| iMac | |
| Developer: | Apple Inc. |
| Family: | Macintosh |
| Os: | macOS (see for previous) |
| Related: | Mac Mini, Mac Pro |
| Releasedate: | (G3) |
The iMac is a series of all-in-one computers from Apple Inc. operating on the MacOS. Introduced by Steve Jobs in August 1998 when the company was financially troubled, the computer was an inexpensive, consumer-oriented computer that would easily connect to the Internet. Since that time, it has remained a primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings and evolved through seven distinct forms.
The design of the iMac has been seen as both controversial and trendsetting. From its introduction, the computer has eschewed many entrenched legacy technologies, notably becoming an early adopter of the USB port, and removing floppy disk and later optical disc drives.
In its original form, the iMac G3 had a gumdrop or egg-shaped look, with a CRT monitor, mainly enclosed by a colored, translucent plastic case. The second major revision, the iMac G4, moved a design with a hemispherical base containing all the main components and an LCD monitor on a freely moving arm attached to it. The third and fourth revisions, the iMac G5 and the Intel iMac, placed all the components immediately behind the display in a plastic casing, creating a slim unified design that tilts only up and down on a simple metal base. The fifth, sixth and seventh revisions swapped the plastic enclosure for metal and became progressively thinner over each revision.
The most recent revision, the Apple Silicon iMac, uses Apple's own processors (silicon) and is 11.5mm thick. Between 2017 and 2021, Apple also sold a workstation-class version of the computer called the iMac Pro.
Apple was facing bankruptcy in the mid-1990s, with its market share cannibalized by Windows-based PCs and Macintosh clones. The company had tried and failed to ship a modern operating system for its hardware. Looking instead for an outside product to acquire, Apple announced its purchase of NexT, Inc. in 1996. Alongside Next's products and software came Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder who had been ousted from the company years earlier. Jobs initially was brought on at Apple as an adviser, but Jobs replaced Gil Amelio as interim CEO in 1997 and began a reorganization of the company. He reduced Apple's multitude of confusing computer options to just four: one laptop and one desktop model for consumers, and another laptop and desktop model for professionals. What became the iMac began as Apple's effort to develop the consumer desktop to fill that product gap.
Apple's head of design Jony Ive and the rest of the design team developed sketches for a distinctive, all-in-one computer that was to be a legacy-free PC focused on ease of use and internet connectivity. The design team made the new computer colorful and translucent, built around a cathode-ray tube display wrapped in a curved plastic case. Ad agency director Ken Segall suggested the "iMac" name: it was short, had "Mac" in it, and the "i" prefix suggested the internet. Jobs initially hated it, but the name ultimately stuck.[1] Apple later adopted the 'i' prefix across its consumer hardware and software lines, such as iPod, iBook (later MacBook), iPhone, iPad and various pieces of software such as the iLife, iCloud suite and iWork and the company's media player/store, iTunes.
Despite mixed reviews from the tech press, the iMac was a major commercial success right when Apple desperately needed a hit product.[2] The iMac ultimately sold more than six million units, being revised multiple times and appearing in 13 different colors and patterns. The iMac was "designed to make it easy for home users to connect to the Internet."[3] A commercial, dubbed "Simplicity Shootout", pitted seven-year-old Johann Thomas and his border collie Brodie, with an iMac, against Adam Taggart, a Stanford University MBA student, with an HP Pavilion 8250, in a race to set up their computers. Johann and Brodie finished in 8 minutes and 15 seconds,[4] whereas Adam was still working on it by the end of the commercial.
As the prices of flat-screen liquid crystal displays (LCDs) began to fall, Apple conceived of an update to the iMac. Inspired by a sunflower, the iMac G4 put the computer in a semi-hemispherical base, with the display sitting above it on a stainless steel arm. The arm allowed the display to be easily tilted, rotated, and raised and lowered by a touch. The exuberant colors of the old iMac was replaced by stark white.
Ever-increasing screen sizes led Apple to make the iMac G5 a more conservative design, with the components of the computer attached to the back of the display and raised above the resting surface with an aluminum foot.
By 2005, it had become more and more apparent that IBM's development for the desktop implementation of PowerPC was grinding to a halt. Apple announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference that it would be switching the Macintosh to the x86 architecture and Intel's line of Core processors. The first Intel-equipped Macs were unveiled on January 10, 2006: the MacBook Pro and a new iMac, which outwardly looked identical to the iMac G5. Within nine months, Apple had smoothly transitioned the entire Macintosh line to Intel. The Intel-based iMac was redesigned in 2007 with an aluminum enclosure, which was gradually refined and slimmed down in the following years. In 2014, the iMac added high-resolution "retina" 4K and 5K displays, and a more powerful, professional-oriented model, the iMac Pro, was introduced in 2017.
Apple announced a shift from Intel processors to their own Apple Silicon in June 2020. Apple announced redesigned iMacs with a 24-inch display and Apple M1 chip in April 2021. These new models harkened back to the colorful iMac G3s, coming in seven colors. The iMacs were updated in 2023 to use the Apple M3 chip.[5]
The original iMac was the first legacy-free PC.[6] It was the first Macintosh computer to have a USB port but no floppy disk drive. Subsequently, all Macs have included USB. Via the USB port, hardware makers could make products compatible with both x86 PCs and Macs. Previously, Macintosh users had to seek out certain hardware, such as keyboards and mice specifically tailored for the "old world" Mac's unique ADB interface and printers and modems with MiniDIN-8 serial ports. Only a limited number of models from certain manufacturers were made with these interfaces and often came at a premium price. USB, being cross-platform, has allowed Macintosh users to select from a large selection of devices marketed for the Wintel PC platform, such as hubs, scanners, storage devices, USB flash drives, and mice. After the iMac, Apple continued to remove older peripheral interfaces and floppy drives from the rest of its product line.
Borrowing from the 1997 Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, the various LCD-based iMac designs continued the all-in-one concept first envisioned in Apple's original Macintosh computer. The successful iMac allowed Apple to continue targeting the Power Macintosh line at the high-end of the market. This foreshadowed a similar strategy in the notebook market when the iMac-like iBook was released in 1999. Since then, the company has continued this strategy of differentiating the consumer versus professional product lines. Apple's focus on design has allowed each of its subsequent products to create a distinctive identity. Apple avoided using the beige colors that were then common in the PC industry. The company would later drift from the multicolored designs of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The latter part of the decade saw Apple using anodized aluminum; glass; and white, black, and clear polycarbonate plastics among their build materials. Today many PCs are more design-conscious than before the iMac's introduction, with multi-shaded design schemes being common, and some desktops and laptops available in colorful, decorative patterns.[7]
Apple's use of translucent, candy-colored plastics inspired similar industrial designs in other consumer products.[8] Apple's later introduction of the iPod, iBook G3 (Dual USB), and iMac G4 (all featuring snowy-white plastic), inspired similar designs in other companies' consumer electronics products. The color rollout also featured two distinctive ads: one called 'Life Savers' featured the Rolling Stones song, "She's a Rainbow" and an advertisement for the white version had the introduction of Cream's "White Room" as its backing track.
iMac has received considerable critical acclaim, including praise from technology columnist Walt Mossberg as the "Gold Standard of desktop computing";[9] Forbes magazine described the original candy-colored line of iMac computers as being an "industry-altering success".[10] The first 24" Core 2 Duo iMac received CNET's "Must-have desktop" in their 2006 Top 10 Holiday Gift Picks.[11]
Apple faced a class-action lawsuit filed in 2008 for allegedly deceiving the public by promising millions of colors from the LCD screens of all Mac models while its 20-inch model only held 262,144 colors.[12] This issue arose due to the use of 6-bit per pixel Twisted nematic LCD screens. The case was dismissed on January 21, 2009.[13]
While not a criticism of iMac per se, the integrated design has some inherent tradeoffs that have garnered criticism. In The Mythical Midrange Mac Minitower, Dan Frakes of Macworld suggests that with the iMac occupying the midrange of Apple's product line, Apple has little to offer consumers who want some ability to expand or upgrade their computers, but do not need (or cannot afford) the Mac Pro.[14] For example, iMac's integration of monitor and computer, while convenient, commits the owner to replace both at the same time. For a time before the Mac mini's introduction, there were rumors of a "headless iMac"[15] but the G4 Mac mini as introduced had lower performance compared to the iMac, which at the time featured a G5 processor.[16] Some third party suppliers such as Other World Computing provide upgrade kits that include specialized tools for working on iMacs.
Similarly, though the graphics chipset in some Intel models is on a removable MXM, neither Apple nor third parties have offered retail iMac GPU upgrades, with the exception of those for the original iMac G3's "mezzanine" PCI slot. Models after iMac G5 (excluding the August 7, 2007, iMac update) made it difficult for the end-user to replace the hard disk or optical drive, and Apple's warranty explicitly forbids upgrading the socketed CPU. While conceding the possibility of a mini-tower cannibalizing sales from the Mac Pro, Frakes argues there is enough frustration with iMac's limitations to make such a proposition worthwhile. This disparity has become more pronounced after the G4 era since the bottom-end Power Mac G5 (with one brief exception) and Mac Pro models have all been priced in the US$1999–2499$ range, while base model Power Macs G4s and earlier were US$1299–1799. The current generation iMac has Intel 5th generation i5 and i7 processors, ranging from quad-core 2.7 GHz i5 to a quad-core 3.4 GHz i7 processor,[17] however it is possible to upgrade the 2010 edition of the iMac quite easily.[18]
| Generation | Form factor | Display | Processor | Included HDD | Included Mac OS version[19] | Released | Discontinued | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iMac G3 | 15″ CRT | PowerPC G3 | 4 GB to 60 GB[20] | 8.1, 8.5, 8.6, 9.0, 9.1, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2 | August 15, 1998 | March 2003 | ||
| iMac G4 | 15″, 17″, or 20″ LCD | PowerPC G4 | 40 GB to 160 GB | 9.2, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 | January 2002 | July 2004 | ||
| iMac G5 | 17″ or 20″ LCD | PowerPC G5 | 40 GB to 500 GB | 10.3, 10.4 | August 2004 | March 2006 | ||
| Polycarbonate Intel iMac | 17″, 20″, or 24″ LCD | Intel Core Duo/Core 2 Duo | 80 GB to 750 GB | 10.4 | January 2006 | August 2007 | ||
| Aluminum iMac | 20″ or 24″ LCD | Intel Core 2 Duo | 250 GB to 1 TB | 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 | August 2007 | August 2011 | ||
| Unibody iMac | 21.5" or 27" LCD | Intel Core 2 Duo/i3/i5/i7 | 256 GB to 2 TB | 10.6, 10.7, 10.8 | October 2009 | March 2013 | ||
| Slim Unibody iMac | Intel Core i3/i5/i7 | 256 GB to 3 TB | 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, 10.15, 11 | November 2012 | October 2021 | |||
| Retina iMac | Intel Core i3/i5/i7/i9 | 256 GB to 3 TB | 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, 10.15, 11, 12 | October 2014 | March 2022 | |||
| iMac (Apple silicon) | 24" LCD | Apple M series | 256 GB to 2 TB | 11, 12, 13, 14 | April 2021 |
macOS Sonoma, the current release of macOS, will work with Wi-Fi and graphics acceleration on unsupported iMac computers with a compatible patch utility.[21]