In April 2016, I acquired every color of iMac G3. All 13: Bondi, Blueberry, Lime, Tangerine, Strawberry, Grape, Graphite, Sage, Ruby, Indigo, Snow, Blue Dalmatian and Flower Power. My family and UPS delivery guy were all very forgiving.
The iMac G3 is a fascinating computer. It was the tool Steve Jobs used to help bring Apple back from the brink. It defined a generation of consumer electronics.
Here’s a complete list of what I’ve done with these machines:
General Information
All 13 colors of iMac G3 → A short movie of me documenting my collection:
Photos from the shoot can be downloaded here. Additional images can be found in this post. iMac G3 TV ads → Apple loves a good TV ad, and the iMac G3 got a whole slew of them during its lifetime.
The iMac G3 Clones → Two companies built all-in-one PCs so close to the iMac’s design that Apple sued.
History of the iMac G3
iMac G3 Family Tree → An explainer video walking through the six generations of CRT-based iMacs:
(…and a blog post from a long time ago outlining the various generations of iMac)
April 1998: The Bondi Blue iMac → A breakdown of the original iMac keynote. Don’t miss the product video. January 1999: The Five Flavors → A look at the second major generation of iMac G3, introduced in five fun colors.
October 1999: iMac, iMac DV, iMac DV Special Edition → In the fall of 1999, Apple split the line into good/better/best models and introduced iMovie for the first time.
July 2000: The Splintering of the iMac G3 line → Apple went from three to four iMac G3 models, and everyone’s head exploded.
February 2001: The iMac G3 goes psychedelic → Enter Blue Dalmatian and Flower Power.
Summer 2001: The Final iMac G3s → The end of the line for an amazing family of computers.
Podcast Episodes
Simple Beep #39: The iMac G3 → On this episode of the Simple Beep podcast, Ed, Brian, and I get real deep into the detailed history of the various revisions Apple made to the iMac. Think of it as an extended version of that YouTube video above.
Upgrade #91: iMac Special → On this special episode of Upgrade, I join Jason Snell and Myke Hurley to discuss the original iMac, and the world of tech in 1998.
The iMacs’ Final Home
After shuffling these machines around for months, I made the decision to donate all 13 iMacs to The Henry Ford Museum.
I visited them in the summer of 2018:
All iMac G3 images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.