On August 15, 1998, personal computers stopped being beige. It was a Saturday and the iMac G3 arrived in stores in the United States. Once again Apple was changing everything, not just the color actually.
Steve Jobs had introduced it a few months earlier, on May 6. He had recently returned to the helm of the company of which he was co-founder and from which he had been ousted for a long time. And that product was to mark the relaunch. Announcing it, Jobs said the iMac G3 was born “from a combination of the excitement of the Internet and the simplicity of the Macintosh“. In short, it was the first personal computer designed to make it easier to use the main number that users made of a PC: surfing the Net (the “i” in front of Mac meant “Internet”, and we will find it later also in the iPod , iPhone and iPad).
youtube: Steve Jobs introduces the new iMac
We remember it for the color (and in fact the launch campaign played with lo slogan “Sorry, no beige”, that is “Sorry, it’s not beige”) and for the design, which for the first time included a translucent plastic and soft curves compared to the box shape of the predecessors (the result of the work of the young Jonathan Ive, who later signed many successes Apple). But in reality in that iMac there were also many technological choices that will later become a standard: for example there was no door to put the floppy discs in that had marked the entire first season of computers and there were a couple of USB ports for connecting peripherals such as printers. It cost around $ 1300, and with various upgrades it was on the market until 2003.
For a while it was the best-selling personal computer in the United States. After all, at the launch, with his unmistakable messianic communication style, Steve Jobs said: “I am happy to inform you that the Apple is back“.
.