The Apple iMac

The original iMac introduced with a “Hello (again)” screen in May of 1994. It’s shape was often compared to a gum drop as the back of the computer was extended and round with a handle and the front included the CRT monitor. It was fast, pretty and powerful – everything that an Apple should be. It had a 233 MGhz processor, 32 MB memory, 4 GB hard drive, 15″ monitor, and 100MG Ethernet built in. The original color was called Bondi Blue and it was translucent instead of tan, allowing everyone to see all the internal components of the computer.

The iMac started a whole new Apple. Steve Jobs was back and a whole new series of products was about to be launched with the prefix of “i”.
The “i” stood mainly for “internet ready“, fast and easy access to the internet from your own personal Mac computer. But to Steve it also stood for many other things:
“individual“, as it was always the goal of Apple to put a computer in front of each individual in the world,
“instruct” because Steve believed that you should learn from your computer and because Apple always held the education market near and dear from the very beginning,
“inform” which relates to both internet access and again the educational qualities of a computer, and of course
“inspire” which had partly to do with the sleek new design of the Mac, but mostly to do with the human quality that Steve always tried to emulate to all of us and tried to pull out of each of us – to always be inspired in everything you do and to let things inspire you to create something new.

Color was later introduced big time, as the iMac became available in your choice of the bright (almost neon) colors of pink, green, blue, purple, and orange.

By the time the next generation, the iMac G4, was announced at MacWorld in September of 2002 Apple had sold 6 million iMacs. The iMac G4 looked completely different than it’s predecessor with a hemispherical base containing the main components and then an LCD monitor attached behind on a moveable arm. It was a designed to be a digital hub with a superdrive included. There were three models available with the least expensive model having basically the same features as the original iMac, but the price being reduced from $3,500 to $1,299! The idea was to get people to want to upgrade, which they did. Before the first G4 even came off the production line, the biotech company Genetech had already placed an order for 1,000.

The third release of the iMac was the G5 which was a slim aluminum body design with a glass panel in front and the components located behind the display, all resting simply on a metal base.

Next came the Intel Mac, which looks almost identical to the G5 on the outside but the big difference is that it contains a quad-core Intel processor on the inside. This model also added Thunderbolt ports and a face time HD camera.