The iMac G3

It was the big leap forward, leaving beige boxes behind.  One piece, easy handle for carryability.  Eye-catching color (expanded to several colors, my favorite was the red), reasonably good screen.

Had its downsides.  Memory upgrades were ridiculously difficult, no external monitor options, and the hockey-puck mouse was epic fail.  But still, it was a big statement of “case design can be more than arranging the ports well”.

The “jump the shark” moment was the Blue Dalmatian and Flowers cases (UGLY).  But the design had legs, it survived for a while as the eMac.

The iMac G4

When the iMac was upgraded to a G4 and got an LCD screen, it got a new radical form-factor.  An arm let you position the screen where you want, at the angle you want.  Many comparisons were made to Sunflowers or Desk Lamps.  When introducing it, Jobs said that they could have just put a computer on the back of a monitor, but wanted to do more.

I loved my iMac G4.  Speedy (compared to the iMac G3), reasonably desk footprint, the adjustable screen was great.  Probably would have done better with a box base which would allow more space in the base.  The arm did sometimes lose its lift, and it limited the size of the monitor they could support.

The iMac G5

The G5 put out more heat than the G4, and the new larger LCD screens couldn’t be supported by the arm.  So another new design, a computer on the back of a monitor.  But still, a nice design, clean lines.  Even with the change, there have been some heating issues, but they were solvable.  One minor upgrade was the addition of a built-in webcam.

Then Apple announced they were switching to Intel Processors.  And when the new computers were released…same old form-factors.  The Intel iMac looked just like the iMac G5, the MacBook looked like the iBook, the MacBook Pro looked like the PowerBook, the MacPro looked like the PowerMac, and the Mac Mini had the same old difficult-to-open case.  OK, OK, many of us thought.  Interim step, the production lines are set up for those cases, the next big upgrade will show off the new form-factors.  Except the new form-factors never came.  Oh, Apple has made some minor tweaks of thickness, materials, and size, but nothing that breaks the paradigm.New products have, somewhat.  But each new product gets locked into the formfactor.  The iPod was a revolution…but from the First Gen iPod to the iPod Classic, pretty much the same.  The Nano has tried a few designs (I was tempted by the square Nano) and the Shuffle has changed its formfactor often.  The iPhone and associated iPod Touch was also groundbreaking – but they’ve pretty much stayed there.

Maybe there are no improvements to make.  Maybe the iMac is the perfect design with only minor engineering fiddling (though the lack of any height control is a place some engineering fiddling could be applied).  But I doubt it.  Clearly the Mac Mini is an untapped wealth of possibilities.

I love my Macs for what they do, and they look good.  But when did Apple become so conservative? Jonathan Ive, where have you gone?