--- title: "Which came first, Google or the Macintosh?" description: "Google vs the Macintosh: the Macintosh came first, by 14 years — 1984 against 1998. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently." url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/google-vs-macintosh/ site: "At One Place" --- # Which came first, Google or the Macintosh? **Which came first, Google or the Macintosh?: the Macintosh** 1984 — 14 years before Google the Macintosh came first, by 14 years. Apple launched the first Macintosh, two days after the Super Bowl advert. ## Side by side | | Google | the Macintosh | | --- | --- | --- | | Year | 1998 | 1984 | | Date | 1998-09-04 | 1984-01-24 | | Category | technology | technology | | What happened | Google Inc. was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park. | Apple launched the first Macintosh, two days after the Super Bowl advert. | ## Google The date used here is the incorporation, 4 September 1998. Two others compete: the research project called BackRub began at Stanford in 1996, and the google.com domain was registered on 15 September 1997. Google itself has celebrated its birthday on four different September dates over the years, which is a fair indication that no single one is correct. It is younger than Amazon, eBay and Netflix. ## the Macintosh The Macintosh launched in January 1984 with a graphical interface and a mouse, and beat Windows to market by almost two years. Neither invented the idea — Xerox PARC had built the Alto in 1973, and both Apple and Microsoft were working from what they had seen there. Mac OS X, the ancestor of today's macOS, arrived much later in 2001 and is Unix underneath. ## Common questions ### Which came first, Google or the Macintosh? the Macintosh, by 14 years — 1984 against 1998. ### When did Google start? 1998. Google Inc. was incorporated in a garage in Menlo Park. ### When did the Macintosh start? 1984. Apple launched the first Macintosh, two days after the Super Bowl advert. ## Related pages - [Apple or the Macintosh?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-macintosh/) - [Apple or Google?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-google/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or the Macintosh?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-macintosh/) - [the internet (ARPANET) or Google?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-google/) - [email or the Macintosh?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-macintosh/) - [email or Google?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-google/) - [the Macintosh or Microsoft?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-microsoft/) - [the Macintosh or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-windows/) - [the Macintosh or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-world-wide-web/) - [the Macintosh or Python?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-python/) - [the Macintosh or Netflix?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-netflix/) - [the Macintosh or Wikipedia?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-wikipedia/) ## Sources - Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/) - Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]