Ive used a Mac in every decade since the 1980s Apples 50-year journey still feels magical

Date:
Fri, 27 Mar 2026 15:48:52 +0000

Description:
A Mac user since the 1980s and former Apple magazine editor looks back on
50 years of Apple to explore how it went from rebellious outsider to tech giant while still managing to feel a little magical.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Become a Member in Seconds Unlock instant access to exclusive member
features. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter Is there anything else in technology that sounds quite as familiar and
reassuring as the Macs iconic startup chime?

BONG! After a restart, when your screen has gone black, its a sound that feels comforting yes, your Mac is actually going to start up again and plucky at the same time, proudly announcing to the room that yes, you own a Mac, and yes, it is a goddamn thing of beauty. Article continues below You
may like Apple toasts 'the crazy ones' in 50-year celebration we hope it's a sign Apple Macs in 2025: the best and worst moments of the year 20 years ago, Apple launched a Mac that changed mini-PCs forever That startup sound (originally a C major chord played on a Korg Wavestation EX, in case you were wondering, later updated to F-sharp and then F major in 2020) has been around since 1991 and the Quadra series. Ive always felt that owning a Mac is as
much about announcing that you own a Mac as it is about actually owning one. Thats part of the attraction and the reason the Apple logo on a MacBook is designed to face the right way up to the person looking at you when its open.

By the mid-2000s, I was editing MacFormat , an Apple magazine that is still going strong today. That meant I had a front-row seat for Steve Jobs second coming as CEO of Apple, and I got to see him work his magic up close. I was there for the launch of the iPhone and the iPad, and I'll never forget it. Even now, 50 years after Apple was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, with early operations run out of Jobs parents garage, and despite the fact that Apple has in many ways become the very system it once positioned itself directly against, owning a Mac can still
make you feel like one of the rebels the crazy ones, the misfits that Jobs spoke about in Apples 1997 'Think Different' campaign.

Its such a powerful expression of that idea that its worth quoting in full: Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our
trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. Those words were definitely of the time, and in 2026, it feels like we could all use a little less crazy, but in the 90s they hit
hard, and attracted their fair share of criticism for being as much about marketing as anything else. Insanely great (Image credit: Getty Images/ San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/Contributor) The fact is, if Apple and its products were nothing more than tribal marketing, they wouldnt have lasted. Instead, Apple endured and eventually dominated because its products were usually better made than its competitors. Fifty years on, that still feels broadly true. What to read next Apples long obsession with colorful computers started in 1979 The MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) is still the best ultraportable I've ever used 21 years on the Mac mini is the best PC you can buy especially if youre sick of Windows 11

In fact, Apples products were often so insanely great that they came to
define the decades they belonged to. You cant think of the 2000s without the iPod, or the decade after without the iPhone .

So lets run through the timeline and what it actually felt like to be an
Apple user in each decade. 1980s discovery Apple Macintosh computer, model M001, c 1984. (Image credit: Getty Images/Science & Society Picture Library/Contributor) I first used a Mac in the 1980s. My dad had a Macintosh 128K. I dont remember doing much on it apart from marveling at the graphical interface. Id grown up with an Acorn Electron , which booted into text mode much like the PCs of the time, which dropped you into DOS before Microsoft created Windows.

In contrast, the Mac had menus, a mouse, and windows. Moving a cursor across the screen instead of typing commands felt almost absurdly futuristic. It
took Microsoft until Windows 3.1 to catch up but by then, Apple had already defined what personal computing could look like.

The classic 1984 Super Bowl ad set out Apples innovation stall early, making
a stand against conformity and the PCs of the time. That wasnt just marketing
it told you what it felt like to be an Apple user during the decade. Watch
it here: Of course, it didnt turn out to be a smooth ride for Apple, as time would tell, but this was Apple at its best bold, innovative, creative, and offering a glimpse of something different in a world of beige conformity. 1990s doubt (Image credit: Getty Images/ MacFormat) This is the decade Apple lost its way. PCs were cheaper, ubiquitous, and far more flexible. They had more hardware options and, in most areas, could simply do more than a Mac. If you still owned a Mac, you probably worked in publishing (hello!), or in
video editing and graphic design the few areas Apple still dominated. Beyond that, it was getting harder to justify.

PCs had the best games and the best business software. Steve Jobs had been forced out of his own company, and Apples fortunes were on the wane. Plenty
of people genuinely didnt expect it to survive into the new millennium.

And being an Apple user didnt feel good anymore. The Mac vs PC war was being won by Microsoft, and Apple was in real trouble. It felt like Apple users had backed the wrong horse.

My defining memory of the decade is PC users openly mocking my Mac for its one-button mouse and me having pretty much nothing to say in response. 2000s
revival Apple Computer interim CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs introduces the next generation of the popular iMacs, during an Apple Special Event in Cupertino, California, 05 October, 1999. (Image credit: Getty Images/ JOHN G. MABANGLO/Stringer) This was when everything changed for Apple. Steve Jobs returned with a clear vision, and alongside designer Jony Ive , began reshaping the company with ruthless focus.

By the mid-2000s I was enjoying my dream job, editing MacFormat magazine, which meant I had a front-row seat to what was happening and the shift was impossible to miss.

It started with the iMac in October, 1999. Designed for a world that was just beginning to get online, it ditched the beige box for something playful and translucent, available in bright colors. It felt different, and that difference mattered.

But it was the iPod that made Apple cool again. A small, simple music player that let you carry your entire record collection in your pocket. The click wheel, the white headphones suddenly, Apple wasnt just back, it was everywhere.

The iTunes Store followed, and with it, Apple found its place at the intersection of technology and culture in a way no company had quite managed before, or arguably since.

And then came the iPhone.

I was there for its launch in San Francisco in 2007, and it genuinely felt like watching Steve Jobs perform magic on stage a touchscreen device you could put in your pocket and use to access the internet. It didnt just feel new; it felt like science fiction becoming reality.

This was perhaps the best decade to be an Apple user. Every product felt fresh, ambitious, and just a little bit ahead of what Microsoft and everybody else was doing. Watching the company recover and then surge past everyone was exhilarating.

The alternative identity of being an Apple user during this time was
perfectly captured by the 'Get a Mac' ads, with Justin Long as the Mac and John Hodgman as the PC: 2010s dominance Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs holds up the new iPad as he speaks during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Image credit: Getty Images/ Justin Sullivan) The 2010s began with Apple launching the iPad
, ushering in what it called the post-PC era. For a moment, it felt like
Apple could do no wrong.

But that confidence was shaken in October 2011, when Steve Jobs died. Apple didnt collapse without him, far from it, but it did have to figure out what
it was without its mercurial founder. Tim Cook took the reins, and we entered a new era.

This became a decade of bold decisions, not all of which landed. Apple was still trying to live up to its own myth, even if the results were sometimes divisive.

Nowhere was that clearer than in its design. The early part of the decade was defined by skeuomorphism, with interfaces that mimicked real-world materials. Then in 2013, Jony Ive tore it all down. iOS 7 introduced a flatter,
brighter, more abstract look. It was a 'year zero' moment that split opinion and, for the first time in years, seemed to fracture Apples user base.

There were clear wins. Siri and iCloud became foundational parts of the Apple ecosystem. But there were also missteps, most notably the butterfly keyboard, which could be undone by something as simple as a few crumbs.

Apple spent the rest of the decade consolidating its position. The Apple
Watch arrived in 2014, but grew slowly into its role rather than exploding onto the scene. The iPhone settled into a steady yearly rhythm of updates.

Apple was no longer the underdog, or even the comeback story. It was the dominant force in consumer tech, and for the first time in a long time it started to feel like it was playing it safe. 2020s reflection A 13-inch
Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer (with M1 chip). (Image credit: Getty Images / T3 / Phil Barker / Future) And so we come to the 2020s, where Apple managed to surprise everyone again this time by ditching Intel and producing its own silicon. The M1 chip ushered in a new era of fast, efficient, and often fanless performance that reset expectations for what a Mac could be.

By 2023, the transition to Apple silicon was complete across the lineup.
After that, progress became more incremental, with everything just getting a little bit better each year.

Then Apple took another swing at something bigger. The Vision Pro and its
push into spatial computing felt like a return to the boldness of earlier decades.

Whether it was the right bet is less clear. For once, Apple seemed slightly out of step, focusing on new hardware just as the rest of the industry began to pivot hard toward artificial intelligence. It tried to claw it back with Apple Intelligence , but bit off more than it could chew, and had to go cap
in hand to Google for its AI chops to spice up iOS and Siri.

Were still waiting to see how that plays out and this years WWDC could be a defining moment for Apples AI ambitions. One more thing The Apple Museum, Prague. (Image credit: Getty Images / Francois LOCHON) Its a credit to the quality of Apples products that they continue to dominate, even as the
company appears slower to move on AI. Apple is often seen as an innovator,
but its real strength has always been in execution taking an idea and delivering it better than anyone else. Time will tell if that approach still works in the age of AI.

Across 50 years, Apple has managed to hold onto its identity as the alternative company. I still use a Mac and somehow, despite it being one of the biggest corporations in the world, Apple still makes me feel like I'm thinking differently by choosing it.

If theres a single piece of Apple magic that has survived all this time, its that. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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