Insight for everyone

Jonathan Ive: iMac Computer, 1998

At the beginning of the 1970s, the first personal computers came onto the market. They were beige or black bulky boxes and looked like a mixture of a big laboratory device and a typewriter. Green or orange letters, numbers and symbols flickered on the surface of the monitor, a real tangle of formulae with which one had to operate the computer. With the first iMac, Apple
revolutionised the computer: the monitor functioned like a virtual desktop. There were files, papers and a bin. You could use these things with a simple arrow that was controlled by the mouse. What was still missing, however, was an attractive outer appearance. “The idea was to create products that people would love”, said designer Jonathan Ive.

At that time, there was a trend to create translucent devices so that you could see their interior, their ‘organs’. With their colourful casings, the formerly boring box-computers, now simply looked a lot better and everyone could choose their own favourite colour.