The iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998-08 (shipped; intro 1998-05), and has evolved through six distinct forms.
In its original form, the iMac G3 had a gum-drop or egg-shaped look, with a CRT monitor, mainly enclosed by a colored, translucent plastic case, which was refreshed early on with a sleeker design notable for its slot-loaded optical drive. The second major revision, the iMac G4, moved the design to a hemispherical base containing all the main components and an LCD monitor on a freely moving arm attached to it. The third and fourth major revisions, the iMac G5 and the Intel iMac respectively, placed all the components immediately behind the display, creating a slim unified design that tilts only up and down on a simple metal base. The fifth major revision shared the same form as the previous model, but was thinner and used anodized aluminum and a glass panel over the entire front. The newest iMac uses a different display unit, omits the SuperDrive, and uses different production techniques from the older unibody versions. This allows it to be thinner at the edge than older models, with an edge thickness of 5.9mm (but the same maximum depth). It also includes a dual microphone setup, and includes SSD or HDD storage, or an Apple Fusion Drive, a hybrid of solid state and hard disk drives. The latest model was announced on October 23, 2012, with the 21.5" version released on November 30 and the 27" version released in December; these were refreshed on September 24, 2013, with new Haswell processors, faster graphics, faster and larger SSD options and 802.11ac WiFi cards.
So Do you want to know the History?
The announcement of the iMac in 1998 was a source of discussion and anticipation among commentators, Mac fans, and detractors. Opinions were divided over Apple's drastic changes to the Macintosh hardware. At the time, Apple had suffered a series of setbacks as consumers increasingly opted for Wintel machines instead of Apple's Performa models. Many in the industry thought that "beleagued Apple" would soon be forced to start selling PC clones with a custom interface. Part of Apple's effort to maintain the Mac platform was trying to improve its retail strategy. Jonathan Ive was the designer behind the iMac.Ken Segall was an employee at an L.A. ad agency handling Apple's account who came up with the name "iMac" and pitched it to Steve Jobs. Steve wanted the product to be called "MacMan", but eventually warmed to Ken's suggestion. Ken says that the "i" stands for "Internet", but also represents the product as a personal and revolutionary device ('i' for "individuality" and "innovation"). 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 an HP 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, iPhone, iPad and various pieces of software such as the iLife suite and iWork and the company's media player/store, iTunes.
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