s first battery-powered computer. Weighing almost 16 pounds, it wasn’t nearly as portable as today’s notebooks. But that didn’t stop it from being the first off-the-shelf notebook to be taken into space, aboard the space shuttle Atlantis in 1991. Among other things, it was used to send the very first email from space.
1990 - Macintosh LC - The Macintosh LC dramatically lowered the price of a color-capable Mac, making it available to many more people. Color opened a new world of possibilities, letting users create things they could only imagine before. This computer also introduced built-in audio input to the Mac, making it easier to treat sound as a powerful creative tool.
1991 - PowerBook - The PowerBook was the first truly portable Macintosh. Its innovative design, with the keyboard positioned close to the screen, allowed people to rest their palms while they typed. And the rolling trackball made it possible to move around the screen with more precision than ever.
1992 - Macintosh Quadra 950 - The first Macintosh in a tower design, the Quadra 900 series featured an Ethernet port for high-speed connections to computer networks. For sheer power, it left the previous-generation Macintosh IIfx in the dust — quickly becoming the creative tool of choice for photographers, publishers, and ad agencies.
1993 - Macintosh TV - Not to be confused with today’s Apple TV, this was the first Macintosh with built-in television capabilities. It was an early example of Apple designers combining multiple devices into one, and was the only black Macintosh desktop until the introduction of the new Mac Pro.
1994 - PowerBook 540c - As the Macintosh turned 10 years old, it showed no signs of slowing down. The PowerBook 540c wasn’t just the first PowerBook with an LCD display and Ethernet — it introduced the revolutionary trackpad that’s still used in notebooks today.
1997 - Macintosh - This Macintosh, celebrating Apple’s 20th birthday, wasn’t like other computers of the day. In fact, it wasn’t like any other Macintosh. It was personally delivered and set up by a white-glove concierge service. With its unique form and custom Bose sound system, it represented a futuristic vision of the desktop computer.
1998 - iMac - The original iMac marked the beginning of a new chapter for Apple and computers. The lowercase i in its name signaled something new and important — the Internet — and showed that the iMac was built for the next age of communication. It was the first computer to do away with floppy disks and popularize the USB port. Its egg-shaped, all-in-one design wasn’t like anything anyone had seen before. The translucent shell came in an eye-catching Bondi Blue, with other colors added later. But the most beautiful part of iMac was its simplicity: You just plugged it in and turned it on.
1999 - Power Mac G4 - The Power Mac G4 was heralded as the world’s first personal supercomputer. It was so powerful it was even classified as a weapon by the U.S. government. Paired with Final Cut Pro, which also debuted this year, it brought Hollywood-quality editing capabilities to a desktop computer.
2001 - PowerBook G4 - The titanium PowerBook G4 was a big departure from the previous black curvilinear models. It was the world’s first widescreen notebook. And it shipped with Mac OS X, a complete reengineering of the operating system that introduced the Aqua user interface and the Dock. The year 2001 also brought iTunes, which would go on to revolutionize the music industry.
2002 - iMac - This iMac looked like no Mac before. Or after. It was the first iMac that featured an LCD screen — an innovation that led to a much thinner profile. When the display was mounted on an adjustable arm above a white hemisphere, the unique form really took shape. It wasn’t just a new iMac, it was instantly iconic.
2003 - Power Mac G5 - The Power Mac G5 was the first desktop computer with 64-bit architecture. It also introduced the tower design that would define pro computing in the years to come. Inside its beautiful anodized aluminum chassis was amazing power and expandability and the engine that would propel a decade of creativity.
2005 - iMac G5 - The iMac G5 was a completely new design, with the logic board mounted behind the flat-panel display and the computer elevated above the desk on an aluminum foot. A remote, which could magnetically attach to the side, gave users one-click access to their photos, music, and videos from anywhere in the room. This was also the first Mac with a built-in iSight camera, integrated with iChat, so anyone could start video chatting right out of the box.
2006 - MacBook Pro - The change to an Intel processor gave this Mac notebook such a massive boost in performance, it needed a new name: MacBook Pro. With up to quadruple the speed of the PowerBook G4, professionals were no longer chained to their desks and had the freedom to create anywhere with a notebook.
2008 - iMac - The redesign of the iMac was radical in every way. It was housed in a stunningly slim enclosure of pure glass and aluminum. In fact, only one screw was visible, and that was on the bottom. Despite its thin profile, it was an incredibly powerful computer for both work and home.
2009 - MacBook Air was the first unibody notebook, crafted from a single piece of aluminum. Instead of a removable battery, it had a streamlined, built-in one. The popularity of downloadable music meant an optical disc drive was no longer needed. And the ubiquity of Wi-Fi networks made an Ethernet port unnecessary. The result of all this? The world’s thinnest notebook.
2014 – Mac Pro - The new Mac Pro isn’t just a big leap forward, it’s a huge change in direction. It takes the most advanced technologies available today and puts them together like no computer before it. With two workstation-class graphics processors, incredibly fast flash storage, and unprecedented expansion capabilities, it’s designed to create on an epic scale. And we can’t wait to see what you’ll do with it.
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