Introducing the Macintosh

(Following up from the previous post…)

In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh to the public on a lofty principle. Anyone can use a computer. You don’t have to wear a white short-sleeved shirt and a skinny black tie to enter the computing age. You can do it too. You can do anything.

The initial Super Bowl ad is infamous, but what’s forgotten is their other daring move. In November 1984, Apple purchased all 39 pages of advertising in a special election edition of Newsweek. They were going directly to the public. (Credit to the Graphical User Interface Gallery for scanning all the images.)

To tell Macintosh what you want to do, all you have to do is point and click.

You move the pointer on the screen by moving the mouse on your desktop. When you get to the item you want to use - click once, and you’ve selected that item to work with…

In order to transition people from physical to virtual buttons, people had to be educated. Apple knew this. Imagine the boldness of buying the entire advertising space in Newsweek to publish an instruction manual for a device that nobody knew how to use, nor ever expected to.