How Steve Jobs saved Apple with the iMac 26 years ago

Posted:
in General Discussion edited March 27

On May 6, 1998, Steve Jobs announced the iMac, and we wouldn't now have the iPhone, the Apple Store, or even Apple itself, if it hadn't been such a success.

The original iMac in 1998
The original iMac in 1998



If there's ever any doubt that the iMac is a phenomenal success, just try to think of any other computer -- any other device -- that is still being sold a quarter of a century after it was launched. The iMac of 2023 may be vastly different to the original one announced in 1998, but it's not just that it has kept the name.

Today's iMac is this slim, sleek design and 1998's was fat and bulbous, but they are recognizably the same at heart. The iMac has always been an all-in-one computer, where a single unit houses the display and the actual computer part.

All in One



In the 1990s, existing computer users and the trade press all saw that this meant owners couldn't mix and match different screens or other peripherals. They saw that you got what you got, and if you wanted something else, that was your problem.

"But the iMac (pronounced EYE-Mac -- the ''i'' stands for Internet) also departs from computer industry standards in other ways, and customers will have to decide whether different means better," wrote the New York Times in 1998. "The drawback of such a design is that people are locked into using the iMac's 15-inch screen... [but] the iMac screen is one of the best 15-inch displays available."

"A few customers may be able to work effectively without some way to transport data physically, by backing up files to a network server or to the Internet," continued the publication, "but most of the consumers Apple is trying to appeal to live in a world where floppy disks are important."





"After ignoring the home market for a couple of years, the Mac is back with a vengeance," wrote the Los Angeles Times in May 1998. "The iMac boasts ample power, great features, competitive pricing and a radically new look -- curvy, translucent, blue and white."

"To my eye, it's far from beautiful, but what matters is this: The iMac is so different from the norm that people will pay attention," continued the paper. "And if Apple needs anything these days, it's attention as an innovator."

The Los Angeles Times generally praised the iMac, but still added "my guess is that Apple is wrong about home users -- most will still want a floppy (or zip drive) and will have to buy an add-on."

What Apple saw that we now know the entire rest of the computer industry missed was that all of this was exactly the point. Just as he had with the Macintosh in the 1980s, Steve Jobs wanted the iMac to be an appliance -- a single device you used rather than customized.

In the 1990s, he got what he wanted and it worked in every possible way. From the iMac onwards, Apple focused on consumers, and it's like it's the only firm that didn't see that as a bad thing.

"We have been working hard on fashion, which is very important in the consumer market," Steve Jobs told financial writer Lou Dobbs on CNN Money during the week the iMac launched.

Bill Gates knows best



It's not clear now exactly when Bill Gates mocked the iMac, but some time around 2000, he famously dissed it and Apple.

"The one thing Apple's providing now is leadership in colors," he said. "It won't take long for us to catch up with that, I don't think."

Steve Jobs (left) and Bill Gates had rather different opinions about design
Steve Jobs (left) and Bill Gates had rather different opinions about design



Gates was referring to how the iMac came in a small rainbow of different colors, but Apple was far from ignoring technology in favor of a paint brush. Jobs had no qualms talking about fashion and consumers, but he was at least equally firm about specifications.

"This one [the iMac] is incredibly sweet," he said in that Dobbs interview. "This $1,299 product is faster than the fastest Pentium II you can buy. The market's never had a consumer computer this powerful and cool-looking."

Jobs was always the sharp businessman and he told Dobbs that of its 22 million customers at the time, 10 million were consumers. Not only did that mean Apple should pay attention to who was buying its devices, Jobs said it meant that the company had a chance to get those consumers to buy more Macs.

"Those users haven't been upgraded because of viability concerns about Apple, which I think we've overcome," he Jobs. "And we haven't given them a good product in a long time."

It didn't always look this way



Today the iMac is a staple of countless universities, offices, and homes, and throughout even its earliest days, Steve Jobs sounded like that success was obvious. In reality, the choice to even make a new Mac was a risk, and to go so far away from tested successes was nothing short of a gamble.

It was also a gamble that Apple could not survive losing.

The iMac project was begun pretty much as soon as Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, but his job was not to create a new product. It was ultimately to save the company which Jobs later revealed was within 90 days of going bankrupt.

When a company is failing, there's obviously a drive to cut costs, and there can be a determination to show there's still life left in the firm. A way to do that is indeed to launch a new product and Apple did that -- with the Twentieth Anniversary Mac.

It was bold, its designers included Jony Ive, but it was late when it was announced, and it was later still when it shipped. The machine missed Apple's 20th anniversary by over a year, and then it was a flop anyway.

As a business, Apple was on its last breath, and the one thing it perhaps still had going for it was that it could design a good computer. The Twentieth Anniversary Mac seemed to show that either Apple had lost that knack, or maybe that design didn't matter any more.

To get a true feel for how bad things were, picture Apple CEO Gil Amelio coming on stage at Macworld 1997 and making what Michael Markman, a former director of advertising and creative services at Apple, persuasively describes as The Worst Apple Keynote Ever.





That was what Apple was presenting to its loyal user base, and to the world. Apple was saying that it had nothing, no products it cared about, nothing.

Apple had just an increasing amount of money being lost, and the certainty that layoffs were coming.

But then it also got Steve Jobs, and it got NeXT. Jobs came back to Apple at its lowest point, and he was ruthless at cutting anything he didn't think was right. With behind the scenes politics, that even included forcing Gil Amelio out.

Jobs's cuts very publicly included the whole Newton MessagePad line. Less publicly noticeable were cuts like ending Apple's OpenDoc software plan.

In what was called a "fireside chat" at WWDC 2007, Jobs talked specifically about cutting OpenDoc, and was blunt with developers about what Apple was going to do. He was critical of Apple's recent past, but the frankness of what he saw working and not working was refreshing.





More than two decades on, we are living in the future Jobs predicted in that chat. But every specific hardware or software he mentioned is long gone -- and yet the whole video is still utterly compelling.

It's quite a technical video in that its a film of Jobs talking with developers, but even here Jobs was looking to how Apple could make better computers for consumers. He gave as an example, how he hoped Apple could make networking be as simple for users as the Mac had made using a computer.

"That's one of the things where I think there's a giant hole [in the market for Apple to fill]," he said. "And I can't communicate to you how awesome this is unless you use it."

The iMac was Apple's way of trying to communicate this and all of Jobs's ambitions. It didn't just include the option for networking, it forced people to network by removing the floppy disk.

"Apple contends that the 1.44-megabyte, 3.5-inch disk drive is a thing of the past," said the New York Times, "and that putting one in the iMac would have made it last year's machine instead of next year's."

"The iMac is Jobs' first real technology statement as interim CEO," continued the Los Angeles Times. "It's classic Steve Jobs--a gamble. But it looks like a good bet to me."

Apple was nervous



Even the critics who thought Apple was dumb over the floppy disk, were at the very least covering Apple. Most had positive things to say, too, and of course Steve Jobs exuded total certainty about the iMac's strengths -- and total confidence about its success.

Then, too, we are looking back at the iMac after more than two decades of it being a hit.

And there were those 1997 TV ads with Jeff Goldblum, talking about how obvious and easy the iMac is.





So it's hard to imagine, and a little hard to be sure, but there are signs that Apple had doubts. And they're all in Apple's advertising.

The first mention of the iMac on Apple's online site tries wincingly to be hip and cool. "It's a good thing there's no law against a company having a monopoly of good ideas," it said. "Otherwise Apple would be in deep yogurt for the ideas that Steve Jobs shared with the crowd at Apple's Flint Center auditorium Tuesday, May 6."

There are then there was an attempt to slot the iMac into Apple's lineup that at this time went Power Macintosh G3, PowerBook G3, and iMac. Which were listed repeatedly as "Pro, Go, Whoa."

The strapline for that iMac "Whoa" spot on the website ran, "It's okay, you don't have to say anything."

What Apple kept saying once the iMac was shipping in August 1998, and what Apple kept emphasizing about it, was something the company practically never focuses on today. It was all about the price.

'The world's easiest-to-use computer is now the world's easiest-to-own," was one advertising line on Apple's site at the end of 1998. "Blows minds. Not budgets."

A rare case of Apple using price as a selling point
A rare case of Apple using price as a selling point



Apple pushed how you could have an iMac for $30 a month, with no down payment, and no payment at all for almost four months.

Maybe Apple was worrying unnecessarily about whether the iMac would attract customers -- or maybe Apple had its strategy spot on. For when the numbers were in, the iMac was a hit.

In its first year on sale, almost two million iMacs were sold -- and Apple's market share doubled to 11.2%.

"Almost as important as the sheer number of iMacs being sold was who bought the computers," wrote Owen W. Linzmayer in the 2004 "Apple Confidential 2.0" book. "[It] was revealed that 29.4 percent had never owned a computer before, and 12.5 percent previously owned a Wintel clone but not a Macintosh."

So Jobs took Apple from its death spiral and into success. Before the iMac, buyers had to be conscious that Apple was likely to die, and their resulting hesitation to buy Macs was a key reason that was true.

After the original iMac's launch, a whole new market who hadn't heard of Apple's problems, and didn't care, were now buying.

Ripoffs and the future



No good success goes un-copied, and there were of course PCs that were released specifically to capture a piece of that iMac-buying market. None of those manufacturers saw any deeper than Bill Gates had, though, and consequently they made standard, regular PCs that just added bright colors and translucent casings.

It wasn't enough for buyers, but it was enough for Apple to sue firms like Future Power and eMachines. The case took a few months, but both companies ceased their iMac-inspired production lines.

The key thing is that what they missed then is what made the iMac then -- and still does. It's never color, it is always that deep understanding that computers are meant to be used by people who are far more interested in their work than in the specifications.

You have to have good enough specifications, good enough technology, but when you sell on processor speed, you lose out to rivals. When you sell on what an iMac can do, you win.

And right at the heart of every iMac from that 1998 model to today, is a very particular design ethos. "Let each element be what it is," Steve Jobs told Jony Ive, according to Linzmayer.

Jobs wanted to keep radically updating the iMac and in autumn 2000, he and Ive were discussing what the next model should be. Walking through his wife Laurene Powell Jobs's garden, Jobs told Ive that "each element has to be true to itself."

"Why have a flat display if you're going to glom all this stuff on its back?" he said. "Why stand a computer on its side when it really wants to be horizontal and on the ground?"

Jobs then said that the New iMac "should look like a sunflower."





Today's iMacs don't look like any kind of fauna. They're close to razor thin, at least compared to those squat, fat, bulbous first iMacs.

But they're still one single device, plus keyboard and mouse, which works for consumers, professionals, scientists and students.

The iMac is forever and always, an all-in-one that is one for all, whether it's the original model with a PowerPC processor, or the latest with Apple Silicon.



Read on AppleInsider

9secondkox2
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 30
    BlizzardBlizzard Posts: 34member
    just try to think of any other computer — any other device — that is still being sold a quarter of a century after it was launched.

    Dell Dimensions are still being sold........

    Thinkpad laptops are still being sold.

    Playstations are still being sold

    Heck even Sony's Walkman is still being sold.

    There are a lot of electronic products that are still being sold a quarter of a century later using the same name branding.

    williamlondonblastdoormuthuk_vanalingam9secondkox2damn_its_hot
  • Reply 2 of 30
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    Loved the Pixar lamp iMacs.

    But the  best iMac I ever had was the G5. It was designed to be repairable and upgradable by the owner.  Noisy though. and the first intel that replaced it was basically unrepairable. This situation did not improve until about 2010. It still wasn’t easy, but you could do it. After that forget it.
    Ofermuthuk_vanalingambloggerblogwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 30
    XedXed Posts: 2,519member
    Blizzard said:
    just try to think of any other computer — any other device — that is still being sold a quarter of a century after it was launched.

    Dell Dimensions are still being sold........

    Thinkpad laptops are still being sold.

    Playstations are still being sold

    Heck even Sony's Walkman is still being sold.

    There are a lot of electronic products that are still being sold a quarter of a century later using the same name branding.

    Nice list, but I will note that the statement you quoted didn't state that the Mac was the only "computer" being sold with the same branding 25 years later.

    Also, while I'm perfectly fine with modern portable music players and video game consoles being included as they are very specialized computing devices* I do think the original statement is referring to personal computers in the traditional sense.

    * While writing this I do wonder if that would include the original Sony Walkman which simply was a simple cassette player with batteries. Sure, there would be some microprocessing on the 1979 unit but even that stretches my imagination by calling it a "computer." And did the Walkman ever stop production when CDs became commonplace and the Sony Discman became their most popular portable music player? As far as I'm aware the Walkman branding only came back into play with the age of portable "MP3" music players.
    edited May 2023 jas99ronnwilliamlondonbloggerblogwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 30
    s.metcalfs.metcalf Posts: 972member
    They still haven’t beaten that iMac G4’s floating display arm.  That computer got a lot of sales in customer service/kiosks for that reason alone.
    Oferbloggerblogwatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 30
    BlizzardBlizzard Posts: 34member
    Nice list, but I will note that the statement you quoted didn't state that the Mac was the only "computer" being sold with the same branding 25 years later.
    And I will note that the statement being quoted is implying that the iMac is a rarity, not just in computer branding but in electronic branding for being actively sold after 25 years.  My point with my list is that it isn't a rarity at all, in fact it is quite common, not just in computers also in other electronics, such as as the sony walkman.


    Also, while I'm perfectly fine with modern portable music players and video game consoles being included as they are very specialized computing devices* I do think the original statement is referring to personal computers in the traditional sense.

    Read the original quote again, you see the part where it says "any other device", what do you think that means?  It means any electronic device that is not a computer.


    williamlondonmuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 6 of 30
    XedXed Posts: 2,519member
    Blizzard said:
    Nice list, but I will note that the statement you quoted didn't state that the Mac was the only "computer" being sold with the same branding 25 years later.
    And I will note that the statement being quoted is implying that the iMac is a rarity, not just in computer branding but in electronic branding for being actively sold after 25 years.  My point with my list is that it isn't a rarity at all, in fact it is quite common, not just in computers also in other electronics, such as as the sony walkman.
    Also, while I'm perfectly fine with modern portable music players and video game consoles being included as they are very specialized computing devices* I do think the original statement is referring to personal computers in the traditional sense.

    Read the original quote again, you see the part where it says "any other device", what do you think that means?  It means any electronic device that is not a computer.
    It is a rarity. Name all the EC branding that is still enduring today after a quarter century and there will still be countless more that has not. Rarity ≠ singularity.
    edited May 2023 williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 30
    patdiddypatdiddy Posts: 2member
    Steve Jobs was a true genius. The only problem with the iMac’s early debut was that nobody had really dealt with Ethernet or WiFi at the time, in fact, the internet was just really starting to become a thing. 

    Had it debuted with the iPod, Steve Jobs might have had the best way to get digital music, and saved apple completely.
    tenthousandthingswatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 30
    jimh2jimh2 Posts: 611member
    patdiddy said:
    Steve Jobs was a true genius. The only problem with the iMac’s early debut was that nobody had really dealt with Ethernet or WiFi at the time, in fact, the internet was just really starting to become a thing. 

    Had it debuted with the iPod, Steve Jobs might have had the best way to get digital music, and saved apple completely.
    Ethernet existed well before the iMac and was a must for a computer that would be used by businesses. WiFi was on the bleeding edge so it made since to build a computer Gyr the future and for yesterday. 
    9secondkox2ilarynxwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 30
    entropys said:
    Loved the Pixar lamp iMacs.

    But the  best iMac I ever had was the G5. It was designed to be repairable and upgradable by the owner.  Noisy though. and the first intel that replaced it was basically unrepairable. This situation did not improve until about 2010. It still wasn’t easy, but you could do it. After that forget it.

    My G5 was worst ever. After about 10 trips to shop (45 minutes away), Apple replaced it two years in under Apple Care with Intel model, which lasted for years. I think I read bad capacitors were a culprit in G5 failures, although pernt near ever part of machine was replaced. Weirdest issue was it slept on its own; if I let it sleep a while, I could use it for a spell before it slept again; if I immediately woke it, it slept within seconds. Freak show.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 30
    waveparticlewaveparticle Posts: 1,497member
    The Macs are a closed computer system. The PCs are modular. They are made to tinker with. This is the fundamental difference between Macs and Windows PC. PC maker trying to copy Mac design so to obsolete Apple was met with great resistance by the PC World. They cannot customize their own computer. They won't accept. In the end these copy makers gave up. This is the cleverness of Steve Jobs. He gradually make Apple think different. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 30
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    Ah yes there was that bad capacitor issue with the G5. I admit the main reason I liked it was being able to open it, see the diagnostic lights, easily replace HDD and RAM, heck even replace the PRAM battery with no difficulty. It was all right there after opening the back.
    In the intel iMac, the PRAM battery etc. was deliberately buried behind the logicboard. 

    And I loved the pulsing sleep light.
    edited May 2023 Alex_Vking editor the gratewatto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 30
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,311member
    Xed said:
    Blizzard said:
    just try to think of any other computer — any other device — that is still being sold a quarter of a century after it was launched.

    Dell Dimensions are still being sold........

    Thinkpad laptops are still being sold.

    Playstations are still being sold

    Heck even Sony's Walkman is still being sold.

    There are a lot of electronic products that are still being sold a quarter of a century later using the same name branding.

    Nice list, but I will note that the statement you quoted didn't state that the Mac was the only "computer" being sold with the same branding 25 years later.

    Also, while I'm perfectly fine with modern portable music players and video game consoles being included as they are very specialized computing devices* I do think the original statement is referring to personal computers in the traditional sense.

    * While writing this I do wonder if that would include the original Sony Walkman which simply was a simple cassette player with batteries. Sure, there would be some microprocessing on the 1979 unit but even that stretches my imagination by calling it a "computer." And did the Walkman ever stop production when CDs became commonplace and the Sony Discman became their most popular portable music player? As far as I'm aware the Walkman branding only came back into play with the age of portable "MP3" music players.
    The Sony WM-D6C is still the peak in a mobile cassette recorder, in my opinion.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcX--giGdas
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 30
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    JP234 said:
    patdiddy said:
    Steve Jobs was a true genius. The only problem with the iMac’s early debut was that nobody had really dealt with Ethernet or WiFi at the time, in fact, the internet was just really starting to become a thing. 

    Had it debuted with the iPod, Steve Jobs might have had the best way to get digital music, and saved apple completely.
    He did save Apple completely. Numbers don't lie. What am I missing here?

    The iMac may have been the first product Jobs came out with, on the way to saving Apple. But before that could happen, we have to give him all the credit for doing this .....


    >The common assumption in the tech community is that Microsoft’s $150 million investment in Apple saved the company. However, the reality is that with Apple holding $1.2 billion in cash at the time, $150 million was a relatively small sum of money. Some now believe the undisclosed amount of money that Microsoft paid Apple was in fact a secret settlement to the patent-infringment claims. Estimated at anywhere between $500 million to $2 billion, this was the real meat of the “cross-licensing” arrangement. It was likely this much larger undisclosed amount, along with the show of confidence that Apple would be around at least another five years, that gave Apple and Steve Jobs the breathing room needed to reinvent Apple and eventually build it into the most valuable company in the world.<




    >What wasn't widely reported about the July 1997 agreement was the subtle mention of other payments Microsoft agreed to make in addition to investing a paltry $150 million in stock. That amount was never publicly disclosed, but Apple's financial records suggest it was substantial.<
     

    Jobs knew he couldn't begin to save Apple if Apple was in the courts battling Microsoft, in a case that could take years to settle. He also knew the iMac would be DOA without Microsoft Office for Mac. Besides bringing some of his Next employees aboard, this truce was probably the first and most important thing Jobs did on the way to saving Apple. And he didn't allow Microsoft to get off easy for stealing Apple QuickTime codes. He only allowed Microsoft to save grace by not publicizing how much Microsoft really had to pay, to settle the QuickTime lawsuit out-of- court.






    edited May 2023 muthuk_vanalingamentropyswaveparticleronnraoulduke42chiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 30
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    I wonder why no tech journalist has really explored that Apple Microsoft deal?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 30
    patdiddy said:
    Steve Jobs was a true genius. The only problem with the iMac’s early debut was that nobody had really dealt with Ethernet or WiFi at the time, in fact, the internet was just really starting to become a thing. 

    Had it debuted with the iPod, Steve Jobs might have had the best way to get digital music, and saved apple completely.
    Ethernet and the internet go back a long time before there was a GUI interface.  I still remember when the internet was not supposed to be used for commercial/profit purposes.  It was initially used mostly by universities and the military industrial complex, mostly on minicomputers and mainframes.  in 1969, the first four nodes on the Internet were a SDS Sigma 7 (UCLA), a SDS 940 (Stanford), an IBM 360/75 (Santa Barbara) and a DEC PDP-10 (Univ. of Utah) .  Ethernet was developed at Xerox in 1973-1974.  A NeXT computer was the first web server (at CERN in 1990).  OS/X and MacOS are derived from the NeXTStep Operating System, as are most of the other current Apple OS's.  

    http://www.usna1959.com/m59/classWeb1stFour.php#:~:text=The%20sketch%20of%20ARPANET%27s%20first,and%20the%20University%20of%20Utah.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet  
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet  
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd  
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDS_Sigma_series  
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360  
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-10  
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY3Y8gb3jYA  

    The advantage of using external floppy drives and CD/RAMs is more easy replacement.  In a business setting, it is much easier to plug in a replacement unit and have the defective unit replaced or repaired for use for the next failed drive.  

    edited May 2023 ronnwatto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 30
    "I wonder why no tech journalist has really explored that Apple Microsoft deal?"

    As I remember, there were several related cases.  One was Apple vs. Microsoft and HP.  
    The GUI was largely developed around 1973 by Xerox (Alto), which never was never widely credited in the press.  
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface  

    Around the same time, DOJ was going after IBM for antitrust in PCs, minicomputers, mainframes and software.  
    Microsoft had trouble with the DOJ, UK and EU somewhat later.  
    NCR had similar problems with their business machines in the 1920s.  
    More recently, Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft (again) seem to be targeted by DOJ, UK and EU.  

    Found this on the settlement between Apple and Microsoft:  
    Interesting part to consider is that Apple's market capitalization has been larger than Microsoft's for an extended period.  
    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html
    edited May 2023 watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 30
    If there's ever any doubt that the iMac is a phenomenal success, just try to think of any other computer — any other device — that is still being sold a quarter of a century after it was launched”

    Errr…. the Mac? We are coming up on 40 years of Macs, iMac is just one computer in that product line. 
    king editor the grate
  • Reply 18 of 30
    patdiddy said:
    Steve Jobs was a true genius. The only problem with the iMac’s early debut was that nobody had really dealt with Ethernet or WiFi at the time, in fact, the internet was just really starting to become a thing. 

    Had it debuted with the iPod, Steve Jobs might have had the best way to get digital music, and saved apple completely.
    This is a fun “what-if” thought, so thanks. A 1998 iPod (a portable hard drive designed for playing music), would have been larger and heavier than the 2001 edition, and the interface would have been more of a kludge. The 2001 iPod benefited from OS X development, and it fit in beautifully with the elegant 2001 iMac releases, both the G3 models and the G4 at the end of the year. 
    edited May 2023 ronnchiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 30
    BlizzardBlizzard Posts: 34member
    Xed said:
    It is a rarity. Name all the EC branding that is still enduring today after a quarter century and there will still be countless more that has not. Rarity ≠ singularity.
    That is pedantically true that the majority of brands, really in any industry, will eventually fail and the company itself goes bankrupt.  AMD's Athlon processors have another two more years to go to cross the 25 year threshold.  Intel's pentium brand is over 30 years old.  Texas Insturments has been making TI-XX calculators since 1976.    I was able to easily come up with several brands just off the top of my head in my first post, plus Microsoft's xbox brand is going to be crossing the 25+ year mark in three years.  It is a lot more common than the author of this article is claiming.  The author of the article was implying that iMac was essentially the only brand in the computer space or the larger electronics space that has lasted as a brand for 25+ years, or as you put it, a singularity, and that is what I'm taking issue with.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 20 of 30
    humbug1873humbug1873 Posts: 121member
    "the iMac screen is one of the best 15-inch displays available"!???
    That screen was absolutely horrible on the original iMac, probably about the worst you could get.
    Thankfully nowadays it's the other way around. I have a 27'' iMac since the day the 5k Version was available and there still - 4 years later -  isn't anything better on the market (at that price point). 
    steve_jobswatto_cobra
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