1984 Apple's First Macintosh Commercial

Sean Collier · 11.6M views · 2005-12-13 · 1:00

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

The famous 1984 Apple Macintosh television commercial, framed as a rebellion against an Orwellian Big Brother. This copy was uploaded to YouTube just after the site launched.

On Hacker News

HN mostly uses it as a cultural reference, either as a favorite tech ad or as irony when criticizing Apple's later restrictiveness.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2008–2017

Topics

Tech company stories & documentaries Arts & entertainment (other)

What people said

0xdeadbeefbabe · 2017-06 · Reference
> Why care about OS:es when there is no room for anyone on that level of abstraction apart from a handful developers at MS, Apple and Google? There is as much room as there are people frustrated with the "state of the art." Edit: Have you seen this apple commercial [VIDEO] . Yes it is from 1984 and you might think it doesn't apply.
Read the original HN comment ↗

frugalmail · 2012-09 · Criticism
I'm in America, an American, and not Asian. I find what apple is doing repulsive. - They are using highly questionable patents to discourage competition, are ruling their ecosystem like a fascist regime, - forcing you to swallow their whole stack to work with any part of their ecosystem (e.g. you can only build ios apps on mac) - their bundled applications suck (damn the "rainbow wait wheel" - making disposable laptops, ipods, and iphones which is counter to the environment and very anti-consumer but pro apple pocketbook. And all this is especially funny when you look back: [VIDEO] Although that article is definitely not substantiating their bias it's just a shame that brand marketing here has so clearly pulled the proverbial wool over the American public's eyes.
Read the original HN comment ↗

trustfundbaby · 2012-06 · Criticism
What I don't understand is why this is an either-or proposition ... was it really that impossible to build these laptops without alienating the 'enthusiasts' ... people who actually want to swap out hard drives, or RAM? I just spent two years transitioning my life away from windows, which I used for about 15 years, to OS X just to suddenly find that I can't run out and buy a new SSD hard drive to try on my system if I wanted to ... brilliant. The best part is, If reading HN threads where people are basically agreeing with this nonsense, because Apple made the decision. Thats right, just keep taking away choices from the user until the entire company and its customers become one huge parody. oh, hang on ... we're already there. yuck. PS: [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Sean Collier, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks

SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources