The iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through four distinct forms. In its original form, the iMac G3, the iMac was gum drop- or egg-shaped with a CRT monitor, mainly enclosed by colored, translucent plastic. The second major revision, the iMac G4, moved to a design of a hemispherical base containing all the main components and an LCD monitor on a freely moving arm attached to the top of the base. The iMac G5 and the Intel iMac placed all the components immediately behind the display, creating a chunky unified design that tilts only up and down on a simple metal base. The current iMac shares the same form as the previous models, but is now thinner and uses anodized aluminum and black-bordered glass for its case.
The iMac has received considerable critical acclaim, including praise from technology columnist Walt Mossberg as the “Gold Standard of desktop computing"; Forbes Magazine described the original candy-colored line of iMac computers as being an “industry-altering success”. The first 24" Core 2 Duo iMac received CNET's “Must-have desktop” in their 2006 Top 10 Holiday Gift Picks .
On March 3, 2009, Apple updated its offerings for the iMac, featuring new nVidia chipsets, the new Mini-DisplayPort and a new standard keyboard featuring no numeric pad that has become standard in all new Apple computers.
On October 20, 2009, Apple updated the iMac, adding two new LED-backlit 16:9 widescreen screen sizes in 21.5" and 27" models, replacing the 20" and 24" 16:10 aspect ratio screens of the previous generation. In addition to memory and hard drive capacity increases, this release brought speed bumps to the Core 2 Duo technology and added Intel's new Core i5 and Core i7 chips in the high end model, signifying the first quad-core iMac.
History
The announcement of the iMac was a source of discussion and anticipation among commentators, Mac fans, and detractors. Opinions were divided over Apple’s drastic changes to the Macintosh hardware. At the time, Apple was trying to improve its retail strategy. Apple declared that "the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else’s".
Apple declared the 'i' in iMac to stand for "Internet"; it also represented the product's focus as a personal device ('i' for "individual").Attention was given to the out-of-box experience: the user needed to go through only two steps to set up and connect to the Internet. "There's no step 3!" was the catch-phrase in a popular iMac commercial narrated by actor Jeff Goldblum. Another 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, whereas Adam was still working on it by the end of the commercial. Apple later adopted the ‘i’ prefix across its consumer hardware and software lines, such as the iPod, iBook, iPhone and various pieces of software such as the iLife suite and iWork.
Influence
Design
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 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 derided the beige colors then pervading the PC industry. The company would later drift from the multicolored designs of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The later part of the first decade of the 21st century saw Apple using anodized aluminum and white, black, and clear polycarbonate plastics. 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.
Apple’s use of translucent candy-colored plastics inspired similar designs in other consumer devices. For example, grilling machines, portable electronics, pencil sharpeners, video game consoles and peripherals (including the Nintendo 64, which was released in special edition ‘Funtastic’ colors) featured the translucent plastic. Apple’s introduction of the iPod, iBook G3 (Dual USB), and iMac G4, all featuring snowy white plastic, inspired similar designs in consumer electronic 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.
USB
The original iMac was the first Macintosh computer to include a USB port. In fact, USB was the only peripheral interface built into the original iMac; Apple dropped previous ports such as the Apple Desktop Bus and SCSI in favor of the newer interface. The iMac's popularity and sole dependence on USB helped to popularize the interface among the peripheral industry, as evidenced by the many early USB peripherals that were made of translucent colored plastic to match the color schemes of the original iMac.
Via the USB port, hardware makers could make products compatible with both 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 interfaces. 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 purchase a large selection of inexpensive devices, such as hubs, scanners, storage devices, USB flash drives, and mice. This came at a price, however. As USB was far slower than a number of ports available at the time such as SCSI, unmodified iMacs and iBooks were badly crippled until adequate replacements such as FireWire and USB 2 became standard.
After the iMac, Apple continued to remove older peripheral interfaces and floppy drives from the rest of its product line.
iMac models
2009 redesign
In October of 2009, Apple released a refresh of the iMac line. An LED-backlit 16:9 widescreen was introduced in 21.5" and 27" models, replacing the 20" and 24" 16:10 aspect ratio screens of the previous generation. The 27" models also have a digital video input port to allow the system to serve as a display for other systems or devices. Video card options entirely switched to ATI, save for the standard onboard nVidia card in the base model. The iMac's processor selection saw a significant increase. Existing Core 2 Duo technology offered speed bumps in the lower models, and Intel's new Core i5 and Core i7 chips are now available in the high end model, signifying the first quad-core iMac. Default RAM has also been increased across the iMac range. With the advent of larger screens, Apple doubled the number of memory slots from two to four. Consequently, the maximum memory capacity was also doubled (to 16GB).
Timeline of iMac models
See also: Timeline of Macintosh models and Timeline of Apple productsSee also: Power Macintosh G3 and Template:Timeline of Old World ROM Power Macintosh models
Criticism
According to a review by Walt Mossberg, the 2008 iMac shipped with less RAM than industry standard and had no slots for camera memory cards as the only drawbacks. There is a current major criticism for the August 7, 2007 batch of iMacs pertaining specifically to the 20 inch model. Apple is currently being sued for having allegedly deceived the public by promising millions of colors from the LCD screens of all Mac models. The 20 inch models, however, currently only display 262,144; temporal dithering was used in an attempt to make up for the discrepancy. This issue was originally noticed on Apple's line of MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks. This issue arose due to the use of 6-bit per pixel Twisted nematic LCD screens, instead of higher quality technologies, and had been becoming a common malpractice across the industry even before Apple customers objected to it. There also has been some criticism of the 20" Aluminum iMacs for having lesser viewing angles than the 24" Aluminums. This is due to lower quality displays being used in the 20" models than in the 24"s. Apple has not commented on the issue.
While not a criticism of the iMac per se , the iMac's integrated desig
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