The History of the Apple Macintosh

The History of the Apple Macintosh

In December, 1983, Apple Computers ran its' famous "1984" Macintosh television commercial, on a small unknown station solely to make the commercial eligible for awards during 1984. The commercial cost 1.5 million and only ran once in 1983, but news and talk shows everywhere replayed it, making TV history. The next month, Apple Computer ran the same ad during the NFL Super Bowl, and millions of viewers saw their first glimpse of the Macintosh computer. The commercial was directed by Ridley Scott, and the Orwellian scene depicted the IBM world being destroyed by a new machine, the "Macintosh".
Could we expect anything less from a company that was now being run by the former president of Pepsi-Cola. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers had been trying to hire Pepsi's John Sculley since early 1983. In April of that year he succeeded. But Steve and John discovered that they did not get along and one of John Sculley's first actions as CEO of Apple was to boot Steve Jobs off the Apple "Lisa" project, the "Lisa" was the first consumer computer with a graphical user interface or GUI. Jobs then switched over to managing the Apple "Macintosh" project begun by Jeff Raskin. Jobs was determined that the new "Macintosh" was going to have a graphical user interface, like the "Lisa" but at a considerably lower cost.

Note: The early Mac team members (1979) consisted of Jeff Raskin, Brian Howard, Marc LeBrun, Burrell Smith. Joanna Hoffman and Bud Tribble. Others began working working on the Mac at later dates
Seventy-four days after the introduction of the "Macintosh", 50,000 units had been sold, not that strong a show. Apple refused to license the OS or the hardware, the 128k memory was not enough and a single floppy was difficult to use. The "Macintosh" had "Lisa's" user friendly GUI, but initially missed some of the more powerful features of the "Lisa" like multitasking and the 1 MB of memory. Jobs compensated by making sure developers created software for the new "Macintosh", Jobs figured that software was the way to win the consumer over.

In 1985, the "Macintosh" computer line received a big sales boost with the introduction of the LaserWriter printer and Aldus PageMaker, home desktop publishing was now possible. But 1985 was also the year when the original founders of Apple left the company.

Steve Wozniak returned to college and Steve Jobs was fired, his difficulties with John Sculley coming to a head. Jobs had decided, to regain control of the company away from Sculley, he scheduled a business meeting in China for Sculley and planned for a corporate take-over, when Sculley would be absent. Information about Jobs' true motives, reached Sculley before the China trip, he confronted Jobs and asked Apple's Board of Directors to vote on the issue. Cveryone voted for Sculley and Jobs quit, in lieu of being fired. Jobs later rejoined Apple in 1996 and has happily worked there ever since. Sculley was eventually replaced as CEO of Apple.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air family is a line of Apple ultraportable Macintosh notebook computers.

The first MacBook Air was a 13.3" model, promoted as the World's Thinnest Notebook, introduced at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 15, 2008. It featured a custom Intel Merom CPU and Intel GMA graphics. In late 2008, the CPU was updated to faster non-custom Penryn CPU and Nvidia GeForce graphics while the hard drive capacity increased and the micro-DVI video port replaced by a Mini DisplayPort. A mid-2009 refresh, introduced alongside the MacBook Pro family, featured a slightly higher-capacity battery, and a faster Penryn CPU.

On October 20, 2010, Apple released a redesigned 13.3" model, with improved enclosure, screen resolution, battery and uses flash storage instead of a hard drive. In addition, a new 11.6" model was introduced, offering reduced cost, weight, battery life, and performance relative to the 13.3" model, but better performance than typical netbooks.

On July 20, 2011, Apple released an updated model in the same form factor as the previous model. The backlit keyboard was re-added, Mini DisplayPort was made into a Thunderbolt port, powered by new dual-core Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and the Bluetooth was upgraded to v4.0. Maximum flash storage and memory options were almost identical.

MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro is a line of Macintosh portable computers introduced in January 2006 by Apple. It replaced the PowerBook G4 and was the second model, after the iMac, to be announced in the Apple–Intel transition. The MacBook Pro is the high end of the MacBook family and is currently produced with 13-, 15- and 17-inch screens.

There have been two designs for the MacBook Pro, both using aluminum. The first was largely a carry-over from the PowerBook G4, but used the Intel Core processors instead of PowerPC G4 chips. A 15-inch model was released in January 2006, a 17-inch model in April, both of which received several updates and Core 2 Duo processors later in the year.

The second unibody model has a more tapered design and a casing made from a single block of aluminum. It debuted in October 2008 as the 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 13-inch aluminum unibody MacBook. The following January brought the design to the 17-inch model, along with the built-in battery that joined the rest of the MacBook Pro line in June. Subsequent updates brought upgraded Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and introduced Intel's Thunderbolt technology.

Apple MacBook

The MacBook is a brand of Macintosh notebook computers built by Apple Inc. currently available only for educational sales. First introduced in May 2006, it replaced the iBook and 12-inch PowerBook series of notebooks as a part of the Apple–Intel transition. Positioned as the low end of the MacBook family, the MacBook was aimed at the consumer and education markets. It is the best-selling Macintosh in history, and according to the sales-research organization NPD Group in October 2008, the mid-range model of the MacBook was the single best-selling laptop of any brand in U.S. retail stores for the preceding five months.

There have been three separate designs of the MacBook: the original model used a combination of polycarbonate and fiberglass casing that was modeled after the iBook G4. The second type, introduced in October 2008 alongside the 15-inch MacBook Pro, used a similar unibody aluminum casing to the 15-inch Pro, and was updated and rebranded as the 13-inch MacBook Pro at the 2009 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2009. A third design, introduced in October 2009, used a unibody polycarbonate shell as aluminum is now reserved for the higher-end MacBook Pro. On July 20, 2011, the MacBook was quietly discontinued for consumer purchase in favor of the new MacBook Air. However, Apple continues to sell the MacBook to educational institutions.