Looking back: G3 iMac and today.

[Warped9]

I came across this video completely by chance and it really took me back to 2002 when I bought my first Apple computer, a new G3 iMac in Indigo Blue just like in the video. I found it poignant in regard to the recent release of the new M1 iMac.

I LOVED this computer. At the time I thought it was the coolest thing and made everything else on the market look clunky and drab.

Unlike the video version I had a lot more RAM in mine and I was running OS X (rather than OS 9), but I don’t recall what the last version was. Like in the video I had the newer mouse rather than the hockey puck.

Unfortunately after a few years something happened with my surge protector and the motherboard was fried during an electrical storm. Rather than have it repaired I replaced the G3 with a new eMac which served me well until mid 2011 when I bought my current 21.5 iMac. The eMac was a good machine with a bigger 17in. flatscreen—in every way a better machine than the G3—but I didn’t think it looked as cool or as fun as the G3. I thought the eMac looked like a big white tooth.

I’m sure there were lots of detractors back in the day running down the G3 as not a “serious” computer and it looked like a toy only for the little people, but I wouldn’t have given a damn then as I don’t now. It was my first computer and I was absolutely thrilled with it, and it lived up to my every hope and expectation. It cemented me as an Apple user and I’ve had very few or serious complaints since.

Oh, and look!—light grey bezels. 😁

 

[KaliYoni]

It's interesting how much Apple's design language changed from that era to this year. The original iMacs, the blue and white G3, and Apple peripherals from that time were a refreshing change from the typical beige and boxy hardware of that time. Bright colors! Pinstriped bezels! Curves and soft angles!

Too bad Sir Jony then became obsessed with thinness, rectangles, and a white/black/gray color palette. The Brutalist era of Apple design made everything feel cold and unforgiving.

 

[Warped9]

I think the move to the silver and black colour scheme was to adopt a more serious and high tech look. But in the translation the welcoming warmth and enthusiasm were lost. It was perhaps a way of saying Apple had finally attained genuine respectability as a premium brand.

The new iMac and forthcoming MacBooks look to revive some of that lost enthusiasm. It doesn’t have to be one or the other—fun or serious—but can be both to appeal to different people.

I would say it’s similar to the colour on the exact same model of car. The different colours on the exact same shape can convey completely different character and emotion. A bright Grabber Yellow Mustang GT looks completely different than a Carbonized Grey Mustang GT—the former looks fun and carefree while the latter can seem mysterious and menacing.

A yellow iMac looks fun and bright while a silver iMac looks subdued, unobtrusive and more business like.

 

[za9ra22]

I've been an Apple user since 1986 with a Mac Plus, and had systems though the badly muddled years of various CEOs who eventually almost brought the company down. The G3 iMacs were a breath of fresh air, and became a cornerstone of Apple's recovery, resurgence and growth.

I never had one personally, though the local Apple Centre came to the university where I worked at the time and laid on an exhibition based around them, and they got swarmed for a week!

Two of my favourites from the era were the G4 iMacs which followed the G3 models, but like the eMac, lacked colour, and the Clamshell iBooks, which were the most astonishing example of form over function from Jonny Ive's long design legacy. I'm lucky enough to have a G4 iMac as my writing station at home, and a Clamshell too. Truly great, and highly unconventional products to look at.

These kind of systems helped to bring Apple back to the original design philosophy of the Mac in which Jobs believed that what people needed (not wanted, but needed), was 'the computer as an appliance'. Not a device attended by technologists and cognoscenti, but one which the user took out of the box, plugged in, and just used.

And just when everyone else was taking it all too seriously, and computers were becoming over-complex, unfriendly and sterile things, out came the colours. Friendly appliances that gave us back a semblance of the original 'Happy Mac' and cheerfulness.

Personally, I think that was sheer genius. And the new iMacs reflect back on that, and once again I think they remind us that computers don't have to be taken seriously in order to do serious work.

To me, this shows that Apple have not lost any of the flair for design that brought them back from the brink when the G3 iMacs launched. It's refreshing.

 

[Warped9]

I wish I had taken photos of my G3 at the time. I still have the same split level computer desk I had then.