20 years of iMac: Discover the trajectory of Apple's most iconic computer

It was on May 6, 1998 that Steve Jobs took to the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to announce a new computer model that would symbolize the return of Apple its roots and pull it out of the bottom of the well where it was.

To recap for the younger ones: after a series of strategic mistakes, the Apple was practically bankrupt. Its hardware was nothing new, Windows 95 was more modern, stable and faster than the Macs and the attempt to create a new OS had failed spectacularly and thrown millions into a bottomless pit.

In a masterstroke, Jobs, the peddler, convinced the company's executives to buy his NeXT and anoint your OS as the salvation of Macintosh. Months later, Jobs, the Machiavellian, convinced the same directors to fire Gil Amelio, the then CEO, and put Steve in his place.

Then began a general cleaning, eliminating products and entire divisions, trying to stop the bleeding that led to Apple to lose millions a year.

But something was missing, a symbol that represented the change in the company's purpose. Among the products canceled by Jobs was a simple laptop based on the PDA (Portable Personal Assistant). Newton, another resounding failure of the Apple pre-Jobs. It had a translucent green plastic housing that Jobs found interesting. Catou the designer Jonathan Ive who was about to leave and together they started to work on the iMac.

Inside, the iMac there was nothing much different from the hardware of the Apple until then. It was basically a G3 laptop, the processor used by Apple  until then (and only for her) with a tube monitor on top. But some concepts that would be the hallmark of the new Apple .

Removing outdated technologies mercilessly

O iMac it killed the floppy disk reader that Macs had until then, bringing only USB ports, novelties at the time, forcing old users to buy new peripherals or use adapters to exchange files. The floppy was not completely abandoned on PCs until ten years later.

Computer as a home appliance

The first Macintosh, from 1984, was a square box that could only be opened with special screwdrivers. O iMac returned to this concept that the user does not need to know what is inside the machine. This is nerdy stuff!

With iMac, started the lineage of products and programs that started with a tiny i that spawned the iBook, iPod, iTunes, iMovie, iPhone and more.

In addition to the incompatibility with peripherals until then, the iMac generated further criticism. The main one is referring to its little ergonomic “ball” mouse. Even so, it was a sales success and the beginning of the resurrection of the Apple that took her from near death to current astronomical success. See below the main incarnations of the company's icon computer.

iMac

Announced at a special event in May and hitting the market in August, the iMac it was a watershed. In color Bondi blue (blue-green referring to a beach in Australia), it had a built-in 15-inch CRT monitor, CD player drive, and a 56k modem. To reinforce the concept of portability, Jonathan Ive placed a simple plastic handle on top, despite its 18kg not being very easy to carry around.

colorful iMac

In total, the original model of the iMac had 13 different colors. The first iMacs with different colors from the original blue appeared in 2000. In addition to the different colors, the iMac it gained faster processors, a more decent mouse, CD and DVD burner, among other improvements. In 2001, the Apple jumped the shark  launching the models Flower Power e blue dalmatian with a design questioned even by the most fanatical macmaniac.

iMac G4

With a new processor and a design that only Apple could bring to the real world, the iMac G4 was the first with LCD flat screen. Attached by a metal arm to a dome-shaped CPU, it won awards around the world and is still on display at MoMA.

iMac G5

In 2004 the Apple had already abandoned its design based on colors, plastics and curves and was moving towards a concept closer to the Bauhaus: minimalist, with straight lines, white, silver and black. O iMac G5 brought the CPU behind the LCD screen, a scheme that continues to this day. The following year, its processor was replaced by an Intel Core Duo chip, in one of the most radical platform changes in computer history.

iMac Aluminum

the same format as iMac previous one, but now in metal. Launched in 2007, its format is the same 11 years later, getting thinner and larger screens with each generation. In 2014, it got a Retina display with 14.7 million pixels.

iMac Pro

O iMac most powerful (and most expensive) of all. Made for professional users of Apple (video editors, designers, photographers etc) he came to cover a hole dug by the Apple with your MacPro in the form of a garbage can. In the impossibility of making an upgrade keeping the same design and with the new models only planned for 2019, Apple gave a boost to its model for normal people. It's the first iMac with an 18-core CPU and a T2 chip, produced by Apple , which controls various machine functions, from audio to encryption.

The future

A Apple it says absolutely nothing about its future products, but one thing can be deduced from its current moves. The chances of a next one are great. iMac moved only with chips from Apple , abandoning Intel processors, in the second major platform change of the line. We may see one of these between the end of this year and 2020.

So, did you enjoy following the history of the iMac? Do you own or have you ever owned one? Tell us in the comments.