Apple Macintosh

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The Macintosh, more generally called the Mac for short, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured and marketed by Apple Computer. Named after the ubiquitous fruit apple 'McIntosh', the original Macintosh was released on January 24, 1984 with the famous 1984 television commercial aired once at the Superbowl, with a series of other advertisements in an expensive campaign. The Macintosh is regarded as being the first personal computer to popularize the use of the graphical user interface at a time when most computers used an operating system with a command line interface. Today, the Macintosh is the only family of computers available from Apple, and spans from the "budget" desktop computer Mac mini to the midrange server Xserve. It also includes two series of notebooks: the iBook and the PowerBook. Macintosh systems are mainly targeted towards the home consumer, education, and creative professional markets; however, the Xserve G5, which is certified to serve clients on the Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Novell NetWare platforms, has enabled Apple to gain exposure to the enterprise market as well.

Macintosh computers originally used Mac OS as the operating system. However, from 1999 onward, Apple introduced the new Unix-based Mac OS X, finally stopping Mac OS development in 2002. Both operating systems were exclusively available for the Macintosh - however, alternative operating systems such as Linux can be installed as well. The current version of Mac OS X is Mac OS X v10.4 'Tiger', and all Macs besides the Xserve (which uses Mac OS X Server) are sold with it preinstalled. To complement the Macintosh, Apple also has developed a series of digital media applications (collectively the iLife suite) and a range of software aimed at the creative professional market including Final Cut Pro, Shake, and Aperture.

Contents 1 Current Lineup 2 History 2.1 1979 - 1984 2.1.1 Development 2.1.2 Introduction 2.2 1985 - 1989 2.3 1990 - 1998 2.4 1999 - Present 3 Architecture 3.1 Hardware 3.1.1 Processor history 3.1.2 Processor future 3.2 Software 3.2.1 Operating system 3.2.1.1 System / Mac OS 3.2.1.2 Mac OS X 3.2.1.3 A/UX 3.2.2 Software history 3.2.2.1 iLife 3.2.2.2 iWork 4 Market share 5 Advertising 6 Effects on the industry 6.1 The Macintosh 128k 6.2 Communication Standards 6.3 Mobile Computing 7 Models 8 See also 9 Further reading 10 References 11 External links

Current Lineup

The table below depicts the current series of Macintosh computers available.

	Name	Type	Market	Description
	iMac G5	Desktop	Consumer	The iMac is Apple's current flagship consumer desktop computer; the current models use a G5 processor, similar to the processors found in the higher end models of Macintoshes.
	Mac mini	Desktop	Consumer	The Mac mini is the cheapest Macintosh currently in production, and the only consumer Macintosh desktop that does not ship with a monitor. It uses a standard G4 processor.
	eMac	Desktop	Education	The eMac is a low-end desktop model originally intended for the educational market. It features a built-in CRT screen, and a G4 processor. (It is now available only to the education market.)
	PowerMac	Desktop	Professional	The PowerMac is Apple's most expensive, high end workstation computer. The top of the line model currently features two dual-core G5 processors.
	iBook	Portable	Consumer	The iBook is the Apple consumer portable.
	PowerBook	Portable	Professional	The PowerBook is a high end portable workstation computer marketed towards creative professionals, and of today still uses a G4, due to issues with power consumption on G5 processors.
	Xserve	Server	Enterprise	The Xserve G5 is an enterprise-grade 1U rackmount server, specifically marketed towards mission critical data centers and enterprise client services.

History

1979 - 1984

Development

The Macintosh project started in early 1979 with Jef Raskin, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. In September 1979, Raskin was given permission to start hiring for the project and was, in particular, looking for an engineer that could put together a prototype. Bill Atkinson, a member of the Lisa team, introduced him to Burrell Smith, a service technician who had been hired earlier that year. Over the years, Raskin hired a large development team that designed and built the original Macintosh hardware and software; team included Bill Atkinson, Chris Espinosa, Joanna Hoffman, George Crow, Burrell Smith, Jerry Manock, Jef Raskin and Andy Hertzfeld.

Smith's first Macintosh board design was built to Raskin's specifications; it had 64K of RAM, used the Motorola 6809E microprocessor, and had a 256x256 B&W white bitmap display. Bud Tribble, a Macintosh programmer, was interested in running the Lisa's graphical programs on the Macintosh and asked Smith if he could incorporate the Lisa's Motorola 68000 microprocessor into the Macintosh while still keeping the production cost down. By December 1980, Smith had succeeded in inventing a board design that not only utilized the 68000, but made it faster from 5 MHz to 8 MHz; it also had a 384x256 bitmap display. Smith's design used fewer RAM chips than the Lisa, and because of this the board was much cheaper. [1]

The innovative design caught the attention of Steve Jobs. Realizing that the Macintosh was more marketable than the Lisa, he began focusing his attentions on the project and its members. In January 1981 he completely took over the project, forcing Raskin to take a leave of absence.

Jobs and a number of Apple engineers visited Xerox PARC in December 1979, three months after the Lisa and Macintosh projects had begun. After hearing about the pioneering graphical user interface technology being developed at Xerox PARC from former Xerox employees such as Jef Raskin, Steve Jobs negotiated a visit to see the Xerox Alto computer and Smalltalk development tools in exchange for Apple stock options. There is debate over the degree of impact that this visit had on Apple's products. Apple's GUIs ended up working and looking differently from the PARC GUIs, and GUIs had been an active area of computing research since the late 1960s -- but it is clear that the Xerox visits were extremely influential on the development of the Lisa and Macintosh. (See History of the GUI.)

Jobs continued to look to external sources for inspiration, and ideas, and he made another key move in 1981 when he struck a multi-million dollar deal with industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger of frogdesign (now simply frog). After signing the deal, Esslinger developed the Snow White design language for Apple products.

Jobs' leadership at the Macintosh project was short lived; after an internal power struggle with Apple's new CEO John Sculley in the 1980s, Jobs resigned from Apple and went on to found NeXT Inc., and Esslinger followed Jobs to develop the design language for NeXT products.

The Macintosh's predecessor, the Lisa computer, was introduced in January 1983 for a price of $9,995.00 with many of the GUI-related innovations later seen on the Macintosh. It was aimed at business customers but was too much of a hard sell at the time; it was not a success for Apple, and the line was discontinued in 1986.

Introduction

The Macintosh was hinted at on January 22, 1984, with a famous Super Bowl commercial (directed by Ridley Scott) featuring a female athlete throwing a hammer through a giant television screen image of a dictator ("Big Brother", alluding to the tyrant character of the Orwell novel 1984, and to the dominant computer maker at that time: IBM, colloquially known in the industry as "Big Blue"). The Macintosh was officially introduced and went on sale on January 24, 1984, for a price of $2,495.00.

Like the Lisa, it was powered by a Motorola 68000 processor, running at 8 megahertz, faster than the Lisa's 5 MHz. The Mac was designed to be self-contained, and had far more programming code in ROM than other computers; it had a non-expandable 128 kilobytes of RAM. The computer shipped with two useful programs designed to show off its interface, MacWrite and MacPaint.

Although the Mac garnered an immediate enthusiastic following, it was too radical for some. Because the machine was entirely designed around the GUI, existing text-mode and command-driven programs had to be redesigned and rewritten, a challenging undertaking that many software developers shied away from, which initially led to a lack of software for the new system. Many users, accustomed to the arcane world of command lines, labeled the Mac a "toy computer," an image that put off many potential users.

1985 - 1989

In 1985, the combination of the Mac and its graphical user inteface with Aldus Pagemaker and Apple's LaserWriter printer enabled a low-cost solution for designing and previewing printed material, an activity that came to be known as desktop publishing. Interest in the Mac exploded, and it is only recently that it has started to lose its dominance as the standard platform for publishing and printing houses with the introduction of newer desktop publishing software for Windows before Mac OS X, such as Adobe's InDesign.

The limitations of the first Mac soon became clear. It had very little memory, even compared to other personal computers in 1984, and could not be expanded easily; it lacked a hard drive or any means to attach one easily. Although by 1985 the Mac's base memory had increased to 512 KB, and it was possible, albeit inconvenient, to expand the memory of a 128 KB Mac, Apple realized that the Mac needed to be improved.

The result was the Macintosh Plus, released in 1986. It offered one megabyte of RAM, expandable to four, and a then-revolutionary SCSI interface, allowing up to seven peripherals, such as hard drives and scanners, to be attached to the machine. Its floppy drive was increased to 800 kilobyte capacity. The Plus was an immediate success and remained in production for four years.

Other issues remained, particularly low processor speed and limited graphics ability, which had hobbled the Mac's ability to make inroads into the business computing market. Updated Motorola CPUs made a faster machine possible, and in 1987, Apple took advantage of the new Motorola technology, and introduced the Macintosh II, which utilized a 16-MHz Motorola 68020 processor. It had an open architecture with several expansion slots and it, along with the updated system software, supported color graphics.

Along with the Mac II, the Macintosh SE was released, the first compact Mac with an expansion slot. The Macintosh SE shared some of the II's aesthetics, such as its new ergonomic mouse and keyboard. SEs eventually featured a 1.44-megabyte floppy disk drive.

With the Motorola 68030 processor came the Macintosh IIx in 1988. It was essentially an updated II with the new Motorola processor, which ran at 16 MHz. It also sported some internal improvements including an onboard memory management unit. It was followed by a more compact version with fewer slots, the Macintosh IIcx, and a version of the Mac SE powered by the 16-MHz 68030, the Macintosh SE/30 in 1989. At the same time, the fastest Mac yet, the Macintosh IIci, running at 25 MHz, was the first Mac to be "32-bit clean" and to support the architectural changes in the forthcoming, much-delayed Macintosh System 7. Apple also introduced the much-criticized Macintosh Portable in 1989, a 16-MHz 68000 machine with an active matrix display.

The following year, the 40MHz Macintosh IIfx, costing $13,000, was unveiled. Apart from its fast processor, it had significant internal architectural improvements including faster memory and two CMOS 6502 processors (which had been the CPU in the Apple II) controlling I/O operations.

1990 - 1998

In 1990 the Mac had gained widespread acceptance, but it was generally seen as too expensive, especially with the wide range of PC clones available. The release of Microsoft Windows 3.0, widely seen as the first version of Windows to actually challenge the Mac, was released in May 1990, and it created a usable alternative to the Macintosh platform.

Apple's response was the brainchild of CEO John Sculley: a range of inexpensive Macs introduced on October 1990. The Macintosh Classic, essentially a cheaper version of the aformentioned Macintosh SE, sold for a price of $999 in its American base version. The Macintosh was the cheapest ever available Mac up until the release of the Mac mini. The 68020-powered Macintosh LC, was available for ~$1800, in a distinctive "pizza box" case, offered color graphics, and a low-cost 512×384-pixel monitor was launched to accompany it. The Macintosh IIsi, essentially a 20-MHz IIci with only one expansion slot, cost $2500, and was a powerful machine for the price. It was the first Mac with a microphone input. All three machines sold very well, though Apple's profit margin was considerably lower than on earlier machines.

The following year saw the much-anticipated release of System 7, a 32-bit rewrite of the Macintosh operating system that improved its handling of color graphics, memory addressing, networking, and multitasking, and introduced virtual memory. Later that year, Apple introduced the Macintosh Quadra 700 and 900 computers, the first Macs to employ the faster Motorola 68040 processor. They were joined by improved versions of the previous year's hits, the Macintosh Classic II and Macintosh LC II, which was upgraded to utilize a 16MHz 68030.

At the same time, the first three models in Apple's enduring PowerBook range were introduced — the 16 MHz 68000-powered PowerBook 100, a miniaturized Macintosh Portable built by Sony; the 16-MHz 68030 PowerBook 140; and the 25-MHz 68030 PowerBook 170. They were the first portable computers with the keyboard behind a palmrest, and with a built-in pointing device (a trackball) below the keyboard. All three had a black-and-white 640×400-pixel display, passive matrix for the 100 and 140, and active matrix for the 170.

In 1992 Apple unveiled an ill-fated plan to sell consumer Macs, named the the Macintosh Performa series, through non-traditional dealers. At Apple dealers, a lower-end version of the Quadra series, the Macintosh Centris was brought out, only to be quickly renamed Quadra when buyers became confused by the range of Classics, LCs, IIs, Quadras, Performas, and Centris.

As well as releasing several new Macintosh products, Apple also unveiled the miniaturized PowerBook Duo range. It was intended to be docked for desktop-like functionality while at the workplace. The last PowerBook Duo was dropped from the Apple product line in early-1997, possibly because of the difficulties switching to PowerPC processors. In 1993 the Macintosh TV was introduced, it was Apple's first attempt at computer-television integration. It shared the external appearance of the Macintosh Performa 500 series, but in a black case. It was essentially a Performa 520 which could switch its built-in 14" Sony Trinitron CRT from being a computer display to a cable-ready television: it did not do windowed TV on the computer desktop, though it could capture still frames to PICT documents. It came with a small remote control that is also compatible with Sony televisions. Only 10,000 were made in the model's short time on the market, and they are now quite rare.

By the early 1990s, it was thought by some that RISC-architecture CPUs would soon dramatically outpace the speed increases occurring over the same time in CISC CPUs such as the Macintosh's Motorola 68000 series and Intel's x86 series. The AIM alliance of Apple Computer, IBM, and Motorola was announced in 1991 to create a series of RISC CPUs called the PowerPC. Existing Macintosh software that had been written for the 68000 series CPUs, including some large sections of the Mac OS—were made to run with a software emulator. The first PowerPC-based Macs were sold in 1994. The Power Macintosh line proved to be incredibly successful, with over one million units sold by late-1994, three months before Apple's one-year goal. In 2005, Apple announced that it would move from PowerPC to the x86 series; the PowerPC will still be used in the Macintosh until 2007, although the architectural benefits and speed differences of RISC versus CISC remain controversial.

In 1994, Apple also released the second-generation PowerBook models, the PowerBook 500, that sported the first trackpad ever to be used by a portable laptop computer.

By 1995, Microsoft and Intel were turning up the heat on Apple by introducing Windows 95, and the Pentium processor, both products significantly enhancing the multimedia capability of the PC, and quickly began to erode the Mac's market share. In response, Apple started the Macintosh clone program in order to regain lost market share in the desktop computer market. This program was cancelled in August 1997 when negotiations between Apple and the clone makers to extend the licensing agreement broke down, and Apple bought back the licenses of Power Computing and other clone vendors.

1999 - Present

In 1998, a year after Steve Jobs returned to the company, Apple introduced a new all-in-one Macintosh similar to the original Macintosh 128K in the aspect of design, named the iMac. The iMac did not feature the usual ports such as ADB and SCSI; instead, it only including two USB ports, in part as an attempt to set new industrial standards. The new iMac was not a great leap forward in hardware specifications, but instead enjoyed great success because of it's innovative marketing and design. The iMac featured a translucent plastic case, originally Bondi blue and white, with many other colors later replacing Bondi blue. The iMac set new standards for computer design and furthermore popularized the use of USB. The iMac proved to be phenomenally successful, selling 800,000 units in 1998, making the company an annual profit of $309 million, making it Apple's first profitable year since Michael Spindler took the position of CEO of the company in 1995. The success of the iMac is highly regarded as one of the reasons that Apple has continued to grow to this date, and many credit the turn around of Apple from a failing, non-profitable company, to the successfull company that it is today to the original iMac.

In the summer of 1999, Apple introduced the iBook, a new consumer level portable Macintosh that was designed to be similar in appearance to the iMac introduced a year earlier. Six weeks after the iBook's unveiling, more than 140,000 orders had been placed, and by October the computer was as successful as the iMac.

In 2000, the Macintosh made a fundamental change, this time in its operating system, by switching to the Mach and BSD Unix-based Mac OS X, from the original Mac OS 'classic'.

In recent years Apple has seen a significant boost in sales of Macintoshes largely due to the success of the iPod. The iPod digital music players have brought awareness to the Macintosh line which hasn't been seen since after its original release in 1984. In 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 Macintosh sales have been increasing continuously.

Apple has continued to add new products to their lineup. and on January 11, 2005 at the Macworld Expo/San Francisco, Apple announced the Mac mini with a price of US$499. This was the first Macintosh ever released for less than $500.

On June 6, 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the company would begin transitioning the Macintosh line from PowerPC to Intel microprocessors, with the transition expected to be complete by the end of 2007, and demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a computer powered by an Intel Pentium 4 CPU. It is unclear whether the Intel-based Apple computers will use a Phoenix BIOS, used in the x86 Developer Transition System, the Intel-created Extensible Firmware Interface, or another BIOS (the Open Firmware system that Apple has used in its PowerPC-based computers will not be used, according to a PowerPC-to-Intel developer transition document released by Apple). Intel-powered Macs will be able to run Macintosh software compiled for PowerPC processors using a dynamic translation system known as Rosetta. The reason for this switch was (according to Apple) due to problems with the power consumption of the IBM G5 processors, coupled with IBM's inability to deliver on the promised roadmap. Apple is expected to transition to Intel Pentium M processors in its Powerbook and iBook lines first (probably in June 2006), with the desktop lines following later towards the second half of 2007.

Some, particularly Apple loyalists, have branded this future Macintosh lineup as Mactel (or MacIntel), a reference to the Microsoft Windows-Intel colloquialism Wintel. It has recently been reported [2] that Apple has trademarked the word "Mactel," indicating that it may be planning on using that name for some products. During and for a time after the transition, developers are encouraged to compile and distribute universal binaries, which will run on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.

On October 11, 2005 Apple released their fourth quarter results, reporting shipment of 1,236,000 Macintoshes, resulting in 48% growth in Macs over the year-ago quarter.

Architecture

Hardware

The current product family of Macintoshes use PowerPC processors, co-developed by Apple, IBM, and Motorola, and currently produced by IBM and Freescale, a former division of Motorola. All Macintosh models ship with 512 MB RAM standard, and as of October 12, 2005 the iMac G5 ships with the Apple Mighty Mouse, a two button mouse produced by Apple. Current Macintosh computeres use the ATI Radeon or nVidia GeForce series chips for graphics, and include either a Combo Drive, a DVD player and CD burner all in one, or the Superdrive, a dual function DVD burner, and CD burner. Macintoshes include two standard data transfer ports: USB ports, standardized in 1998 with the iMac, and FireWire, a less popular port developed by Apple to support more power-demanding devices.

Processor history

Apple had been using the Motorola 68k series of processors since the orginal Macintosh, which used a Motorola 68000 processor, but with the release of the PowerPC processors, Apple began migrating to the PowerPC platform, starting with the PowerMac in 1994.

The original 68000 was a 16-bit processor, and in all desktop systems, ran at 8 MHz, although the Macintosh Portable was able to run at 16MHz. Apple later released the Macintosh II featuring a 32-bit Motorola 68020 processor, but the Macintoshes at the time only supported 24-bit memory addressing. Macs with this limitation were referred to as '32-bit dirty', while it's successors which completely supported 32-bit memory addressing were refered to as '32-bit clean'. The successor Macintosh IIx introduced the Motorola 68030 processor, which added an onboard Memory Management Unit to it's feature set. Finally Apple released the first '32-bit clean' Macintosh, the Macintosh IIci. Later Apple released the Macintosh IIfx, which not only contained a 40Mhz 68040, but also contained two MOS Technology 6502 processors for use as auxiliary controllers - the irony being that the MOS 6502 was the primary processor in the older Apple II line. In 1991, Apple released the first computers containing the Motorola 68040 processor, which contained a floating point unit in the main processor. These continued to be the primary line until the release of the Power Macintosh line in 1994.

Since 1994, Apple has been using the PowerPC line of processors, starting with the PowerPC 601, which were later upgraded to the 603 and 604. In 1997, Apple introduced their first computer based on the significantly upgraded PowerPC G3 processor; and followed it with the PowerPC G4 in 1999. The latest generation of processor in use is the 64-bit PowerPC G5, introduced in 2003. During the transition to the PowerPC, Apple wrote a 68030-to-PowerPC translation routine that booted very early in the OS loading. The first version of the OS to ship with the earliest PowerPC systems was estimated to be running 95% emulated. Later versions of the operating system increased the percentage of PowerPC native code; until OS X brought it to 100% native.

Processor future

Starting in 2006, Apple will begin transitioning the Macintosh line of computers to use processors from Intel. This will mark the second major transition of processor technology for Apple. Apple will be using a technology they call "Rosetta" to translate PowerPC instructions into x86 instructions, much as they used software to translate 680x0 instructions into PowerPC instructions during their last transition. Unlike the prior transition, however, it appears that the core OS will be 100% compiled for the new architecture upon release.

Software

Operating system

Main article: Mac OS history

The Macintosh operating system was originally known as the System Software or more simply System. With the release of System 7.6, the official name became Mac OS. From 2001 onward, the "classic" Mac OS was phased out in favor of the new, Unix-based Mac OS X. Apple had offered another UNIX system, A/UX, for their Macintosh servers earlier, but without much success. The Mac OS operating system is generally considered one of the Macintosh platform's main selling points, and its releases are heavily touted by Apple with large special events, and release day events. Apple has generally chosen to stick with some loose user inteface elements in all of its releases, and many similarities can be seen between the legacy Mac OS 9, and the modern Mac OS X.

System / Mac OS

Mac OS, or System as it was originally known, was the first widely-used operating system with a graphical interface. In fact, no versions of the "classic" Mac OS featured a command line. It was originally a single-tasking OS, but optional cooperative multitasking was introduced in System 5. The next major upgrade was System 7 in 1991, which featured a new, full color design as well as built-in multitasking, AppleScript, and more user configuration options. Mac OS continued to evolve up to version 9.2.2, but its dated architecture (such as using cooperative multitasking instead of the more modern preemptive multitasking) made a replacement necessary.

Mac OS X

In March 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, a modern and more secure Unix-based successor (using Darwin, XNU and Mach as foundations). Mac OS X is directly derived from NeXTSTEP, the operating system developed by Steve Jobs' company NeXT before it was bought by Apple. Older Mac OS programs can still run under Mac OS X in a special virtual machine called Classic, but this will no longer be possible when Apple switches from the PowerPC architecture to Intel processors in 2007. Even though Mac OS X was never certified as an UNIX implementation by The Open Group, it is the most common Unix-based desktop operating system of today. Mac OS X is currently at version 10.4 (released on April 29, 2005), codenamed Tiger. The next version, Mac OS X v10.5, codenamed "Leopard", is scheduled to be released at the end of 2006, around the same time that Microsoft plans to release Windows Vista.

A/UX

A/UX, the third official operating system for the Macintosh, was a System V based UNIX variant offered from 1988 to 1996. It ran on non-PowerPC Macintoshes, and featured a System 7-style interface as well as a command line. It was not very successful, and was phased out in favor of a AIX variant. When Mac OS X was released, there was no longer a need for a separate UNIX OS. Mac OS X Server, which is very closely tied to Mac OS X, is now Apple's main server OS.

Software history

Since its introduction the Macintosh has been criticized for the lack of software available for its operating system. In 1984, it was apparent that the IBM PC had a wider range of software available, because it used the most popular operating system of the time, MS-DOS. Apple struggled to encourage software developers to port software titles to the Macintosh, however Bill Gates at Microsoft realized that the GUI would become an industry-standard, and that his software would sell in large quantity if it was available for the Macintosh. In 1984 Microsoft Word and Microsoft MultiPlan were available, and were a large selling point for the Mac. However, it lacked games and business software. In 1985, Lotus introduced Lotus Jazz after the success of Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC, however despite the hopes it was a large flop.

In 1987 Apple spun off their software business as Claris. They were given the code and rights to several programs that had been written within Apple, notably MacWrite, MacPaint and MacProject. In the late 1980s Claris released a number of revamped software titles, the result was the "Pro" series including MacPaint Pro, MacDraw Pro, MacWrite Pro and FileMaker Pro. In order to provide a complete office suite they also purchased the rights to the Informix WingZ spreadsheet on the Mac, re-branding it as Claris Resolve, and added the new presentation program Claris Impact. By the early 1990s Claris programs were shipping with the majority of consumer level Macintoshes, and were extremely popular. In 1991 Claris released ClarisWorks, which soon became their second best-selling program.

iLife

A major part of Apple's 'digital hub' concept is a suite of consumer level applications called 'iLife.' The first iLife application was iMovie, which was released in 1999 for use on the iMac DV. Next in line came iTunes, a digital jukebox designed to work with Apple's iPod digital music player, and on January 7th, 2002, Apple released iPhoto, an easy-to-use, consumer grade digital photo organizer. Finally, in 2004 marketed the aformentioned applications, as well as iDVD, and GarageBand into a $49 (American dollars) suite called iLife. Today, every Macintosh computer comes preinstalled with the iLife suite. The suite is intended to make the Mac extremely versatile out of the box by providing several consumer media applications. The most popular tool in the suite is iTunes, which now has a Windows version available as well, and has spawned the most popular online music store, iTunes Music Store.

iWork

In 2005 Apple released iWork, a suite of applications including a word processing and layout application (Pages), and a presentation package (Keynote). Apple is currently billing it as "building a successor to AppleWorks", but it does not replicate the functionality of AppleWorks' spreadsheet, database, and drawing tools. Likewise, it does not compete directly with the Mac version of Microsoft Office.

Market share

Since the introduction of the Macintosh 128K in 1984, Apple have struggled to gain significant personal computer market share. The original Mac lacked software, resulting in disappointing sales in 1985 when consumers realized the IBM PC had more software available. In 1985 Microsoft introduced the Windows GUI environment for the IBM PC to compete with the Macintosh. This ultimately ended with a lawsuit between Apple and Microsoft, in which Apple claimed rights to the graphical user inteface; it resulted in a lost case for Apple, and Microsoft was given permission to continue selling their own graphical operating system. By 1985 only 500,000 Macintoshes had been sold. Steve Jobs, prior to its introduction, predicted that it would sell two million units by 1985. Originally Jobs predicted it could sell five million within two years; sales eventually crossed the two million mark in 1988, and three years later the install base reached 5 million.

In the early-1990s Apple tried to persuade users to buy a Macintosh instead of an alternative running a Microsoft operating system. During this period, several brochures and advertisements were made stating the advantages of a Macintosh over a PC, such as built-in networking and ease-of-use.

By 1997 the Macintosh had over 20 million users. By 2002, the Macintosh installed base was predicted to be 50 million units. As of Q4 2003 Apple had 2.06% of the desktop share in the United States, which had increased to 2.88% by Q4 2004. Based on website statistics, overall Mac installed base is around 4.7%.

Advertising

Ever since the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984 with the 1984 commercial Apple has been recognized for its efforts towards effective advertising and marketing for the Macintosh. In addition to the 1984 commercial, Apple also placed a 39-page ad in Newsweek magazine, published in the magazine from November 1984 until December. A separate "Macintosh Introduction" 20-page ad was also featured in Newsweek at the beginning of 1984, often remembered because Bill Gates was featured on page 15.

Apple spent more than US $2.5 million to buy all 40 pages of advertising in a special November 1984 Newsweek magazine to launch the "Test Drive a Macintosh" promotion; potential buyers with a credit card could trial a Macintosh for 24-hours and return it to a dealer afterwards. It began to look like a success with 200,000 participants; Advertising Age magazine also named it in the 10-best promotions of 1984. However, dealers disliked the promotion and supply of computers was insufficient for demand. In 1985, in an attempt to recreate the 1984 commercial for the Macintosh Office, the "Lemmings" commercial aired at the Superbowl in 1985; Apple went as far as to create a newspaper advertisement stating "If you go to the bathroom during the fourth quarter, you'll be sorry". It was a large failure and did not capture the attention that the 1984 commercial did.

In 1986 several brochures were created for the Macintosh Plus. In the early to mid 1990s many brochures and television commercials were created to promote the Macintosh Performa, to make the Mac more popular amongst families and demonstrate the ease-of-use compared to a typical computer running MS-DOS or Microsoft Windows.

Also in the 1990s, Apple started the "What's on your Powerbook?" campaign, featuring ordinary people in print ads and television commercials describing how the PowerBook helps them in their businesses and every-day lives. Some of the people featured in the campaign included Frances Lear, Tama Janowitz, Greg Ketchum, Michael O'Brien, Todd Rundgren, Art Monk, Martina Navratilova, Barry Ashley and Brian Durkin.

In 1995 Apple responded to the introduction of Windows 95 with both several print ads and a television commercial demonstrating it's disadvantages. One print ad read "Introducing Windows 95. It has a trash can you can open and take things back out of again. Imagine that." - a feature which the Mac OS had had since its introduction 11 years earlier. In a television commercial, a presentation speaker struggles with his new computer running on Windows 95, resulting in the audience trying to assist him, shouting out MS-DOS commands. Eventually he is told to buy a Macintosh.

Towards the late 1990s, Apple published fewer paper advertisements and brochures and focused more on TV commercials. In 1997 the Think Different campaign was launched, and became Apple's company slogan. Directly addressing Microsoft Windows users, Apple started the Switch campaign in 2002. In 2003 Apple aired a television commercial for the PowerMac G5, and in 2004 a special ad for the iMac G5 was aired, but Apple has not aired a Macintosh commercial since. It has however aired many iPod commercials instead.

Today, Apple focuses much of it's advertising efforts around heavily hyped 'special events', and keynotes at conferences like the Apple Expo, and the MacWorld Expo. The events typically draw a large gathering of media representatives and press. In the past, special events have been used to unveil the iPod Video, the redesigned iMac, and many other Macintosh products.

Effects on the industry

The Macintosh 128k

Apple has introduced a number of innovations in direct relation to the Macintosh 128k that were later adopted by the rest of industry as a standard for the design of computers. Possibly Apple's number one effect on the industry was the first large-scale use of a graphical user interface in operating system software. Today, almost every mainstream operating system relies on a graphical user interface, and many operating systems still echo the design of the original Macintosh graphical user inteface, such as the use of the "double click" and the "drag and drop behaviours"; as well as introducing a graphical user interface, the Macintosh 128k also popularized the use of a mouse as a pointing device in computers, and marked the first mainstream computer to use the mouse. The Macintosh 128k also introduced software which allowed WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text and graphics editing, which today is the prevailing standard in text edtiors, and photo manipulation applications. As well as introducing many innovations in the field of the graphical user interface, the Macintosh 128k also introduced significant technical improvements such as: long file names permitting whitespace and not requiring a file extension, 3.5" floppy disk drives as a standard component, 8-bit mono audio including built-in speakers, and an output jack as a standard feature, the "All-in-One" design (see: iMac G5 for an example of the design applied), and built-in networking features.

Communication Standards

The Macintosh platform has introduced many innovations and ideas that had significant effects on the computer industry, especially in the area of communications standards. One of the first was the Macintosh Plus, which succesfully introduced the SCSI interface in 1986. The Macintosh IIsi and the Macintosh LC introduced standard audio in and out ports in 1990 — today these ports are standard on the large majority of computers. Beginning with the iMac in 1998, Apple made the Universal Serial Bus port a standard and introduced the FireWire port, a high speed data transfer bus that is now included in many media-editing oriented computers. Apple also innovated in the area of networking, beginning with heavy marketing of the existing standard IEEE 802.11b (WiFi, or AirPort) and its early implementation in the Macintosh portable lines in 1999. Additionally, the Macintosh platform has set the tone for many of the storage devices that are standard in today's computers. In 1992, the Macintosh IIvx featured the CD-ROM drive as a standard feature, a first for the industry. The iMac, debuting in 1998, was one of the first computers to phase out the floppy disk drive; today, almost no new computers come with one. Finally, the Power Macintosh G4 with its SuperDrive introduced the first easily affordable DVD-R drive in 2001.

Mobile Computing

Apple has also contributed heavily to the field of mobile computing, and many of the features they have added throughout the years to their mobile lines have become standard in today's industries. The PowerBook 100, 140, and 170 set the ergonomic standard for the placement of keyboard in 1991 by moving the keyboard behind a palm rest, rather then right at the bottom of the laptop. Additionally, in 1991 the Powerbook 100 series featured the first built-in pointing device on a laptop: a trackball. The PowerBook Duo also introduced the idea of a dock/port replicator in 1992. One of the most important features ever added to the Macintosh PowerBook lineup was the first true touchpad as a pointing device on a notebook on the PowerBook 500 in 1994; today, an overwhelming majority of laptops rely on the trackpad as their primary pointing device. The PowerBook 500 also became the first laptop with built-in Ethernet support, and the first laptop to sport CD-quality stereo sound in both its input and output ports. More recently the PowerBook G4 became the first full-size laptop computer to feature a widescreen display, and in 2003 it became the first laptop computer with a 17-inch display. In 2004, the PowerBook G4 was the first computer to provide dual-link DVI.

Models

(See also List of Macintosh models grouped by CPU)

See also

• Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.
• List of Macintosh software
• Mac rumors community
• Macworld Conference & Expo
• Macintosh User Groups in the UK
• WYSIWYG
• .Mac

Further reading

• Hertzfeld, Andy (2004), Revolution in the Valley, O'Reilly Books ISBN 0596007191
• Kahney , Leander (2004), The Cult of Mac, No Starch Press ISBN 1886411832
• Linzmayer, Owen (2004), Apple Confidential 2.0, No Starch Press ISBN 1593270100
• Kelby, Scott (2002), Macintosh... The Naked Truth, New Riders Press ISBN 0735712840
• Kawasaki, Guy (1989), The Macintosh Way, Scott Foresman Trade ISBN 0673461750

References

• Guterl, Fred. "Design case history: Apple's Macintosh". IEEE Spectrum. December 1984. [3]
• Glen Sanford (2005). Apple History.
• Amit Singh (2005). A History of Apple's Operating Systems.
• Dan Knight (2005). Macintosh History: 1984.
• Linzmayer, Owen (2004), Apple Confidential 2.0, No Starch Press ISBN 1593270100
• Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it
• Apple desktop market share on the rise; will the Mac mini, iPod help? - March 20, 2005, Jim Dalrymple, Macworld
• Macintosh market share article - Thursday, 24 July 2003, Daring Fireball
• Mac Install-Base Shown to Be 16% - June 2005, Slashdot
• MacTracker Macintosh model database, retrieved November 4, 2005

External links

• Apple Computer's Website
• Low End Mac - Apple history and Macintosh profiles
• The 1984 introducion of the Macintosh (QuickTime Movie)
• Articles by Jef Raskin about the history of the Macintosh
• Anecdotes about the history of the Macintosh (folklore.org)
• The Macintosh Clones
• Apple-History.com, All Mac models, with specs and photos
• Making the Macintosh: Technology and Culture in Silicon Valley