Apple introduced the Macintosh computer in 1984. The original Macintosh was announced in a famous Super Bowl television advertisement and officially launched on January 24, 1984.
The Macintosh stood out for its graphical user interface and mouse-based interaction, features that contrasted with command-line personal computers common at the time. It was designed to make computing more approachable for a wider audience.
The Macintosh was not Apple’s first personal computer. The Apple II had already become an important product, and the Lisa introduced related graphical-computing ideas before the Macintosh launch.
People sometimes confuse the Macintosh’s launch year with Apple’s founding in 1976 or its IPO in 1980. Those are separate milestones. The 1984 launch became one of the defining moments in Apple’s evolution from a personal-computer startup into a major technology company.