6 ms·

I loved my G3 iMac. I was in elementary school around the time it came out and my father bought one for each of my sisters who went away to college and one for

by dereg 6y ago

I loved my G3 iMac. I was in elementary school around the time it came out and my father bought one for each of my sisters who went away to college and one for us at home. It was a fixture in our lives. From a user's perspective, the iMac G3 was the first computer that crossed the boundary from utility box to lifestyle machine. The built in speakers were everything. I used to download music via Napster and play that music with my sisters over the land line. Computer speakers may have existed prior to the iMac but never were they highlighted as a core element of the computer's design. I used to spend silly amounts of time in computer stores playing around with computers. I remember the time that the iMac G3 and G3 Tower started to hit the shelves and demo areas. It was a multi-sensory explosion. It's really, really hard to describe the impact that these computers had at the time. Maybe the multi-sensory thing was the reason why the iMac experience is so deeply ingrained in my memory. It managed to touched on all five senses: - Sight - it had bold, colorful design - Touch - soft translucent plastic without a single hard edge - Smell - remember the smell of a new Mac? - Hearing - had great stereo speakers - Taste - Apple was in it's "lickable" phase.. I miss it to this day! I'll spare folks from more of this treacle because I don't want to completely re-write history. The computer wasn't perfect - it was terribly slow and tended to crash whenever my father would yell at me to stop using it.

phist_mcgee 6y ago
Steve Jobs is being channeled through you for this comment ;)
opencl 6y ago
The iMac G3 had plenty of hard edges. You couldn't see them because they were all on the bottom of the carrying handle, aka the side that you actually hold it from.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dereg 6y ago
  Now that you bring it up, I remember the port enclosure to be particularly treacherous.
technothrasher 6y ago
> the iMac G3 was the first computer that crossed the boundary from utility box to lifestyle machine. The Commodore Amiga from 13 years before the iMac G3 has a better claim to the title of the first 'lifestyle machine'.
- spullara 6y ago
  The future was then it just wasn't evenly distributed.
Symbiote 6y ago
Apple fans do love to think Apple is first at everything. My family had a multimedia PC, with prominent integrated speakers, released in 1994. Based on the bundled software, it was promoted as a business + education + leisure computer. At least in my circles, PCs with speakers and a mixture of educational (like MS Encarta) and gaming software were common from 1996 or so. https://www.dreamcast.nu/en/compaq-presario-cds-520/ https://www.dreamcast.nu/en/compaq-presario-cds-520/
- mamcx 6y ago
  > Apple fans do love to think Apple is first at everything. This is what Apple fanboy haters always say, but is really the fact Apple say "I'm the first at everything I do"? ;) -- I think if ever, Apple try to say "I'm the first that do this good", with some arrogance for sure. Is terrible that this arrogance is based on facts. And in this case, I know that kind of compaq (and have at the time a much better clon), and G3 where a league above and beyond, not as much when iPhone get into the scene (where Apple could actually claim a true "First" as "the first real modern smartphone"), but certainly to be a class on its own.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chongli 6y ago
  The iMac wasn’t even the first all in one Mac with multimedia capability. That would’ve been the Performa 5200CD, my first computer, which came out in 1995. That, of course, is an evolution from the Mac Colour Classic which came out in early 1993 and had a built in mono speaker, but no CD-ROM drive. This being an evolution from the B&W compact Macs dating back to the original from 1984.
  - dereg 6y ago
    The impact of the iMac is indisputably greater than all previous attempts at multimedia PCs. The iMac, and then iTunes, was instrumental to the digital music revolution.
elvis70 6y ago
I miss my Blue Dalmatian iMac.
blodkorv 6y ago
i had a waay different view on mac when i was younger and i could really not understand why anyone would like a mac at that age 8-15. It missed games and for me a computer that could not run games was just a typewriter.
grishka 6y ago
> Apple was in it's "lickable" phase.. I miss it to this day! Actually that was the main reason why I stayed on OS X 10.9 for quite a while. I liked the dang glossy buttons and progress bars! Had to update when I later needed then-current Xcode for my job. I don't regret though — by doing this I essentially skipped the buggy mess that 10.10 and 10.11 were. I had stable WiFi and nice UI while everyone around me was complaining.

by dereg 6y ago

phist_mcgee 6y ago

Steve Jobs is being channeled through you for this comment ;)

opencl 6y ago

The iMac G3 had plenty of hard edges. You couldn't see them because they were all on the bottom of the carrying handle, aka the side that you actually hold it from.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dereg 6y ago
Now that you bring it up, I remember the port enclosure to be particularly treacherous.

technothrasher 6y ago

> the iMac G3 was the first computer that crossed the boundary from utility box to lifestyle machine. The Commodore Amiga from 13 years before the iMac G3 has a better claim to the title of the first 'lifestyle machine'.

spullara 6y ago
The future was then it just wasn't evenly distributed.

Symbiote 6y ago

Apple fans do love to think Apple is first at everything. My family had a multimedia PC, with prominent integrated speakers, released in 1994. Based on the bundled software, it was promoted as a business + education + leisure computer. At least in my circles, PCs with speakers and a mixture of educational (like MS Encarta) and gaming software were common from 1996 or so. https://www.dreamcast.nu/en/compaq-presario-cds-520/ https://www.dreamcast.nu/en/compaq-presario-cds-520/

mamcx 6y ago
> Apple fans do love to think Apple is first at everything. This is what Apple fanboy haters always say, but is really the fact Apple say "I'm the first at everything I do"? ;) -- I think if ever, Apple try to say "I'm the first that do this good", with some arrogance for sure. Is terrible that this arrogance is based on facts. And in this case, I know that kind of compaq (and have at the time a much better clon), and G3 where a league above and beyond, not as much when iPhone get into the scene (where Apple could actually claim a true "First" as "the first real modern smartphone"), but certainly to be a class on its own.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chongli 6y ago
The iMac wasn’t even the first all in one Mac with multimedia capability. That would’ve been the Performa 5200CD, my first computer, which came out in 1995. That, of course, is an evolution from the Mac Colour Classic which came out in early 1993 and had a built in mono speaker, but no CD-ROM drive. This being an evolution from the B&W compact Macs dating back to the original from 1984.
- dereg 6y ago
  The impact of the iMac is indisputably greater than all previous attempts at multimedia PCs. The iMac, and then iTunes, was instrumental to the digital music revolution.

elvis70 6y ago

I miss my Blue Dalmatian iMac.

blodkorv 6y ago

i had a waay different view on mac when i was younger and i could really not understand why anyone would like a mac at that age 8-15. It missed games and for me a computer that could not run games was just a typewriter.

grishka 6y ago

> Apple was in it's "lickable" phase.. I miss it to this day! Actually that was the main reason why I stayed on OS X 10.9 for quite a while. I liked the dang glossy buttons and progress bars! Had to update when I later needed then-current Xcode for my job. I don't regret though — by doing this I essentially skipped the buggy mess that 10.10 and 10.11 were. I had stable WiFi and nice UI while everyone around me was complaining.