In 1981, Steve Jobs was removed from the Lisa team and joined Macintosh, and was able to gradually take control of the project due to Wozniak's temporary absence after an airplane crash.

[9] The Macintosh is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface,[10] Jobs's fascination with typography gave it an unprecedented variety of fonts and type styles like italics, bold, shadow, and outline.

[11] It is the first WYSIWYG computer, and due in large part to PageMaker and Apple's LaserWriter printer, it ignited the desktop publishing market, turning the Macintosh from an early let-down into a notable success.

"[13] In late 1985, Bill Atkinson, one of the few remaining employees to have been on the original Macintosh team, proposed that Apple create a Dynabook, Alan Kay's concept for a tablet computer that stores and organizes knowledge.

[14] 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.

[22] Fearing a decline in market share, Sculley co-founded the AIM alliance with IBM and Motorola to create a new standardized computing platform, which led to the creation of the PowerPC processor architecture, and the Taligent operating system.

[23] In 1992, Apple introduced the Macintosh Performa line, which "grew like ivy" into a disorienting number of barely differentiated models in an attempt to gain market share.

[35][36] In an eagerly anticipated speech at the January 1997 Macworld trade show, Steve Jobs previewed Rhapsody, a merger of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS as the foundation of Apple's new operating system strategy.

[38] When Tim Cook was hired as chief operations officer in March 1998, he closed Apple's inefficient factories and outsourced Mac production to Taiwan.

While PCs came in functional beige boxes, Jony Ive gave the iMac a radical and futuristic design, meant to make the product less intimidating.

[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.

Mac OS X was publicly unveiled in January 2000, introducing the modern Aqua graphical user interface, and a far more stable Unix foundation, with memory protection and preemptive multitasking.

[60] Serlet and Tevanian were both initiating the secret project asked by Steve Jobs to propose to Sony executives, in 2001, to sell Mac OS X on Vaio laptops.

[63] With PowerPC chips falling behind in performance, price, and efficiency, Steve Jobs announced in 2005 the Mac transition to Intel processors, because the operating system had been developed for both architectures since the beginning.

[72] A decade after its launch, journalist Tom Warren wrote that the MacBook Air had "immediately changed the future of laptops", starting the ultrabook trend.

[88] In 2013, Apple introduced a new cylindrical Mac Pro, with marketing chief Phil Schiller exclaiming "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!".

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.

[93] The MacBook was reintroduced in 2015, with a completely redesigned aluminum unibody chassis, a 12-inch Retina display, a fanless low-power Intel Core M processor, a much smaller logic board, a new Butterfly keyboard, a single USB-C port, and a solid-state Force Touch trackpad with pressure sensitivity.

[94] In 2015, Apple started a service program to address a widespread GPU defect in the 15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro, which could cause graphical artifacts or prevent the machine from functioning entirely.

[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 display backlight, which was too short.

[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.

[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.

[137] On April 20, 2021, a new 24-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 October 18, 2021, Apple announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, featuring the more powerful M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, a bezel-less mini-LED 120 Hz ProMotion display, and the return of MagSafe and HDMI ports, and the SD card slot.

[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.

The ad alluded to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and symbolized Apple's desire to "rescue" humanity from the conformity of computer industry giant IBM.

[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.

[167] After Steve Jobs's return to the company, he launched the Think different ad campaign, positioning the Mac as the best computer for "creative people who believe that one person can change the world".

[174] Apple has long made product placements in high-profile movies and television shows to showcase Mac computers, like Mission: Impossible, Legally Blonde, and Sex and the City.

[212] A large amount of open-source software applications run natively on macOS, such as LibreOffice, VLC, and GIMP,[213] and command-line programs, which can be installed through Macports and Homebrew.