I’ve used a Mac in every decade since the 1980s — Apple’s 50-year journey still feels magical | Tech Radar
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I’ve used a Mac in every decade since the 1980s — Apple’s 50-year journey still feels magical
A Mac magazine editor on what 50 years of Apple felt like to live through
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Apple kicks off 50th anniversary celebrations with a special Alicia Keys performance at Apple Store Grand Central. (Image credit: Getty Images/Theo Wargo / Staff)
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Is there anything else in technology that sounds quite as familiar and reassuring as the Mac’s iconic startup chime?
After a restart, when your screen has gone black, it’s 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.
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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.
I’ve always felt that owning a Mac is as much about announcing that you own a Mac as it is about actually owning one. That’s part of the attraction — and the reason the Apple logo on a Mac Book is designed to face the right way up to the person looking at you when it’s open.
By the mid-2000s, I was editing Mac Format, 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 i Phone and the i Pad, 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 Apple’s 1997 'Think Different' campaign.
It’s such a powerful expression of that idea that it’s worth quoting in full:
“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.
(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 wouldn’t 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.
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In fact, Apple’s products were often so “insanely great” that they came to define the decades they belonged to. You can’t think of the 2000s without the i Pod, or the decade after without the i Phone.
So let’s run through the timeline and what it actually felt like to be an Apple user in each decade.
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 don’t remember doing much on it apart from marveling at the graphical interface. I’d 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 Apple’s innovation stall early, making a stand against conformity and the PCs of the time. That wasn’t just marketing — it told you what it felt like to be an Apple user during the decade. Watch it here:
Of course, it didn’t 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.
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 Apple’s fortunes were on the wane. Plenty of people genuinely didn’t expect it to survive into the new millennium.
And being an Apple user didn’t 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.
Apple Computer interim CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs introduces the next generation of the popular i Macs, 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 Mac Format magazine, which meant I had a front-row seat to what was happening — and the shift was impossible to miss.
It started with the i Mac 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 i Pod 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 wasn’t just back, it was everywhere.
The i Tunes 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.
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 didn’t 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:
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs holds up the new i Pad 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 i Pad, 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 didn’t 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. i OS 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 Apple’s user base.
There were clear wins. Siri and i Cloud 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 i Phone 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.
A 13-inch Apple Mac Book 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 i OS and Siri.
We’re still waiting to see how that plays out — and this year’s WWDC could be a defining moment for Apple’s AI ambitions.
The Apple Museum, Prague. (Image credit: Getty Images / Francois LOCHON )
It’s a credit to the quality of Apple’s 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 there’s a single piece of Apple magic that has survived all this time, it’s that.
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Graham is the Senior Editor for AI at Tech Radar. With over 25 years of experience in both online and print journalism, Graham has worked for various market-leading tech brands including Computeractive, PC Pro, i More, Mac Format, Mac|Life, Maximum PC, and more. He specializes in reporting on everything to do with AI and has appeared on BBC TV shows like BBC One Breakfast and on Radio 4 commenting on the latest trends in tech. Graham has an honors degree in Computer Science and spends his spare time podcasting and blogging.
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I’ve used a Mac in every decade since the 1980s — Apple’s 50-year journey still feels magical
