The Macintosh was the first mass-market personal computer with a graphical user interface, released by Apple in 1984.
Apple introduced the Macintosh on January 24, 1984, after teasing it in the famous “1984” Super Bowl commercial. Its interface used windows, icons, menus, and a mouse, making computing more approachable than command-line systems such as the IBM PC.
The Macintosh was not the first computer ever to use a GUI. Xerox had commercialized the Xerox Star in 1981, and Apple’s Lisa appeared in 1983. However, both were expensive and sold in limited numbers. The Macintosh brought a comparatively affordable, commercially successful GUI computer to a much broader audience.
A common mix-up is confusing “first GUI computer” with “first mass-market GUI computer.” The Macintosh is best remembered for the latter distinction and for helping establish the desktop metaphor that later became standard across personal computing.