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The iMac is a desktop computer designed and built by Apple Computer. It has been the consumer flagship of Apple's Macintosh range since 1998, and has evolved through three basic forms. It has met with critical acclaim, including praise from technology columnist Walt Mossberg as the "Gold Standard of desktop computing". The iMac has been a huge innovation that, along with the introduction of the iPod, has contributed to the recent dramatic increase in Apple Computer's profits and share price. Some credit the popularity of the USB devices to the iMac, as Windows PCs previously supported legacy ports, which reduced the incentive for third-party manufacturers to produce USB-compliant devices. The machine enjoys a relatively high profile in popular culture due to its distinctive aesthetics and Apple's successful marketing. On 10 January 2006, it became the first Apple Macintosh desktop computer to ship with an Intel processor.
History Steve Jobs streamlined the company's large and confusing product lines immediately after becoming Apple's interim CEO in 1997; towards the end of the year, Apple trimmed its line of desktop Macs down to the beige Power Macintosh G3 series. Having discontinued the consumer-targeted Performa series, Apple needed a replacement for the Performa's price point. The company announced the iMac on 7 May 1998, and started shipping the iMac on 15 August 1998. The launch of the iMac was a landmark event for its time, and had a massive impact on both the company and the computer industry. At the time, Apple was unique in producing all-in-one desktop computers, in which the CPU and the monitor are contained in one enclosure. Many other PC manufacturers have tried to imitate this, most of which have met with little success. Aesthetically, the iMac was dramatically different from any other mainstream computer ever released. It was made of translucent "Bondi blue"-colored plastic, and was egg-shaped around a 15-inch (38 cm) CRT. There was a handle, and the computer interfaces were hidden behind a door that opened on the right-hand side of the machine. Two headphone jacks in the front complemented the built-in stereo speakers. Jonathan Ive, currently Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, is credited with the industrial design. While appealing to neophytes with its distinct appearance, it rang the bells of nostalgia with its streamlined shape, bearing a vague similarity of the ADM-3A dumb terminals. * Legacy Macintosh peripheral connections, such as the ADB, SCSI, and GeoPort serial ports, were eliminated in favor of USB ports; the floppy drive was discarded (the first OEM to do so). Although these were aging technologies, Apple's move was considered ahead of its time and was hotly debated. For example, there was no analogous way to exchange small files with other existing machines, possibly requiring owners to buy an external USB floppy drive (the floppy drive sold well in the first few years of the iMac G3). Creating backup copies of files was slow over the USB 1.1 connection, which operates at 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s). Purists felt that files should be transferred by network file-sharing or via email. The keyboard and mouse were redesigned for the iMac with translucent plastics and a Bondi Blue trim (Apple USB Keyboard and Apple USB Mouse). The keyboard was smaller than Apple's previous keyboards, with white letters on black keys, both features that attracted debate. The mouse was of a round, "hockey puck" design, which was instantly derided as being unnecessarily difficult for users with larger hands. Apple continued shipping the round mouse, adding a divot in later versions so that users could distinguish where the button was. Eventually, a new oblong optical mouse, known as the Apple Pro Mouse, replaced the round mouse across all of Apple's hardware offerings. A redesigned version called the Apple Mouse was produced, with the side grips white and the tension control removed. On 2 August 2005 Apple replaced the one-button Mouse with the Mighty Mouse. On 12 October 2005 Apple began shipping its new Mighty Mouse with its iMac and PowerMac computers. A slightly updated model with Intel processors was released on 10 January 2006. Technical Internally, the iMac was a combination of the MacNC project and CHRP. Although the promise of CHRP has never been fully realized, the work that Apple had done on CHRP significantly helped in the designing of the iMac. The original iMac had a 233 MHz PowerPC G3 (PowerPC 750) chip, with 512 KB L2 cache running at 116.6 MHz, which also ran in Apple's high-end Power Macintosh line at the time, though at higher speeds, with more expensive models shipping with 1 MB L2 cache. It sold for US$1,299, and had a 4 GB hard drive, 32 MB RAM, 2 MB video RAM, and shipped with Mac OS 8.1, which was soon upgraded to Mac OS 8.5. Parts such as the front-mounted IrDA port and the tray-loading CD-ROM drive were borrowed from the Apple laptops. Although the iMac did not officially have an expansion slot, the first versions had a slot dubbed the "mezzanine slot". It was only for internal use by Apple, although a few third-party expansion cards were released for it, including some CPU upgrades from Newer Technology, a Voodoo II video card upgrade from 3dfx, and SCSI/SCSI-TV tuner cards (iProRAID and iProRAID TV) from the German company Formac; this was removed from later iMacs. According to an article in the German computer magazine c't, the socket can be retrofitted on revision C iMacs. Popular culture The announcement of the iMac initially caused considerable buzz among commentators, Mac fans, and detractors in the press and on websites. Opinions were polarized over Apple's drastic changes to the Macintosh hardware. At the time, Apple was revamping its retail strategy to improve the Mac purchasing experience. Apple famously declared that "the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else's." The distinctive aesthetics were easily spotted in public. iMacs were recognizable on television, in films and in print, sometimes via Apple product placement. This increased Apple's brand awareness, and embedded the iMac into popular culture. When released, iMacs were the best selling computers in the U.S. and Japan for months, and Apple was unable to meet demand. Apple declared the "i" in iMac to stand for "Internet". 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 a Hewlett-Packard 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, iLife (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, iWeb), iWork, iSight, and iSync. The prefix has caught on for non-Apple Computer products as well. Apple's use of translucent candy-colored plastics inspired similar designs in other consumer electronics. 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, and iMac G4, all featuring snowy white plastic, inspired similar designs in consumer electronic products. The color rollout also featured two distinctive ads: when the "Life Savers" color scheme was based upon the Rolling Stones song "She's a Rainbow" and the white advert had Cream's "White Room", specifically its introduction, as its backing track. USB Before the iMac was released, Windows-based machines seldom shipped with USB connections and stuck with legacy connections, providing little incentive for third-party hardware manufacturers to create USB peripherals. Therefore, some credit the iMac for the proliferation of USB devices, also allowing current Macintosh users to use a large selection of cheap devices, such as hubs, scanners, storage devices, mice, and cables. A third-party cottage industry sprang up around the iMac. Via the USB port, hardware makers could make products compatible with both PCs and Macs (sometimes Mac driver software was required). Oddly, although USB was invented by Intel and was also available on the PC, many of these USB peripherals were made of translucent colored plastic to match the color schemes of the original iMacs, a trend that continues. After the iMac, Apple continued to remove legacy peripheral connections and floppy drives from the rest of its product line; other computer makers have started to follow suit. 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. The company has continued with 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 unique distinctive identity. Later releases of the Power Macintosh, iPod, PowerBooks and the Mac OS would have the same striking "Apple look". Apple derided the beige colors pervading the PC industry. The company would later use anodized aluminum, and white, black and clear polycarbonate plastics. Legal action Apple protected the iMac design with aggressive legal action against computer makers who made imitations, such as eMachines' eOne. Some manufacturers conspicuously added translucent plastics to existing designs. In 1999, Apple obtained the domain name appleimac.com from Abdul Traya, after legal intervention. Updates The iMac line was continually updated after initial release. Aside from increasing processor speed, video RAM, and hard-disk capacity, Apple replaced Bondi blue with new colors—initially blueberry, strawberry, tangerine, grape, and lime; later other colors, such as graphite, ruby, sage, snow, and indigo, and the "Blue Dalmatian" and "Flower Power" patterns. A later hardware update created a sleeker design. This second-generation iMac featured a slot-loading optical drive, FireWire, "fanless" operation (through free convection cooling), and the option of AirPort wireless networking. Apple continued to sell this line of iMacs until March 2003, mainly to customers who wanted the ability to run the older Mac OS 9 operating system. USB and FireWire support, and support for dial-up, Ethernet, and wireless networking (via 802.11b and Bluetooth) soon became standard across Apple's entire product line. In particular, the high-speed interface, FireWire, corrected the deficiencies of the earlier iMacs. As Apple continued to release new versions of its computers, the term "iMac" continued to be used to refer to machines in its consumer desktop line. Later redesigns of the iMac, however, never matched the first iMac in sales. iMac G4s, iMac G5s and the eMacs
Intel At the Macworld Conference and Expo on 10 January 2006, Steve Jobs announced that the new iMac would be the first Macintosh to use an Intel CPU, the Core Duo. The design, features and price will remain unchanged from the iMac G5. The processor speed, according to tests run by Apple using SPEC, is two to three times faster. In early February 2006, Apple confirmed reports of video display problems on the new Intel-based iMacs. When playing video on Apple's Front Row media browser, some 20-inch iMacs (those built-to-order with upgraded video cards) showed random horizontal lines, ghosting, video tearing and other problems. The problem was fixed with a software update. The current iMac ships with the Mighty Mouse, a distinctive white keyboard, Bluetooth and AirPort cards, an internal iSight camera, the Apple Remote for use with Front Row, and a power cord. A Bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse are available for additional cost. iMac (Tray Loading) (aka iMac G3) iMac (Slot Loading) (aka iMac G3) iMac G4 (iMac Flat Panel) The iMac G4 was one of the biggest improvements and advancements in Apple Computers' growing empire of Mac desktops. The computer was considered completely separate from the previous, half egg shaped G3 models. Some new features included a flat-panel LCD screen, with diagonal measurements up to 20 inches; tray loading DVD+CD drive; and many more features. Critics and consumers took to the new Mac style nicely, but many missed the slot loading drive that were available in earlier models. The "floating" monitor was easily adjustable, and stood at any angle around the dome-shaped bottom. Unlike previous iMac models, the iMac G4 came only in white, and was not at all translucent. iMac G5 iMac Core Duo iMac Core 2 Duo Apple claims these are up to 50% faster than the previous models. Apple also cuts prices on the lowest end iMac from US$1299 to US$999, and makes the Apple Remote optional on the US$999 17-inch model. Options for graphics cards include the same options as the iMac Core Duo, but the low end 17-inch model uses Intel GMA 950, and the new 24-inch model has an nVidia GeForce 7300 GT graphics card with an upgrade option of a 7600 GT. The base RAM for all but the base model is raised from 512 MB to 1 GB, and the maximum allowable RAM for all but the base model is increased to 3 GB. The 24-inch model's 1920 × 1200 resolution supports full 1080p high-definition, lending it the nickname iMac HD. The 17-inch 1.83 GHz iMac, for a retail price of US$999, includes: The 17-inch 2.0 GHz iMac, for a retail price of US$1,199, includes: The 20-inch 2.16 GHz iMac, for a retail price of US$1,499, includes: The 24-inch 2.16 GHz iMac, for a retail price of US$1,999, includes: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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