One million years ago, when the internet went “Pshhhkkkkkkrrrr…kakingkakingkaking…ding…ding…ding” and this “World Wide Web” thing was only accessible from a dark corner of your house, Apple released the iMac. (“I” is for internet!)
Available in bright colors with a matching keyboard and mouse, the iMac wasn’t a boring, intimidating beige PC; it was the friendly, fun home computer.
Today, the internet is in our smartphones, tablets, laptops, watches, speakers and TVs, not to mention refrigerators, security cameras and toilets, but Apple Inc. has a new…iMac?
Like its similarly priced two-decade-old ancestor, Apple’s 2021 iMac is also available in bright colors and with matching keyboard and mouse. The new version is far more evolved—a third of the weight, 24 times the pixels and at least 50 times the storage space—but the mission feels the same: Entice you to go out of your way to use a thing called a desktop computer.
The new iMac, which starts at $1,299 and arrives this Friday, does so by being more iPhone or iPad than any old-school Macintosh. It has a beautiful Retina display and a fingerprint sensor in its keyboard. In some lighting, the webcam is better than the front-facing iPad and iPhone selfie cameras. With a new Apple M1 chip inside, the iMac wakes in a split second—and even runs a handful of iOS apps.
