24 Years Ago, the First iMac Went on Sale: Relive Steve Jobs' Iconic Presentation

[SoldOnApple]

This is because Steve was a geek who was truly excited by the products his company sold. I'm not saying modern Macs aren't good but Tim is not a geek. That's why he brings in product specialists to talk you through products that Steve did entirely on his own for the most part. You can almost hear Tim say "And here's Craig to talk you through our new MacOS (because frankly I haven't got a ----ing clue)"

That's probably true, but I think Tim probably knows logistically what "Apple" the company actually was better than Jobs did. A more important question is will his successor know enough about what Apple really is if the successor didn't know and spent a lot of time around Jobs, to get Jobs' wholesale approval. How long until we get a CEO that had never even met Jobs.

But anyway, by making all these other Apple employees get the spotlight in keynotes and be able to explain the new products themselves, Apple is kind of making them very hireable to competing companies. It's getting their name and face out there anyway, which means Apple has to pay them more to keep them loyal to Apple. So it's nice to not have it all be about Steve Jobs all the time, it's nice to let Apple's department managers speak for themselves for a change too when they are actually the ones been spending years focusing on that one product or feature.

 

[ticzon]

This was the time period that I decided that the money I was going to use to buy the new iMac, I was going to put that money into the Apple stock and continue to use my Quadra 630 for a little longer. My family said I was crazy to invest in Apple stock. Today, I still hold these original shares and they are worth a few million. The following year, I purchased a B/W G3, which is still in use (running 24/7) serving a Filemaker database.

 

[Nitrokevin]

iMac Special Edition was my first ever computer, I adored it - great memories

 

[ronjon10]

We can be real, that was a not a good machine, or at perhaps it was a a good machine that didn't have enough of a market to warrant good software development. The switch to Intel brought the Mac to the masses. Ironically, the current switch away from Intel is keeping us all hooked.

 

[k1121j]

Still have mine and it still works

 

[tubular]

Preordered mine and took it home the day it was released.

 

[tubular]

was not that functional in a situation that required a computer to efficiently get work done.

It was a consumer unit by design.

 

[ArrayDecay]

I sure miss the hockey puck mouse. /s

 

[cvam1985]

Genuine smile from a guy who created computers , and a completely fake smile from a guy who bought up all the factories in China to produce the other guy’s creation.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

The iMac G3 ads were the pinnacle of ads.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

I sure miss the hockey puck mouse. /s

Your hand replacement is ready sir.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

My very first Mac was in 2002 when I purchased a snow iMac. It came with Classic 9 and the very first version of OS X. I also remember seeing the eMacines copy the exact same design which got them a lawsuit and they subsequently pulled the product from retail stores.

 

[Cameront9]

Picked up a Strawberry tray loader a few years ago and hopped on ebay to get the matching (terrible) mouse and keyboard. I love the design of the G3!

 

[trigf]

"...the first true consumer desktop from the company."

So the LC and Perfoma lines that were specifically marketed towards consumers and sold in consumer stores don't exist in your memory?

 

[cult hero]

This, to me, is right before Macs got cool. OS X was what brought me in. I’d been running Linux on PCs and then I got to mess with a close friend’s 14” iBook.

I went from “Macs suck” to “I must have this!” Got a G4 Mac Mini as a sorta test run and haven’t looked back since.

I love that Jobs is positive on the mouse in this presentation. Reality distortion field at its finest, lol.

 

[Thebrochure]

Back when Apple was the outlaw, outlier company gunning to take down the man. Now Apple is the man, and the only thing they're gunning for is more quarter-growth.

 

[AppleFan1998]

These iMacs were in my high school! It was the first time I was introduced to the Mac, loved it since.

 

[flottenheimer]

Miss you, Steve.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

By the time they released the iMac, the OS for Macs and the chip sets were so dated that it wasn't worth the money for those of us who had to use computers as a work tool. I had long since been forced to switch to WinTel garbage. That iMac was typical Jobs iCandy. It looked cool to some people, though not to me, but was not that functional in a situation that required a computer to efficiently get work done. Just more form over function designed for the casual user who wanted to be entertained...

Truth. I also remember when they came out. Looked super cool, but were very expensive for the specs and performance.

Oh, and those single-button, tiny, round mice with the horrible ergonomics, making them difficult to hold and use, blerk, they were the absolute worst. And Apple persisted with the single button for years after, it made Macs almost unusable in my eyes. To do a right-click required holding down a key on the keyboard and then pressing the mouse button, wtaf!

We had some at my uni, and I had a go at using them a few times, but went back to using the PC's.

I'd used a Macintosh Plus back in the late 80's and liked them, but didn't get into using Macs again until the Unibody MacBook Pro came out with the multitouch track pad that dispensed with the stupid single button and allowed two-finger right-click. Probably the greatest pre-M1 Macs ever made. The Retina MBP's were also great, and better in ways, but had non-upgradeable RAM, the start of the great RAM/SSD Apple Tax Rip-Off Scam. The Retina MBPs also came out with the extremely expensive, under sized, mandatory SSDs rather than spinning disk HDs, but at least the SSDs were still upgradeable. I bought a 2015 a few years later, once SSDs were vaguely affordable at decent sizes (and upgraded it a couple of years after that), and it was, and still is, a great machine.

Ah, the iMac, certainly iconic. But as with many Apple products, flawed genius.

 

[JustAnExpat]

It should’ve debuted with a flat panel LCD but the price point would’ve been too high, they finally debuted the LCD with the gooseneck iMac.

The Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh was released one year prior to the iMac in 1997, and sold until 1998. It came with a 12" LCD display. It also came with a $7,500 USD price tag in 1997 dollars :O The first reasonable priced iMac with an LCD display wasn't released until 2002, or four years later.

Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[_Spinn_]

This brings back memories. I remember when my school replaced all their old Macintosh rigs with Bondi Blue iMacs. They were the coolest things ever. They are still the first thing I think of when I think of Apple and iMacs.

Sadly I never owned one myself.

 

[Funny Apple Man]

That would be pretty neat if the iPhone 14 colors will follow the same iMac colors. I guess that's one way to boost the regular 14 sales cause people will buying all of the colors.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I wish we had the technology to upload brains before Jobs died, so he could still lead Apple and present new products. Well a virtual copy of him could anyway.

Until he becomes our god emperor to rule over us the next 40k years.

 

[svish]

Happy to see the current iMac being offered in very bright and wonderful colours.

 

[incoherent_1]

Or alternatively the corrugated plastic design and the colours make for a garish children’s toy type product. I’ve never liked the iMac prior to its G5 incarnation and even that is marred by the enormous “jimmy hill” style chin.

LOL. I can always count on MacRumors users to take a positive thread and turn it into unfiltered toxicity. You must be just a joy to hang out with at parties! 🤣