Aug 16, 2008 02:06
<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_01_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>Apple released its first iMac on Aug. 15, 1998. The cute, translucent blue, all-in-one PC was easily the most influential personal computer of the 1990s, heralding a return to simplicity and ease of use and briefly sparking an industrial design fad around clear, colored plastic. <p>It also marked the return of Steve Jobs as the visionary, design-obsessed leader that Apple desperately needed. Its strong sales reversed Apple's dire mid-1990s financial situation and enabled the company to get back on the road to relevance.<p>Over the years, the iMac's trendsetting arc has continued, with a total of four distinct models and a close family member, some of which shipped in a handful of flavors. <p>Here's a look at the evolution of the iMac: past, present and future.<p><strong>Left: The iMac wasn't Apple's first PC to feature a display and motherboard integrated into the same case; the original 1984 Macintosh top center shared a similar form factor. Apple resurrected its quiet, appliance-like qualities 14 years later.<p>The Power Mac G3 all-in-one lower left was the closest Apple ever came to a beige iMac. Released in early 1998, its specs were similar to the iMac's, but were available only to educational institutions.<p>The haughty design of the 20th Anniversary Macintosh 1997, lower right, foreshadowed later LCD-display iMacs. With a $7,499 price tag $10,277 in today's money and limited-edition status, it stood conceptually opposite the universally accessible iMac.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_02_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>Released in August 1998, the original "Bondi blue" iMac its color reportedly named after the waters off an Australian beach blew beige boxes out of the water. Among its novel technical features, the iMac ditched the then-ubiquitous floppy drive in favor of built-in home networking. It also introduced USB to the masses. But the G3-powered computer's greatest innovation lay in its eye-catching appearance. Apple designer Jonathan Ive took PC industrial design to new heights with the iMac's colorful teardrop case. Amazingly, much of the consumer design world came along for the ride.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_03_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>Bondi blue wasn't good enough. In 1999, Apple introduced five new color schemes for the iMac: blueberry, strawberry, lime, tangerine and grape.<p>The next time you see an appliance with a translucent plastic case, or available in multiple candy colors, you can thank Apple. Everything from vacuum cleaners to paper towel dispensers to George Foreman grills stole a page from the iMac's design playbook. Apple has since moved on to new design motifs, but the early iMac's influence still echoes in the industrial design world.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_04_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>Never content to stand still, Apple continued to cycle through various iMac colors until the end of the G3 line in 2003. Along the way, the iMac gained a few significant external changes. While the original iMac contained a fan, later iMacs were convection-cooled -- making them blessedly silent. Apple also replaced the iMac's tray-loading optical drive with a slot-loading model in 1999.<p>Seen here are two of Apple's most-whimsical designs top, called "flower power" and "blue dalmatian" 2001. Stretched across, below, is a line of new colors released in 2000: indigo, ruby, sage, graphite and snow.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_05_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>After revolutionizing the PC design world with the original iMac, Apple struck again: this time with a PC that bore an uncanny resemblance to a table lamp. The company unveiled the radically novel iMac G4 in 2002. It featured a flat-panel LCD display mounted on an adjustable metal arm, which, in turn, connected to a sturdy base containing the computer's other components. Somehow, the design actually worked, though it was not without controversy. <p>Tiring of the multicolor iMac parade by then widely imitated, Apple chose a clean, frosty white color scheme for this new PC. Through its lifetime, the iMac G4 was available in three different display sizes seen here from left to right: 15-inch, 17-inch and 20-inch.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_06_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>The iMac G4's flat-panel display bumped the computer's price just beyond the reach of the educational market in which Apple traditionally flourished. Apple's solution was to place the iMac G4's guts into an all-in-one PC with a less-expensive CRT monitor. The result was the eMac "e" for "education", a critically acclaimed Mac released in 2002.<p>The eMac shipped in two slightly different cases: The original 2002 design left, and a 2003-on version right with a milky-white appearance and white speaker grilles. Apple sold the eMac until 2006.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_07_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>With the long-awaited iMac G5 2004, Apple turned back the clock to a time before swing-arms and released a monolithic flat-panel PC that mimicked the traditionally white iPod in appearance. It was, by far, Apple's most minimalist computer design to date, and it sold in two display sizes, 17-inch and 20-inch bottom.<p>The iMac G5 later included a built-in iSight camera, although that model was indistinguishable from the one you'll see next.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_08_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>In early 2006, Steve Jobs dropped a bombshell: Apple would be migrating to Intel processors across its entire computer line. The switch was shocking enough without any major exterior design changes, so Apple stuck with what worked: a white enclosure nearly identical to the iMac G5 before it. And unlike the original iMac G5, these models contained built-in iSight cameras above the display.<p>The iMac Core Duo was available in three display sizes bottom: 17-inch, 20-inch and the iMac's largest display yet, a monster 24-inch LCD.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_09_t.jpg'>: Photo: Apple<p>As 2007 rolled around, Mac fans speculated on what sort of wild new iMac design Apple would unveil next. Then Apple raised the curtain on the iPhone in June, which quickly stole the spotlight from any potential iMac upgrades.<p>In August 2007, Apple announced a new iMac design sporting an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a thinner form factor, aluminum and glass construction, and a black and gray color scheme similar to that of the iPhone. It's currently the latest in the iMac line, and it's available only in 20-inch and 24-inch display sizes bottom.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/imac_gallery_10_t.jpg'>: Illustration: Nuno Teixeira<p>What does the future hold for the iMac Frankly, no one knows but Apple. The company's notorious love of secrecy means that it's left to the imaginations of Apple fans to fill in the gaps. And fill the gaps they do -- many with photorealistic computer renderings of Mac concepts; new ones tend to proliferate just before Apple product announcements every year.<p>Seen here is a fanciful design dubbed the iView by its creator, Nuno Teixeira. It imagines an iMac with a large curved display that would envelop the user and eliminate the need for disjointed dual-display setups.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/colors_t.jpg'>: <p>Strawberry, tangerine, grape, lime, Bondi Blue -- no, we're not talking about Lifesavers, but rather the iMac's 1999 lineup of G3 computers. Sporting a 15-inch screen and 333MHz processor, the 40-pound boxes of colorful joy were more popular in school computer labs than people's homes.<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/08/gallery_imac_anniversary/shopping_t.jpg'>: <p>When the iMac adopted the G4 chip in 2002, it ditched its fruity color scheme for a more widely approved silver-and-white aesthetic, looking something like a sexy desk lamp. 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