The philosophy of iMac

May 06th, 2008 | Category: iMac

Let me tell you something about my mindset. When I bought an iPhone, one of my first thoughts was: “How do I hook up a bluetooth keyboard to that thing?” It’s that kind of thinking that has always stood amidst me and the iMac. considering in that world, there are two kinds of people[1]: the iMac humans and the tower public.

iMac folks love the all-in-one package that their system brings. It’s hard to look at an iMac and not think that it’s smiling at you. The iMac delivers the entire computing experience in a one friendly unit. Customization? They do it at the store. Buyers decide what kind of memory and hard drive space they want. And soon after they buy it. And they’re done.

Tower public don’t think that way. Memory, drives, peripherals — these are all things that ebb and flow all through the lifetime of the unit. More USB ports? Throw in a card. Widescreen monitors just went on

sale? Buy one and eBay the current screen.

Coming from an tower perspective, the iMac has always puzzled me. It makes citizens happy without ever needing to be disassembled and reassembled. certain, there are hobbyists who do precisely that but they are usually tower society playing with iMac-shaped toys. Most iMac users I know are perfectly happy to use their Apple system for the entire lifetime of that unit — often a very expanded lifetime indeed — and never crack it open and mod it. Ever.

Astonishing.

So here I am raising a glass to the iMac on its birthday and to all the iMac users whose lives have been enriched by that little puzzling unit. May your systems be dependable and long-lived. And may you continue to enjoy your all-in-one system. Cheers!

[1] That is, other than the public who divide society into two kinds of public and the folks who don’t.

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Orginal post by Erica Sadun

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