The Apple Macintosh has turned 25 Saturday, on January the 24th. The company started in a Northern California garage by friends Steve Wozniak and Jobs, and they brought the first Macintosh to the market on January 24, 1984. In order to promote the moment, they made a legendary television ad that portrays rival Microsoft as an oppressive symbol of conformity along the lines of “Big Brother” in George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

The revolutionary back then Macintosh features included a mouse for navigating on-screen cursors and small pictures clicked to trigger applications or open files. This was called “graphical user interface”, and that’s because it allowed users to interact with computers by using images instead of typing software commands. Since then, Apple computers earned a reputation for being premier products and machines with intuitive controls non-geeks could easily grasp.

The company seems to miss its cofounder, Steve Jobs, as he is credited with resurrecting Apple after his return as chief executive in 1996. Afterwards, Apple introduced world-changing innovations such as iPod MP3 players, iTunes online store and iPhones, the leader in the smartphone market. Furthermore, the company also rediscovered Macs, which were made leaner, faster, and slicker.

On Wednesday, this year, Apple reported it finished with record quarterly profit of 1.61 billion dollars, with iPod sales hitting an all-time high, which is a remarkable result, given the current economic recession. The company posted revenue of 10.17 billion dollars in the three months ending December 27, 2008. Even if the company admitted rivals Microsoft won the computer war, accounting for 90 percent of the world’s machines, Macs have been on constant growth, so it remains to be seen if they’ll manage to make up this gigantic difference.