Over the past two decades, it truly seemed that Apple had a way of seeing into the future. From the iPod that helped popularize legal digital music and the iPhone that ushered in the smartphone era, to laptops like the MacBook Air that anticipated the move to sleeker technology, Apple is always at the forefront. Judging by its heavyweight status, one would assume the company was still killing it. Yet by 1997, she was in dire straits.
It was so bad that Apple was eerily close to repeating the steps that put the final nail in Commodore Computers’ coffin: its product line was confusing, and the company had nothing up its sleeve to challenge Microsoft’s total domination of the personal computer market. Apple’s annual losses? North of a billion dollars. In a last-ditch effort to save the ship, Steve Jobs went back to the drawing board. With the help of designer Jony Ive, Apple shook up the conventions of home computing and built the innovative iMac in 1998: a fully self-contained computer where the screen and other components were housed in a single colorful case.
Crazy idea, but it worked. While the rest of the market followed a modular design convention in a dull beige look, the iMac was designed as a device with a translucent, plastic, colorful body. Apple broke so many rules that the iMac didn’t even include a floppy drive, but instead decided to use USB as the standard, even though the USB device landscape was barren at the time. But the winning move? Marketed the iMac as a device for the Internet (the iconic “i” remained) by also including the modem in the box, and the rest is history.
Apple’s iMac bet paid off
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The popularity was such that even USB device manufacturers quickly ramped up production after the iMac was announced. No zip drive? No problem. The iMac came with a CD-ROM tray. In addition to its unique design, its simple setup (you can connect to the Internet simply by plugging it into the phone line) has proven to be a huge selling point for many.
In two years and eight months, five million of these machines were sold. Do a little math and Apple practically sold 5,000 iMacs per day. Considering the price was $1,224, Apple reversed its downward trend in just a few years and eventually ended up making money. In 1999 alone, its total revenue was $1.71 billion.
Today you can feel the echoes of the iMac in many areas. Plug in a USB key? It’s Apple and its translucent box to thank. One could argue that Apple is where it is today thanks to this release. The iMac’s “i” became so recognizable that the company put it on several of its future products. For many, a standalone computer is the most logical solution. The latest version of the iMac now comes with an M4 processor (the family that helped popularize the ARM architecture in desktop computers), and although Apple has never released official sales figures, the new iMac has received plenty of praise.
Is the original iMac a collectible?
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Old gadgets are coming back into fashion. There are many rare vintage technology products that are now expensive collectibles. Apple products tend to match here, too, and they go beyond the Apple Computer I from the ’70s. People are selling the original Apple iPod for over $2,000, and factory-sealed parts can cost even more. Although its laptops aren’t highly valued in the collector’s market (you can buy the original MacBook from 2006 for around $100), the original iMac from 1998 is so strong that the resale value sometimes matches its introductory price.
A working iMac in Bondi Blue tends to sell for almost $600 on average. Have a functional matching set in one of the flashiest colors like Strawberry? One of them is selling on eBay for almost $2,000. Considering this was a mass-produced item (five million items sold isn’t exactly rare), it’s quite impressive and speaks to the true revolution of the computer.
The butterfly effect is a fun thought experiment. What would the tech space look like today if Apple never released the iMac? Would smartphones look the same as they do today if the iPhone had never existed? Would laptops be as sleek and thin as they are today if the MacBook Air never came out of this box? Regardless, if you like modern technology, much of it exists in its current form because Apple decided to break all the rules at once in the 1990s.
