Jef Raskin conceived the Macintosh project in 1979, which was usurped and redefined by Apple co-founderSteve Jobs in 1981. The originalMacintosh was launched in January 1984, after Apple's"1984" advertisement duringSuper Bowl XVIII. A series of incrementally improved models followed, sharing the same integrated case design. In 1987, theMacintosh II brought color graphics, but priced as a professional workstation and not a personal computer. Beginning in 1994 with thePower Macintosh, the Mac transitioned fromMotorola 68000 series processors toPowerPC.Macintosh clones by other manufacturers were also briefly sold afterwards. The line was refreshed in 1998 with the launch ofiMac G3, reinvigorating the line's competitiveness against commodityIBM PC compatibles. Macstransitioned toIntelx86 processors by 2006 along with new sub-product linesMacBook and Mac Pro. Since 2020, Macs havetransitioned toApple silicon chips based onARM64.
In the late 1970s, theApple II became one of the most popular computers, especially in education. AfterIBM introduced theIBM PC in 1981, its sales surpassed the Apple II. In response, Apple introduced theLisa in 1983.[1] The Lisa'sgraphical user interface was inspired by strategically licensed demonstrations of theXerox Star. Lisa surpassed the Star with intuitivedirect manipulation, like the ability todrag 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, askunkworks team at Apple was working on the Macintosh project. Conceived in 1979 byJef Raskin, Macintosh was envisioned as an affordable, easy-to-use computer for the masses. Raskin named the computer after his favorite type of apple, theMcIntosh. The initial team consisted of Raskin, hardware engineerBurrell Smith, and Apple co-founderSteve 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 toWozniak'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, thefirst Macintosh was described as "revolutionary" byThe New York Times.[5] Sales initially met projections, but dropped due to the machine's low performance, singlefloppy disk drive requiring frequent disk swapping, and initial lack of applications. AuthorDouglas 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 foundNeXT after he was forced out by CEOJohn Sculley.[7] The first Macintosh nevertheless generated enthusiasm among buyers and some developers, who rushed to develop entirely new programs for the platform, includingPageMaker,MORE, andExcel.[8] Apple soon released theMacintosh 512K with improved performance and an external floppy drive.[9] The Macintosh is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface,[10] Jobs's fascination withtypography gave it an unprecedented variety of fonts and type styles like italics, bold, shadow, and outline.[11] It is the firstWYSIWYG computer, and due in large part to PageMaker and Apple'sLaserWriter printer, it ignited thedesktop 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]
In late 1985, Bill Atkinson, one of the few remaining employees to have been on the original Macintosh team, proposed that Apple create aDynabook, 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 thememex-like ability tosemantically link cards together. HyperCard was released in 1987 and bundled with every Macintosh.[14]
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.[15] This strategy led to the successful 1987 release of theMacintosh II, which appealed topower users and gave the lineup momentum. However, Gassée's "no-compromise" approach foiled Apple's firstlaptop, theMacintosh 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.[16]
Since the Mac's debut, Sculley had opposed lowering the company's profit margins, and Macintoshes were priced far above entry-levelMS-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.[17][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, asIBM PC compatibles had done to IBM. These early strategic steps caused the Macintosh to lose its chance at becoming the dominant personal computer platform.[18][19] 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 theMacintosh LC and the more affordableMacintosh 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.[20]
PowerBook 100
In 1991, the Macintosh Portable was replaced with the smaller and lighterPowerBook 100, the first laptop with a palm rest andtrackball in front of the keyboard. The PowerBook brought$1 billion of revenue within one year, and became a status symbol.[21] By then, the Macintosh represented 10% to 15% of the personal computer market.[22] Fearing a decline in market share, Sculley co-founded theAIM alliance with IBM and Motorola to create a new standardized computing platform, which led to the creation of thePowerPC processor architecture, and theTaligent operating system.[23] In 1992, Apple introduced theMacintosh 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.[24]Michael Spindler continued this approach when he succeeded Sculley as CEO in 1993.[25] He oversaw the Mac's transition fromMotorola 68000 series to PowerPC and the release of Apple's first PowerPC machine, the well-receivedPower Macintosh.[26]
Many new Macintoshes suffered from inventory andquality control problems. The 1995PowerBook 5300 was plagued with quality problems, with several recalls as some units even caught fire. 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 aMacintosh clone program, which allowed other manufacturers to makeSystem 7 computers.[26] However, this only cannibalized the sales of Apple's higher-margin machines.[27] 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, andCopland, and its hardware was stagnant. The Mac was no longer competitive, and its sales entered a tailspin.[28] Corporations abandoned Macintosh in droves, replacing it with cheaper and more technically sophisticatedWindows NT machines for which far more applications and peripherals existed. Even some Apple loyalists saw no future for the Macintosh.[29] 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.[30][31]Bill Gates was ready to abandonMicrosoft 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.[32]
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 consideredBeOS, Solaris, Windows NT, and NeXT'sNeXTSTEP, eventually choosing the last. Apple acquired NeXT on December 20, 1996, returning its co-founder, Steve Jobs.[28][33]
NeXT had developed the matureNeXTSTEP operating system with strong multimedia and Internet capabilities.[34] NeXTSTEP was also popular among programmers, financial firms, and academia for itsobject-oriented programming tools forrapid application development.[35][36] In an eagerly anticipated speech at the January 1997Macworld trade show, Steve Jobs previewedRhapsody, a merger of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS as the foundation of Apple's new operating system strategy.[37] 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.[38] To continue turning the company around, Jobs streamlined Apple's operations and began layoffs.[39] He negotiated a deal withBill 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 madeInternet Explorer the default Mac browser. The deal was closed hours before Jobs announced it at the August 1997 Macworld.[40]
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 theStyleWriter printer and theNewton PDA.[41] These changes were meant to refocus Apple's engineering, marketing, and manufacturing efforts so that more care could be dedicated to each product.[42] 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.[43] Jobs made a deal with the largest computer reseller,CompUSA, to carry astore-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.[38] WhenTim 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 newERP system and implementedjust-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.[44]
The iMac G3's marketing heavily emphasizes its design and Internet capabilities for consumers.ThePower Mac G4 Cube advanced Apple's industrial design culture and manufacturing processes.
Jobs's top priority was "to ship a great new product".[45] The first is theiMac G3, an all-in-one computer that was meant to make theInternet 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 inBondi 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", succeedingADB andSCSI with an infrared port and cutting-edgeUSB 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.[46] He also controversially removed thefloppy disk drive and replaced it with aCD 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.[47] 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.[48]
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. The "Apple New Product Process" was launched as a more collaborative product development process for the Mac, withconcurrent 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.[49] The engineering team was led by the product design group, and Ive's design studio was the dominant voice throughout the development process.[50]
The next two Mac products in 1999, thePower Mac G3 (nicknamed "Blue and White") and theiBook, 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-inWi-Fi.[51] It became the best selling laptop in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 1999.[52] The professional-orientedTitanium 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.[53]
TheDual 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 2001Dual 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 withPower Mac G4 Cube, an innovation beyond thecomputer 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 complexmachining and miniaturization.[54]
The development of a successor to the old Mac OS was well underway. Rhapsody had been previewed atWWDC 1997, featuring aMach kernel andBSD foundations, a virtualization layer for old Mac OS apps (codenamed Blue Box), and an implementation of NeXTSTEPAPIs calledOpenStep (codenamed Yellow Box). Apple open-sourced the core of Rhapsody as theDarwin operating system. After several developer previews, Apple also introduced theCarbon 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 modernAqua graphical user interface, and a far more stableUnix foundation, withmemory protection andpreemptive multitasking. Blue Box became theClassic environment, and Yellow Box was renamedCocoa. Following apublic beta, the first version of Mac OS X, version10.0 Cheetah, was released in March 2001.[55]
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, theiMac DV gainedFireWire ports, allowing users to connect camcorders and easily create movies withiMovie; the iMac gained a CD burner andiTunes, allowing users to rip CDs, make playlists, and burn them to blank discs. Other applications includeiPhoto for organizing and editing photos, andGarageBand for creating and mixing music and other audio. The digital lifestyle strategy entered other markets, with theiTunes 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.[56]
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".[57] In 2003, Apple released the aluminum 12-inch and 17-inchPowerBook G4, proclaiming the "Year of the Notebook". With the Microsoft deal expiring, Apple also replaced Internet Explorer with its new browser,Safari.[58] The firstMac Mini was intended to be assembled in the U.S., but domestic manufacturers were slow and had insufficient quality processes, leading Apple to Taiwanese manufacturerFoxconn.[59] The affordably priced Mac Mini desktop was introduced at Macworld 2005, alongside the introduction of theiWork office suite.[60]
Serlet andTevanian were both initiating the secret project asked bySteve Jobs to propose toSony executives, in 2001, to sellMac OS X onVaio laptops.[61] They showed them a demonstration at a golf party inHawaii, with the most expensiveVaio laptop they could have acquired.[62] But due to bad timing,Sony refused, arguing theirVaio sales just started to grow after years of difficulties.[63]
With PowerPC chips falling behind in performance, price, and efficiency, Steve Jobs announced in 2005 theMac transition to Intel processors, because the operating system had been developed for both architectures since the beginning.[64][65] PowerPC apps run using transparentRosetta emulation,[66] and Windows boots natively usingBoot Camp.[67] This transition helped contribute to a few years of growth in Mac sales.[68]
After theiPhone's 2007 release, Apple began a multi-year effort to bring many iPhone innovations "back to the Mac", includingmulti-touch gesture support, instant wake from sleep, and fastflash storage.[69][70] At Macworld 2008, Jobs introduced thefirst MacBook Air by taking it out of a manila envelope, touting it as the "world's thinnest notebook".[71] The MacBook Air favors wireless technologies over physical ports, and lacksFireWire, anoptical drive, or a replaceable battery. The Remote Disc feature accesses discs in other networked computers.[72] A decade after its launch, journalist Tom Warren wrote that the MacBook Air had "immediately changed the future of laptops", starting theultrabook trend.[73]OS X Lion added new software features first introduced with theiPad, such asFaceTime, full-screen apps, document autosaving and versioning, and a bundledMac App Store to replace software install discs with online downloads. It gained support forRetina displays, which had been introduced earlier with theiPhone 4.[74] iPhone-like multi-touch technology was progressively added to all MacBook trackpads, and to desktop Macs through theMagic Mouse, andMagic Trackpad.[75][76] The 2010 MacBook Air added an iPad-inspired standby mode, "instant-on" wake from sleep, andflash memory storage.[77][78]
After criticism by Greenpeace, Apple improved the ecological performance of its products.[79] The 2008 MacBook Air is free of toxic chemicals likemercury,bromide, andPVC, and with smaller packaging.[71] The enclosures of theiMac andunibody MacBook Pro were redesigned with the more recyclable aluminum and glass.[80][81]
On February 24, 2011, the MacBook Pro became the first computer to support Intel's newThunderbolt connector, with two-way transfer speeds of 10 Gbit/s, and backward compatibility withMini DisplayPort.[82]
The2013 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).
During Cook's first few years as CEO, Apple fought media criticisms that it could no longer innovate without Jobs.[88] In 2013, Apple introduced a newcylindrical Mac Pro, with marketing chiefPhil Schiller exclaiming "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!". 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;[89][90] however, it was poorly received by professional users, who criticized its lack of upgradability and the removal of expansion slots.[91][92]
The iMacwas refreshed with a5K Retina display in 2014, making it the highest-resolution all-in-one desktop computer.[93] The MacBookwas reintroduced in 2015, with a completely redesigned aluminum unibody chassis, a 12-inch Retina display, a fanless low-powerIntel Core M processor, a much smaller logic board, a new Butterfly keyboard, a singleUSB-C port, and a solid-stateForce 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).[94] In 2015, Apple started a service program to address a widespread GPU defect in the15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro, which could cause graphical artifacts or prevent the machine from functioning entirely.[95]
The 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros (2016–19) were criticized for its keyboard's unreliability, and the USB-C-only port configuration.
TheTouch Bar MacBook Pro was released in October 2016. It was the thinnest MacBook Pro ever made, replaced all ports with fourThunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, gained a thinner "Butterfly" keyboard, and replacedfunction keys with theTouch 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 buydongles, particularly professional users who relied on traditional USB-A devices,SD cards, and HDMI for video output.[96][97] 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 anApple Store orauthorized service center.[98][99][100] Apple settled a $50m class-action lawsuit over these keyboards in 2022.[101][102] These same models were afflicted by "flexgate": when users closed and opened the machine, they would risk progressively damaging the cable responsible for the displaybacklight, which was too short. The $6 cable was soldered to the screen, requiring a $700 repair.[103][104]
Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive continued to guide product designs towards simplicity and minimalism.[105] 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.[106][107][108]
The long-standing keyboard issue on MacBook Pros, Apple's abandonment of theAperture 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.[109][110][111][112] 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.[113] Apple also unveiled their future product roadmap for professional products, including plans for aniMac Pro as a stopgap and an expandable Mac Pro to be released later.[114][115] TheiMac Pro was revealed at WWDC 2017, featuring updatedIntel Xeon W processors andRadeon Pro Vega graphics.[116]
In 2018, Apple released a redesigned MacBook Air with a Retina display, Butterfly keyboard, Force Touch trackpad, and Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports.[117][118] 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,[119] leading Apple to launch a program to repair affected keyboards free of charge.[120] 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.[121]
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.[122] At WWDC 2019, Apple unveiled anew 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.[123][124] Almost every part of the new Mac Pro is user-replaceable, with iFixit praising its high user-repairability.[125] It received positive reviews, with reviewers praising its power, modularity, quiet cooling, and Apple's increased focus on professional workflows.[126][127]
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 withARM processors similar to those in its phones, causing Intel's shares to drop by 9.2%.[128]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.[129][130]
At WWDC 2020, Tim Cook announced that the Mac would betransitioning to Apple silicon chips, built upon anARM architecture, over a two-year timeline.[131] TheRosetta 2 translation layer was also introduced, enabling Apple silicon Macs to run Intel apps.[132] On November 10, 2020, Apple announced their first system-on-a-chip designed for the Mac, theApple M1, and a series of Macs that would ship with the M1: theMacBook Air,Mac Mini, and the 13-inchMacBook Pro.[133] These new Macs received highly positive reviews, with reviewers highlighting significant improvements in battery life, performance, and heat management compared to previous generations.[134][135][136]
The iMac Pro was discontinued on March 6, 2021.[137] On April 20, 2021, a new24-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.[138][139]
On March 8, 2022, theMac 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.[143] 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.[144] It was introduced alongside theStudio Display, meant to replace the 27-inch iMac, which was discontinued on the same day.[145]
AtWWDC 2022, Apple announced anupdated MacBook Air based on a newM2 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 aLiquid Retina display, with rounded corners and a display cutout incorporating a 1080p webcam.[146]
The Mac Studio withM2 Max andM2 Ultra chips and the Mac Pro withM2 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.[147] The Mac Studio was received positively as a modest upgrade over the previous generation, albeit similarly priced PCs could be equipped with faster GPUs.[148] 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.[147][149] A 15-inch MacBook Air was also introduced, and is the largest display included on a consumer-level Apple laptop.[150]
TheMacBook Pro was updated on October 30, 2023, with updatedM3 Pro andM3 Max chips using a3 nm process node, as well as the standardM3 chip in a refreshed iMac and a new base model MacBook Pro.[151] Reviewers lamented the base memory configuration of 8 GB on the standard M3 MacBook Pro.[152] In March 2024, the MacBook Air was also updated to include the M3 chip.[153] In October 2024, several Macs were announced with theM4 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.[154]
The original Macintosh was marketed atSuper Bowl XVIII with the highly acclaimed"1984" ad, directed byRidley Scott. The ad alluded toGeorge Orwell's novelNineteen Eighty-Four, and symbolized Apple's desire to "rescue" humanity from the conformity of computer industry giantIBM.[157][158][159] The ad is now considered a "watershed event" and a "masterpiece."[160][161] 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.[162][163] The Macintosh launch event pioneered event marketing techniques that have since become "widely emulated" inSilicon Valley, by creating a mystique about the product and giving an inside look into its creation.[164] 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.[165][166]
Apple's brand, which established a "heartfelt connection with consumers", is cited as one of the keys to the Mac's success.[167] After Steve Jobs's return to the company, he launched theThink different ad campaign, positioning the Mac as the best computer for "creative people who believe that one person can change the world".[168] The campaign featured black-and-white photographs of luminaries likeAlbert Einstein,Gandhi, andMartin Luther King Jr., with Jobs saying: "if they ever used a computer, it would have been a Mac".[169][170] The ad campaign was critically acclaimed and won several awards, including aPrimetime Emmy.[171] In the 2000s, Apple continued to use successful marketing campaigns to promote the Mac line, including theSwitch andGet a Mac campaigns.[172][173]
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.[174] Apple has long madeproduct placements in high-profile movies and television shows to showcase Mac computers, likeMission: Impossible,Legally Blonde, andSex and the City.[175] Apple is known for not allowing producers to show villains using Apple products.[176] Its own shows produced for theApple TV+ streaming service feature prominent use of MacBooks.[177]
The Mac is known for its highlyloyal 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.[178] In that year, Apple was the fourth largest vendor of personal computers, with a market share of 8.9%.[179]
Apple outsources the production of its hardware to Asianmanufacturers likeFoxconn andPegatron.[180][181] 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.[182]
All Macs in production useARM-basedApple silicon processors and have been praised for their performance and power efficiency.[183] They can run Intel apps through theRosetta 2 translation layer, andiOS andiPadOS apps distributed via theApp Store.[184] These Mac models come equipped with high-speedThunderbolt 4 orUSB 4 connectivity, with speeds up to 40 Gbit/s.[185][186] Apple silicon Macs have customintegrated graphics rather than graphics cards.[187] MacBooks are recharged with either USB-C orMagSafe connectors, depending on the model.[188]
macOS is the successor of theclassic 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 byMac OS X in 2001.[196] Over the years, Mac OS X was rebranded first to OS X and later to macOS.[197]
^"Apple's Share of Market Falls".The New York Times. Reuters. January 24, 1998. p. D2.Archived from the original on December 3, 2022. RetrievedDecember 1, 2022.
^Mickle 2022, p. 163, "When [the Mac Pro] launched months later, customer interest fell short of what Apple had hoped [...] orders plummeted, and the company wound up slashing production. It became known inside the company as "the failed trash can.".
^Potter, Bruce; Hurley, Chris; Long, Johnny; Owad, Tom; Rogers, Russ (December 12, 2005).OS X for Hackers at Heart. Elsevier.ISBN978-0-08-048948-3.Archived from the original on September 29, 2022. RetrievedSeptember 29, 2022.
Levy, Steven (June 2000).Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything. Penguin Publishing Group.ISBN978-0-14-029177-3.
Malone, Michael Shawn (1999).Infinite Loop: How the World's Most Insanely Great Computer Company Went Insane. Currency/Doubleday.ISBN978-0-385-48684-2.
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