.svg){kind=small} | |
 Front face of an orange iMac (24-inch, M1, 2021) | |
| Developer | Apple Inc. |
|---|---|
| Product family | Macintosh |
| Release date | August 15, 1998 (G3) |
| Operating system | macOS (see § Supported operating systems for previous) |
| Related | Mac Mini, Mac Pro |
| Website | apple |
The iMac is a series of all-in-one computers from Apple Inc. operating on the MacOS. Introduced by Steve Jobs in August 1998 when the company was financially troubled, the computer was an inexpensive, consumer-oriented computer that would easily connect to the Internet. Since that time, it has remained a primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings and evolved through seven distinct forms.
The design of the iMac has been seen as both controversial and trendsetting. From its introduction, the computer has eschewed many entrenched legacy technologies, notably becoming an early adopter of the USB port, and removing floppy disk and later optical disc drives.
In its original form, the iMac G3 had a gumdrop or egg-shaped look, with a CRT monitor, mainly enclosed by a colored, translucent plastic case. The second major revision, the iMac G4, moved a design with a hemispherical base containing all the main components and an LCD monitor on a freely moving arm attached to it. The third and fourth revisions, the iMac G5 and the Intel iMac, placed all the components immediately behind the display in a plastic casing, creating a slim unified design that tilts only up and down on a simple metal base. The fifth, sixth and seventh revisions swapped the plastic enclosure for metal and became progressively thinner over each revision.
The most recent revision, the Apple Silicon iMac, uses Apple's own processors (silicon) and is 11.5 millimeters (0.45 in) thick. Between 2017 and 2021, Apple also sold a workstation-class version of the computer called the iMac Pro.