Category: Apple History

Reactions to the iMac⇢

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Jason Snell, writing at Macworld, about how the Mac community responded to the announcement of the iMac 20 years ago:

From the perspective of 2018, the iMac is history, and history is written by the victors. But in 1998, the iMac was controversial, especially among the sorts of dedicated Mac users who subscribed to Macworld. It ditched the floppy drive that had been on every single Mac to that date, as well as several ports—SCSI, serial, and ADB—that had been on basically every Mac since the Mac SE. Imagine Apple removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, multiplied by four. Literally every Mac accessory ever made was no longer compatible without an adapter.

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iMac: Just in Time⇢

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Horace Dediu, writing at Asymco:

But the iMac is a historically significant machine. It allowed Apple to start on a new trajectory. It did this by first offering a financial lifeline. Sales of Macs, which were at the time the only source of revenues for Apple, increased from 2.7 million to 3.8 million a year. This at a time when Windows PCs were shipping about 100 million units. That was enough to ensure survival. Today Mac units are five times higher while Windows PCs are about 2.5 times higher. The following graph shows the impact of iMac on the Mac’s trajectory.

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More on the iMac Anniversary

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If you haven’t read enough iMac G3 stuff, here are some more articles you should check out or send to your read-it-later service of choice:

The Molar Mac: Form and Function⇢

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This month in my MacStories column, I wrote about what may be the ugliest Mac ever made:

Any nerd in their 20s or 30s probably remembers seeing one those colorful, curvy iMacs in school growing up. Their friendly design and relatively low cost – for a 90s Mac, at least – made them a staple in education for years.

I certainly saw and used my fair share of them in middle and high school, but I also got to experience the iMac G3’s weird older sibling, the Power Macintosh G3 All-in-One.

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Low End Mac Turns 21⇢

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Daniel Knight, writing about the start of Low End Mac:

When I started adding some profiles of Macs to my personal web space in April 1997, who would have thought that it would grow into something enduring? We used Macs at work, I had a Mac at home, and I was teaching myself how to make web pages using Claris Home Page. So I put together two dozen Mac profiles from the 1986 Mac Plus to the 1990 Macintosh IIfx, sharing specifications, links to other resources, and my own experience with these models.

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Future Classics: 24-inch LED Cinema Display

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In my “Future Classics” series, I try to guess what current-era Apple products may become collectable in the future. It’s a weird hobby, I know.

Apple’s line of displays wasn’t always in shambles as it is today. For decades, Apple had a selection of monitors for Mac users to choose from, including my all-time favorite.

In October 2008, Apple started phasing out its 20, 23 and 30-inch aluminum-clad Cinema Displays with the 24-inch LED Cinema Display, shown here with a MacBook Pro:

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