WebBuilding

Devices and hardware

Apple Macintosh

Summary

The Macintosh, or Mac, is Apple's line of personal computers, introduced on January 24, 1984, as a mouse-driven machine with a graphical interface and a 512 by 342 pixel screen. Macs had web browsers and servers by 1993, ran a system built on NeXT technology from 2001, and got Apple's own Safari browser, whose engine became the open source WebKit, in 2003. As of September 2026, StatCounter counts Apple's desktop system on 16.78% of desktop web traffic worldwide and 26.51% in the United States.

Web Building Encyclopedia · Devices and hardware · Last reviewed October 22, 2026 · 9 min read

What the Macintosh is

The Macintosh, or Mac, is Apple’s line of personal computers. Apple introduced the first model on January 24, 1984, at a price of $2,495.12 The Computer History Museum calls it “the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphical user interface,” meaning a computer run by pointing at windows, icons and menus on screen instead of typing commands.3

This entry covers the parts of the Mac’s history that shaped the World Wide Web and the way websites are built:

  • The screen. The original Mac’s software treated every display as 72 dots per inch, and Apple’s Retina displays of 2012 doubled the pixels behind each point on screen in each direction.45
  • The early web. Macs had their own browsers and web servers by 1993.67
  • The operating system. Since 2001 the Mac has run Mac OS X, now macOS, built on technology from NeXT, the company whose computer ran the first web server.896
  • The browser. Apple’s Safari browser and its WebKit engine began on the Mac in 2003.1011

The 1984 Macintosh

Apple announced the Macintosh with a television advertisement during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984. Its voice-over said that on January 24, Apple Computer would introduce Macintosh, and the machine debuted that day.1

The first Mac came with a 9-inch black-and-white screen, a keyboard, a mouse and a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive.1 The Centre for Computing History, a museum in Cambridge, England, lists an 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor, 128 KB of memory and a screen of 512 by 342 pixels.2 The Computer History Museum rounds the price to $2,500.3

The software that came with it showed off the screen. MacPaint was a drawing program worked with the mouse, and MacWrite was a word processor that showed WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) editing, where text on screen looks the way it will print.3

That link between screen and paper left a number behind. Apple’s developer guide notes that the printing trade defines 72 points as one inch.12 Mac software long assumed the same density on screen: Apple’s release notes for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger describe its work as breaking the software assumption that all display output is 72 DPI (dots per inch).4 The web uses a different baseline: MDN describes one screen pixel per CSS pixel as a classic 96 DPI display, a point that comes back in the section on Retina screens below.13

Sales started slowly. PBS NewsHour reports that 70,000 had sold by May 3, 1984, and that the Macintosh did not outsell IBM. A model with 512 KB of memory followed in September 1984.1

HyperCard

In September 1987 Apple began including HyperCard with every Macintosh it sold.14 HyperCard stored text and pictures on cards grouped into stacks. Buttons on a card linked it to other cards, so one card could bring up related information, and a scripting language let users build stacks of their own.14 It needed at least 1 MB of memory.14

That is a form of hypertext: information joined by links that the reader follows. HyperCard kept its links inside one computer’s stacks, while the web, which arrived a few years later, put links between documents on computers anywhere on the internet.146

The Mac on the early web

The first web software was not written on a Mac. W3C‘s history of the project says Tim Berners-Lee began his browser and editor in October 1990 using NeXTStep, the system on the NeXT computer, and that the first web server was nxoc01.cern.ch.6 The Mac followed within a few years.

  • Samba. W3C’s history records that a Macintosh browser from CERN was released as an alpha in January 1993. The project’s status page names it Samba, credits Robert Cailliau and Nicola Pellow, and records version 1.0 in April 1993. It needed MacTCP, Apple’s networking software, to reach the internet.615
  • Mosaic. In September 1993 the National Center for Supercomputing Applications released working versions of its Mosaic browser for X Window System computers, Windows PCs and the Macintosh.6
  • Netscape. When Netscape Navigator 1.0 shipped on December 15, 1994, it ran on computers using Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh or the X Window System, and a single commercial license started at $39.16

Macs served pages as well as reading them. MacHTTP was a web server for the Macintosh written by Chuck Shotton of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The web project’s software list, archived by W3C, gives version 1.1 dated October 13, 1993, and says it could serve hypertext documents and files such as GIF images.7 In March 1995 StarNine Technologies announced it would market new versions of MacHTTP as WebSTAR and WebSTAR Pro, in partnership with BIAP Systems, the company Shotton had founded.17

Tools for writing pages came to the Mac early too. Macromedia announced on December 8, 1997, that Dreamweaver was shipping for Windows 95 and NT and for Power PC Macintosh computers, at an estimated street price of $499 in North America.18

Apple then designed a Mac around getting online. It unveiled the iMac on May 6, 1998, calling it “the Internet-age computer for the rest of us,” with one-button internet access.19 It cost $1,299 and came with a 15-inch display, a 233 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, two USB ports and a 33.6 Kbps modem.19 Steve Jobs said the “i” partly stood for Internet.20

Mac OS X: NeXT inside the Mac

On December 20, 1996, Apple agreed to buy NeXT Software, whose chairman and chief executive was Jobs, for $400 million. Apple said parts of NeXT’s NEXTSTEP operating system would become integral features of Mac OS, and that Jobs would return to the company he had co-founded in 1976.21 The purchase was completed on February 7, 1997, and Apple said its next-generation operating system would be built on NeXT technology.8

That system went on sale as Mac OS X on Saturday, March 24, 2001, at a suggested retail price of $129 in the United States.9 Apple described its base, Darwin, as an “open source, UNIX-based foundation,” and listed BSD Unix services such as shells, Perl and FTP.9

Apple also listed web development tools among the new system’s features: WebDAV, XML and the Apache web server.9 A designer could therefore run a web server on a desktop Mac and test pages on it before uploading them to a host.

Safari and WebKit

Until 2003, Mac users browsed the web with other companies’ software, such as Mosaic, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the Mac.61610 On January 7, 2003, at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, Apple released a free public beta of its own browser, Safari, for Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar.10 Apple said it loaded pages more than three times faster than Internet Explorer for the Mac and ran JavaScript more than twice as fast.10

Safari was not written from scratch. Its rendering engine, the part of a browser that turns HTML and CSS into a finished page, was based on KHTML from the Konqueror browser of the KDE open source project, with Apple’s own changes.10 Safari 1.0 followed on June 23, 2003, after the beta had been downloaded nearly five million times.22

In June 2005 Apple opened the engine as the WebKit Open Source Project, with its own website, a mailing list and a public code repository that outside developers could build from and contribute to. WebKit itself was released under a BSD license, while WebCore, which was already open source, stayed under the LGPL.11

The project now describes WebKit as “the web browser engine used by Safari, Mail, App Store, and many other apps on macOS, iOS, and Linux.”23 On iOS it runs Safari for the iPhone, which has its own entry.23

On the desktop, Safari is an Apple-only browser. Apple’s support page says Safari is included with the operating system on its devices, and names Safari 5.1.7 as the last version made for Windows.24 New web features reach Mac users with each Safari release. WebKit’s post on Safari 27.0, dated September 17, 2026, says the release’s feature count grew from 58 to 80 between the first beta in June and the final release.25

The frozen version number

Browsers identify themselves to websites with a user-agent string. MDN’s example for desktop Safari reads “Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7” alongside the browser version 26.0.26 StatCounter, which measures web traffic, notes that Apple reports every macOS release since Catalina 10.15 as Catalina 10.15, so it cannot show the newer versions correctly.27 In September 2026 its worldwide table showed macOS Catalina at 73.92% of Mac desktop traffic.27

Retina displays and Apple silicon

On June 11, 2012, Apple introduced a 15-inch MacBook Pro with what it called a Retina display. Apple said the screen had more than 5 million pixels at 220 pixels per inch, and the computer started at $2,199.5

Apple’s developer guide for these screens explains the change. A Mac measures its screen in points, not pixels, and on a high-resolution display there are four pixels for every point, two across and two down.12 Ordinary bitmap images are magnified to the right size but look slightly fuzzy, so the guide tells developers to supply high-resolution versions.12

Websites faced the same problem. Browsers report how many physical screen pixels make up one CSS pixel through a value called devicePixelRatio. MDN says a value of 1 indicates a classic 96 DPI display, while 2 is expected for HiDPI and Retina displays, and many phones go higher.13 An image made at exactly its display size therefore has only a quarter of the pixels a Retina screen can show.12

WebKit offered the first fixes. In an August 12, 2013 post, WebKit’s Dean Jackson wrote that WebKit had supported a prefixed form of the CSS image-set() function, -webkit-image-set, for more than a year, letting a style sheet offer one picture at 1x and 2x densities, and announced the srcset attribute as its equivalent in HTML.28 Before that, he wrote, developers had to duplicate CSS, swap images with JavaScript after the page loaded, or send large images to everyone.28 As of October 2026, MDN marks image-set() as Baseline widely available, working across the main browsers since September 2023.29 Screen sizes and densities in general are covered in the entry on computer monitors and screen sizes.

Apple silicon

On June 22, 2020, Apple announced a two-year move of the Mac from Intel processors to chips of its own design. It offered Universal 2 apps that run on both kinds of Mac, and a translator called Rosetta 2 for apps not yet updated.30 Apple announced the first chip, M1, on November 10, 2020, in the MacBook Air, the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the Mac mini.31 Apple said the Mac Pro announced on June 5, 2023 completed the Mac’s move to Apple silicon.32

The Mac by the numbers

StatCounter measures the share of web traffic from each operating system on the sites that use its tracking code. As of September 2026 it lists Apple’s desktop system under two labels, “OS X” and “macOS.”3334

Desktop operating system, September 2026WorldwideUnited States
Windows76.36%64.45%
OS X and macOS combined16.78% (10.68% plus 6.1%)26.51% (17.77% plus 8.74%)
Linux4.54%3.69%
Chrome OS2.31%5.34%

Sources: StatCounter Global Stats, desktop operating system market share, worldwide and United States.3334

Safari’s share of desktop browsing is lower than the Mac’s share of desktop systems. In September 2026 StatCounter put Safari at 8.06% of desktop browser use worldwide and 14.06% in the United States. Google Chrome led with 65.09% and 60.84%, and Microsoft Edge had 14.64% and 14.82%.3536

For Apple the Mac is a smaller business than the phone. In its fiscal year ended September 27, 2025, Apple reported Mac net sales of $33.708 billion, up from $29.984 billion the year before. iPhone net sales were $209.586 billion, and total net sales were $416.161 billion.37

Timeline

  1. WebKit publishes the feature list for Safari 27.025
  2. Apple says the new Mac Pro completes the Mac's move to Apple silicon32
  3. Apple announces its first Mac chip, M1, in three Macs31
  4. Apple announces a two-year move from Intel processors to its own chips30
  5. WebKit announces srcset for high-resolution images28
  6. Apple introduces the first MacBook Pro with a Retina display5
  7. Apple opens Safari's engine as the WebKit Open Source Project11
  8. Safari 1.0 is released for Mac OS X22
  9. Apple releases a public beta of Safari, built on KHTML10
  10. Mac OS X goes on sale, built on the Unix-based Darwin9
  11. Apple unveils the iMac as an internet-age computer19
  12. Apple completes its purchase of NeXT8
  13. CERN's Macintosh browser, Samba, reaches version 1.015
  14. Apple begins including HyperCard with every Macintosh14
  15. Apple introduces the Macintosh at $2,4951

What it means for your website

You do not need a Mac to build a website. Hosted builders and WordPress run in any modern browser, and we build on WordPress every week. Mac visitors still matter, and so does Safari.

  • Test in Safari, not only Chrome. As of September 2026, about a quarter of US desktop web traffic comes from Macs, and Safari has 14.06% of US desktop browsing.3436 Apple stopped making Safari for Windows after version 5.1.7, so checking a site in current desktop Safari means using a Mac, or a testing service that provides one.24
  • Check iPhones from a Mac. Apple’s Web Inspector for Safari on iPhone and iPad runs in Safari on a connected Mac. Turn on Web Inspector in the device’s Safari settings, then tick “Show features for web developers” in the Advanced pane of Safari’s settings on the Mac.3839
  • Send sharp images to Retina screens. A Retina display shows two device pixels for each CSS pixel in each direction, so an image exported at its exact display size can look soft.1312 Export logos and key photos at twice their display width, or check that your builder makes the larger copies for you through srcset.28 Our glossary entry on responsive design covers how images adapt to different screens.
  • Use the system font with care. The CSS value system-ui uses each device’s own interface font, so the same page can look different on a Mac and a Windows PC. MDN warns that it is meant to make interface elements look native, not for long paragraphs of text.40
  • Do not trust the macOS version in your analytics. Safari reports an old macOS version number, so reports that show most Mac visitors on Catalina 10.15 do not mean they have old computers.2627

Our guide to how a website works explains how browsers turn your pages into what visitors see, and choosing a website builder covers the options that work the same on a Mac or a PC.

See also

References

  1. The Apple Macintosh turns 30. Justin Scuiletti, PBS NewsHour. 2014-01-24. accessed October 22, 2026.
  2. Apple Macintosh 128K. Centre for Computing History. accessed October 22, 2026.
  3. Timeline of Computer History: 1984. Computer History Museum. accessed October 22, 2026.
  4. Resolution Independent UI Release Notes for Mac OS X v10.4. Apple Developer Documentation Archive. accessed October 22, 2026.
  5. Apple Introduces All-New MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Apple Newsroom. 2012-06-11. accessed October 22, 2026.
  6. A Little History of the World Wide Web. Robert Cailliau and Dan Connolly, W3C. accessed October 22, 2026.
  7. MacHTTP (WWW software listing). CERN WWW project, archived by W3C. 1993-10-13. accessed October 22, 2026.
  8. Apple finalizes NeXT acquisition (Apple press release). MacTech. 1997-02-07. accessed October 22, 2026.
  9. Mac OS X Hits Stores This Weekend. Apple Newsroom. 2001-03-21. accessed October 22, 2026.
  10. Apple Unveils Safari. Apple Newsroom. 2003-01-07. accessed October 22, 2026.
  11. Apple Opens Safari Browser's WebKit. Ian Betteridge, eWeek. 2005-06-09. accessed October 22, 2026.
  12. High Resolution Explained: Features and Benefits (High Resolution Guidelines for OS X). Apple Developer Documentation Archive. accessed October 22, 2026.
  13. Window: devicePixelRatio property. MDN Web Docs, Mozilla. accessed October 22, 2026.
  14. More info: HyperCard (AppleLink, September 1987). Apple Computer, via Known Users archive, savetz.com. 1987-09. accessed October 22, 2026.
  15. Macintosh Browser Status (SAMBA). CERN WWW project, archived by W3C. 1993. accessed October 22, 2026.
  16. Netscape Communications ships release 1.0 of Netscape Navigator and Netsite servers (press release posted to www-talk by Marc Andreessen). www-talk mailing list archive, University of Calgary. 1994-12-15. accessed October 22, 2026.
  17. StarNine Focuses on Internet Servers. Mark H. Anbinder, TidBITS. 1995-03-13. accessed October 22, 2026.
  18. Macromedia Ships Dreamweaver (press release). Macromedia, via MacTech. 1997-12-08. accessed October 22, 2026.
  19. Apple Unveils iMac (press release). Apple Computer, via MacTech. 1998-05-06. accessed October 22, 2026.
  20. Apple unveils iMac. CNNfn. 1998-05-06. accessed October 22, 2026.
  21. Apple Computer, Inc. Agrees to Acquire NeXT Software Inc. (press release, Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K). Apple Computer, via SEC EDGAR. 1996-12-20. accessed October 22, 2026.
  22. Apple Releases Safari 1.0. Apple Newsroom. 2003-06-23. accessed October 22, 2026.
  23. WebKit. The WebKit Open Source Project. accessed October 22, 2026.
  24. Update to the latest version of Safari. Apple Support. accessed October 22, 2026.
  25. WebKit Features for Safari 27.0. Jen Simmons and others, WebKit blog. 2026-09-17. accessed October 22, 2026.
  26. User-Agent header. MDN Web Docs, Mozilla. accessed October 22, 2026.
  27. Desktop macOS Version Market Share Worldwide (September 2026). StatCounter Global Stats. 2026-09. accessed October 22, 2026.
  28. Improved Support for Images on High-Resolution Displays. Dean Jackson, WebKit blog. 2013-08-12. accessed October 22, 2026.
  29. image-set(). MDN Web Docs, Mozilla. accessed October 22, 2026.
  30. Apple announces Mac transition to Apple silicon. Apple Newsroom. 2020-06-22. accessed October 22, 2026.
  31. Introducing the next generation of Mac. Apple Newsroom. 2020-11-10. accessed October 22, 2026.
  32. Apple unveils new Mac Studio and brings Apple silicon to Mac Pro. Apple Newsroom. 2023-06-05. accessed October 22, 2026.
  33. Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide (September 2026). StatCounter Global Stats. 2026-09. accessed October 22, 2026.
  34. Desktop Operating System Market Share United States of America (September 2026). StatCounter Global Stats. 2026-09. accessed October 22, 2026.
  35. Desktop Browser Market Share Worldwide (September 2026). StatCounter Global Stats. 2026-09. accessed October 22, 2026.
  36. Desktop Browser Market Share United States of America (September 2026). StatCounter Global Stats. 2026-09. accessed October 22, 2026.
  37. Apple Inc. Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations, fourth quarter fiscal 2025 (net sales by category). Apple Inc.. 2025-10-30. accessed October 22, 2026.
  38. Inspecting iOS and iPadOS. Safari Developer Tools documentation, Apple Developer. accessed October 22, 2026.
  39. Enabling features for web developers. Safari Developer Tools documentation, Apple Developer. accessed October 22, 2026.
  40. font-family. MDN Web Docs, Mozilla. accessed October 22, 2026.

Web Building Encyclopedia. First published October 22, 2026. Last reviewed October 22, 2026. Every fact on this page is linked to a source we opened. Spotted an error? Write to [email protected].