Around this time 10 years ago, Mr. Jobs presented the iMac to the very skeptical media at WWDC. I thought it was pretty cool. It looked like a modernized successor to the original all-in-one Macintosh from 1984. Apple had been on a roll for the last few months too: the G3-based portables were selling, the store within-in-a-store at CompUSA attracted visitors and Mac OS 8 was a huge improvement over 7.
“Where’s the floppy drive?” was the litany from the media instead of something more intelligent. Those archaic things couldn’t store anything larger than a resume by the late Nineties. Jobs’ response was clever, “Ask me that question again next year.” He was easily vindicated with an armada of USB-based devices on shelves by 1999 and the growth of broadband Internet access. Heck, the iMac finally got Intel’s USB technology going since it had been mothballed by Windows and PC manufacturers for years. Now those devices are the standard.
Today, the iMac continues in its fifth incarnation (maybe more if you count the changes in colors or patterns) and remains a celebrity in its own right. It also became a key factor in bringing me back to Austin.