It was May 6, 1998 when it happened. At a time when no one was giving anything to Apple anymore, a newly reappointed Steve Jobs as CEO of the company introduced the computer that would make it all happen again. Not just Apple, but personal computing.
In a world where beige tower computers were the norm the iMac appeared. Semi-transparent polycarbonate plastic, various colors, a keyboard and mouse that broke all the moulds… suddenly a breath of fresh air entered home computing. And it wouldn’t be the only one.
A computer from another planet, in 1998 and 2023
Steve Jobs named the iMac as the sum of the “i” symbolizing the excitement of the Internet and the potential of the Mac. At that time, it was something very daring: a computer that hid all its components inside the tube screen. No tower and all the cables coming out of it. Jobs said it clearly: “They’re ugly!”
It was also the first time Jobs had uttered one of his best lines: “The back of this computer is prettier than the front of any other computer.” And he was right: in 1998, seeing this translucent computer with a handle on the back, he immediately fell in love. Or at least, aroused curiosity.
It is a design that continues to make history for its iconic nature, which has been sold in various colors and even with floral patterns. Today it has become a collector’s item.
Three years and six million units sold later, the iMac has been redesigned. Was it possible to improve a design considered revolutionary? Well yes, and you can see it in minute 86 of the opening speech from igamesnews 2002:
The screen becomes flat, so the design had to change as there was no way to fit its components inside the panel. The solution was to place them on a hemispherical base which served as a base, with the flat screen “floating” above thanks to an articulated arm that works wonders. “Best thing we’ve ever done,” Jobs said as he proudly introduced him. “This is the opportunity of the decade to redesign the computer.”
Along with this iMac, Apple released an ad that, to me, is one of the best the company has ever done:
The screen could change its height and angle in any way 180 degrees, and with minimal effort from our fingers. In fact, this freedom of movement and comfort has been inherited in the Pro Stand from the XDR Pro Display, so Apple has been able to take advantage of a design made twenty years ago.
Was there a way to further improve this design? Well yes. It happened at the Apple Expo in Paris in 2004, where Phil Schiller presented the design that we still have today:
The iMac G5 has reduced the computer to its bare minimum: the screen and nothing else. All components fit into its frame, including full-size mechanical hard drives, speakers, and DVD players/writers. It’s so logical and so simplified that from that time the appearance, size and thickness have changed but not the design itself.
Although there were two significant changes: in 2012 the thickness of the iMac was reduced, eliminating the CD drive and leaving the thin sides:
And of course we have the arrival of the iMac M1 and its impossible thinness, so much so that even the headphone socket does not fit from the back and must be plugged into the side of the machine:
Improving this design to make it simpler and minimal seems impossible: the limits that USB ports themselves need to function are already in question. Maybe what changes the design of the is no longer a new generation of computers, otherwise a kind of new product that changes the computer itself. Who knows: maybe a decade from now we’ll all be wearing it in our glasses, and the first step will be the Reality Pro we’ll see at WWDC 2023.
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