Happy birthday, Macintosh! Today is the Mac’s twentieth birthday. For twenty years Apple’s beloved Macintosh has dominated the personal computer industry in terms of innovation, ease of use, industrial design, and longevity. The Mac may not have won in terms of market share, and Macs may be more expensive than their PC cousins, but for the many who choose to fly Air Macintosh, no other personal computer can get off the ground.

Macs continue to lead the way in industrial design. The original iMac sparked a flood of translucent, jellybean-looking gadgets from flashlights to household irons to George Foreman grills. Apple’s new flat-panel iMacs dominate as the swankiest desktop personal computers a person may own. Similarly, the iPod has served as the rudder for the personal audio player market. Apple innovates, people notice, and other manufacturers scramble to catch up. Apple is the research and development department for every market in which it participates.

The Mac has served as Apple’s vehicle for delivering easy-to-use, sophisticated technologies to the masses. At first it was the marriage of the Mac, Aldus PageMaker, and the Apple LaserWriter that ignited the desktop publishing revolution. Later Apple introduced wireless networking with the first-generation iBooks, and it took Dell and others at least six months to pick up the scent. Now, programs such as iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand push the power to create and publish video and music into the hands of millions.

Apple’s iTunes software, also available for Windows, is another technology that’s enjoyed by millions of music lovers. iTunes is the browser for yet another Apple-designed, world-dominating technology product, the iTunes Music Store. Time Magazine voted the iTunes Music Store as 2003’s Invention of the Year.

Indeed, the original Macintosh not only became the flagship product of Apple Computer on this day in 1984, but it’s the very flagship of contemporary personal computing.

It’s no wonder that no other personal computer is as recognizable by name or design as the Apple Macintosh. I look forward to seeing what new innovations Apple brings in the years ahead.

For more on the Mac’s twentieth birthday, check out

• An exclusive Macworld interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs
• Comments by leaders in the computer industry, as well as by Roger Ebert
• A short editorial by David Leishman at MacCentral
• A commemorative article by CNN.com