Steve Jobs introduces the iMac - 1998

The announcement of the iMac in 1998 was a source of controversy and anticipation among commentators, Mac fans, and detractors. Opinions were divided over Apple's drastic changes to the Macintosh hardware. At the time, Apple had suffered a series of setbacks as consumers increasingly opted for Wintel machines instead of Apple's Performa models. Many in the industry thought that "beleaguered Apple" would soon be forced to start selling computers with a custom interface built on top of one or more potential operating system bases, such as Taligent, Solaris, or Windows NT.

[@pvp214]

Shoutout to the Apple two team

[@ferrreira]

Your comment reminded me that, when the first iMac was announced, the last Apple II product, the Apple IIe, had been discontinued only 5 years prior, in 1993

[@ShaheedSmoke]

I actually Lol’d at this

[@wasthataj]

Whoever came here after watching Steve Job's Movie i'm laughing super hard

[@jordanfrancisco27]

Just the key people!

[@immortalabomination]

@@jordanfrancisco27 There are no key people in apple 2. There are only B players.

[@pattii55]

How I miss Steve Jobs. I saw this Keynote and bought my Apple stock immediately the next day. My Stockbroker at the time, told me I was crazy, "Don't invest in it, Apple is going under." I said "Just buy it...Steve is BACK!" Was less than $10 a share I think, I can't remember exactly. And what a good investment it has been! Is now my retirement safety net.

[@jeanlandim]

Holy shit

[@pattii55]

@@donnysarian Nice!!! Apple has been good to us! :) I feel very fortunate that I got to see three Steve Jobs Keynotes '04, '06, and '08 before Macworld Expos forever ended and Steve was gone. Before design was done on a Mac I had no interest in computers. After I fell love with the Mac I ended up in Mac based Tech Support for 33 years, which paid better than being just a Designer. Apple was good to me in many ways.

[@eric.waffles]

How many shares did you buy at the time? Just out of curiosity if you don't mind me asking!

[@eric.waffles]

@@donnysarian Wow, with all the stock splits that have happened since then, that's an insanely big nest egg. Congratulations! I hope retirement ends up very luxurious!

[@pattii55]

@@eric.waffles I sold a few other stocks at the time, to be able to buy some Apple and I was just starting to be interested in buying stocks at the time so my purchase wasn't even near 1,000 shares but the stock splits through the years have certainly added up and helped my number of shares increase. I'm no Hard Rock Musician (but my husband does play in an AC/DC Tribute Band! :)

[@aliounebf]

All praised to the Apple 2 team

[@evodgamehunter4290]

Meh b list played

[@Donyourmom]

Apparently Jobs wanted A list players

[@LilypondMovie]

It's interesting how much Steve's keynotes simplified over the years. So much more statistics and general data info with this launch

[@4968ace]

Market changed. These PowerBook machines fully loaded were like.. $12,000 adjusted for inflation! Pro consumers were interested in these machines for rendering and photoshop and so on and cared about stats. By 2007 he was aware that he wasn’t talking to an audience who wanted a live benchmark test vs their competitors.

[@JeffIsJello]

And more turtle neck and jeans less suit

[@looking_33]

@@4968aceThis was also in the heat of him trying save apple from imminent bankruptcy and diving deep in these public appearances was helpful in calming investors.

[@freakpharaoh]

@@4968ace did you know toriyama used powerbook to draw dragon ball Z

[@woaitsbren]

it's more because the audience changed from shareholders who care more about profits to developers and customers who care more about the product

[@johnfoltz8183]

1998: check out our cool newly redesigned computers in flashy colors and specs 2019: $999 monitor stand

[@elroxmusic]

2021: Check out our cool newly redesigned computers in flashy colors and specs

[@trashyraccoon2615]

2024: Insanely powerful Mac mini for a few hundred bucks. Try to keep up! Lol

[@macking7108]

2028: iPhone 20

[@braydonmarsh4691]

@@trashyraccoon2615 yeah the apple turn around in the last 5 years has been nuts

[@nnnnnn3647]

This is not true. You can buy still great AIR M1 for 500$

[@DavidL1986]

Even today that is still a nice looking computer

[@jaieighty6812]

This was the first product that ever made me take notice of Apple when I was a kid, I never had one as I had a PC but I always remember thinking how cool it looked, Steve Jobs was one very smart man.

[@Dr0111]

Same with me😮

[@Artixou]

nah

[@transcending_concrete]

Same with me.

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

A friend got me the Bondi Blue system for a buck at a local yard sale, nice system, 9.22, I bought and installed Appleworks 6, that DVD player rocked!

[@urvashitarwadi3217]

Here after movie Steve Jobs 2015,to see the complete movie..

[@veronmkhonzi5600]

so true

[@93tilinfinity4life]

Same here!!

[@totallynotretro9967]

Omg a year later and I'm literally doing the same thing lol

[@manciv510]

@@totallynotretro9967 me to

[@kartiknayyar9185]

Same

[@99959blue]

To think just 10 years later, we would lose him. The amount of achievements that he made within that time is just astounding. He even laid the ground for quite a few projects to be continued and introduced after his death.

[@OldAussieAds]

I agree with your sentiment. But it was more than 10 years.

[@Tiigerr]

13 years

[@dermond]

12:49 "This 2 Macs are cheaper than the Compaq Armada" Oh man, good old times.

[@triple7marc]

Macs are cheaper now that they’re using Apple’s own chips.

[@keijijohnson9754]

​@@triple7marcNot really mate

[@triple7marc]

@@keijijohnson9754 It is an indisputable fact that you can use the internet to discover yourself.

[@BixbyConsequence]

Got one of the early Bondi-blue iMacs and we loved it. But "best mouse you've ever used" was actually the worst mouse I've ever used. My God.

[@enticingFicus]

Yeah, it didn’t take long for the aftermarket bondi blue peripherals to get going. We had a matching Epson printer, too

[@pattii55]

Agree, the round "Hockey Puck" mouse was the only fail in sight.

[@charlesdjones1]

Jobs was warned by a former Apple exec (who basically created the Apple design mantra early on in the 1970's) that the mouse design was a big mistake, Steve ignored him.

[@HunterShows]

@@enticingFicus That's so cool. Shame it's all ancient history now.

[@acesagayno]

Steve was a Master Showman

[@cyanrazorCel]

I still think the iMac has a cooler look to it then any other computer today.

[@pulsatingsausageboy2076]

Of course they don’t seem as cool now but I remember seeing the iMac in a store for the first time and it just looked mind blowing at the time compared to the boring beige boxes everyone else was putting out. Apple was so much more radical back then. When they came out with a new computer it was always unlike anything you’d ever seen before. Wish they’d get back to that.

[@DavidL1986]

It’s what saved their ass

[@hunterjay8331]

Apple still makes computers that look radically different than the average PC. Only difference now is that others have caught on and started imitating them.

[@pulsatingsausageboy2076]

@@hunterjay8331 No, they don’t. They used to innovate quickly enough that there wasn’t the opportunity for other makers to clone them. And over the last fifteen years or so the changes they’ve made have been evolutionary. Not really innovative like they used to be.

[@hunterjay8331]

@@pulsatingsausageboy2076 I don’t think there’s anyone in the computer industry right now that can really compete with Apple’s M1, not to mention the outrageously thin and colorful new iMacs (nodding to the original iMac). And remember back with that original iMac, they shipped an operating system that was genuinely a step down from windows at that time. Today MacOS is more appealing than it ever has been before to both pro and average users, and the install base is growing faster than ever. And Apple copycats are not new, remember the emachines version of the iMac G3?

[@pulsatingsausageboy2076]

The colored iMacs isn’t innovating. That’s bringing back something they’ve already done before. MacOS is great but that’s software and there’s not much there that isn’t being done on Windows. Just being done better in most cases. Whether copycats are new isn’t relevant to what I said about Apple’s innovation.

[@kalebmaxwell5725]

When I was young, Steve was a hero to me. From the age of seven till I was sixteen I wanted an original iMac g3. Even though the first one came out four years before I was born. One day when I was sixteen, I was walking home from a Fourth of July parade and there I saw it. A 2000 iMac g3 blue on the side of the road. I immediately picked it up and brought it home. Surprisingly it fired right up and loaded and old version of osx. Since then I have restored it to its original condition and is one of my closest possessions. When I was 13 I built my first computer because of the inspiration that Steve gave me. This man was a genius and a legend. The world is by far a better place today because of him. I hope that he is looking down on all of us computer guys/gals and continues to guide computing from the other side. Rest in peace Steve. Thank you.

[@jasonjason2674]

Shout out Apple team two for apple 2 Computer

[@marknolido5968]

Ok

[@brenolad]

Even after all these years, the iMac still looks like something from the future.

[@ShiftyStans]

"Interim CEO" - the only entrepreneur to found the greatest company in the world, twice.

[@crystal_english_himeji]

I bought iMac model B. I had two issues. 1. The mouse cable was too short. It wasn't designed for left handed people. 2. The memory was too slow. Once i installed 128 MB it ran like a dream.

[@ConorDaRobin]

Model A is better.

[@karlimo4034]

Cool design but low specs and short cables... Apple is so like Nintendo...

[@hariahindarwin5451]

​@@karlimo4034what?

[@cxvxcbcxn]

Say what you will about Apple but when they had Steve at least their product reveals were exciting!

[@douglasgreen437]

Elon Musk now...

[@nathanhargenrader645]

It gets lost in a lot of the other things apple made over the year, but this was such an awesome product to ahead of its time and influenced so much of computing going forward. It also hugely raised the bar for consumer pcs. Absolute genius product. This was the moment apple truly returned to the forefront

[@hermanwooster8944]

Agreed. It put Apple on the front page of tech again. It had a unique design. Everyone knew it was an Apple product, and it just looked great. This was at a time when PC makers put no thought into their looks because they were thought of as business machines. Apple made a consumer product for consumers at the right moment when more people were considering a home PC. I consider the iMac as the first major success with Steve Jobs back in as CEO and instrumental to making the iPod.

[@SohiniPal-nw5gs]

Really an amazing video.very nicely descripted everything.it helps a lot of people.easy to understand also.easily depicted what it wanted to say.thank you for such valuable and informative video.

[@jeb678910]

I cry every time I watch this. Computers were never the same after this moment. Thanks Steve! Miss you.

[@ZacBLive]

What?

[@ChanduKale]

I am watching it as comparison with the next huge leap with the M1 chip. Steve and Phil would have been extremely excited with it. Well, Phil is there still as an Apple Fellow, but no longer in the presentation.

[@merlinoner]

What a star. This guy was a true genius in at his thing...

[@rahulvinalnarayan9743]

The best innovator in computing science technology. We need another Steve Jobs for today’s Apple

[@bouxesas2046]

He was no innovator. He was just a good presenter and salesman.

[@Mecha120]

@@bouxesas2046 innovator's the wrong word, visionary would be the word I would use. He had his own vision that went against the grain of tech trends at the time and it was his vision that made a people that would otherwise have no interest in computers suddenly become interested. He did it a second time with smartphones when most people didn't care to have a Palm OS phone or Blackberry, but all flocked over once he revealed the first iPhone.

[@ghostlycry246]

@@Mecha120 Just what I wanted to comment XD

[@EduSanchez]

Hello, have you hear about Elon Musk

[@ferrreira]

@@EduSanchez how many of his products have entered the mainstream?

[@rbnickel4]

i love how steve jobs structured his keynotes like a business presentation

[@freddjie3097]

Yep, at that point he still needed to appease investors to get money just for the company to stay afloat. Investors like improvement, so that’s what he gave

[@jleddy]

Not a glowing ‘EXIT’ sign in sight

[@edoardodalpra4742]

...so? Not triggered just asking

[@HunterShows]

They had those in 1998.

[@looking_33]

@@edoardodalpra4742liberal agenda ruined product presentation

[@Donyourmom]

@@edoardodalpra4742watch Steve Jobs (2015)

[@ziggybadans]

​@@edoardodalpra4742Was a major part in the movie, Steve wanted the exit lights off in the original Mac launch.

[@annetteabrecht9231]

People have been working really hard. You can see a lot of cars in the in the parking lots at nights and on weekends." This was classic Steve Jobs. He made sometimes the impossible possible. The iMac and the Apple 2 are only 2 examples. But you can be sure that his teams would have really liked to send him to the moon at times.

[@marcomusicmaker1419]

Sorry...one of the greatest keyboards ever + one of the worst mouses ever. For the rest, specs-wise it was a bomb

[@DavidKingNT]

Steve Jobs talking... To the attendants: I'm back. I'll grow the Company, look at this numbers. And... this is the iMac, is awesome. To himself: Hey bitches, I'm back. The ones who almost destroyed the company are fired and I'm take the control and make Apple great again. Shits like the Pippin and the iMate are out, this the iMac, the future of Apple and the entire compute industry.

[@Vidata]

It changed the world

[@alexjobsofficial]

 Think different.

[@lord-jarc]

8:00 2020: AMD is ripping Intel, yeh, history is cruel

[@standupyak]

dude thats a PowerPC G3 not AMD

[@cameroncross2560]

Shout out to the apple2 team😂

[@realomon]

its july 2023. still watching it.

[@SJApple4Evr]

😢😢RIP Steve the greatest innovator ever👍🙏 Apple market cap 1998=$1.8B today = $1,378 T even when the “other” mediocre cod ripped it off many times over

[@PathfinderHistoryTravel]

1:42 The “non-key” employees felt ripped off.

[@sivavarma1502]

phil and steve actually look like the presenters from telemarketing but selling the actual good products 😂😂

[@OldAussieAds]

Apple has made many computers over the years. But it was the original compact Mac that felt more than a computer. It was it's own thing with it's own personality... The Mac. The iMac was the closest they got to this phenomenon again, and I'd say they did a pretty good job.

[@benjsmithproductions]

Judy Jetson's Easy Bake Oven

[@ACT.PODCAST]

i don't f**g know why people watch kim kardashian shows more than this beauty

[@nileshmakwana1810]

Acknowledge Apple-II team.

[@Antphoneigh]

17:50 "these things are uuuuugllly!"

[@steveb1972]

I’ve still got my 233MHz Bondi blue iMac. Until 5 years ago I was still using it as a music server running OS X 10.2 Still going well, safe and sound, tucked up in his original box, although I did replace the 5 Gb HD! Lol

[@highwayvigilante]

Jeez Phil sold me on the Compaq with that intro

[@charlesdjones1]

Still enjoying my PowerPC processor in the Wii U lol.

[@LeicaM11]

All companies do need controllers demanding, supporting engineers and not braking and demotivating them.

[@kupwav]

Those CompUSA Mac "sections" (not stores) were always rough. Half the products didn't work or were dirty and scratched up; no employees to help you. It is a far cry from how their products are present and sold today in their stores.

[@MikeLikesChannel]

Those sections were so depressing, we have CompUSA’s utter incompetence to thank for modern Apple Stores.

[@CeciliaGhivarello]

Get Tim Cook to constantly reiterate the 5 Core values.

[@kioky]

Watching using MacBook Pro - 2.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 Screen: 15 inch 1920 x 1080 pixels

[@TechOutAdam]

Screw the Apple II team and all those that doubted Steve when he was fired.

[@MonacoPoker]

5:14 He was shocking right !

[@fcSTEAMERS]

Absolutely love his passion and determination to make Apple awesome again! 🍏✨

[@LeafInTheWind88]

This is the one I had back in 1999 when I was a little girl. I loved my computer💙

[@macguru9999]

still looks great ... i have one in BONDI BLUE :)

[@TeamEvilPug]

Apple TWO in DA House!

[@Brandonyoungblood50]

Is there a higher res of this video. Steve would hate this video.

[@ianshyu]

Crazy that we have a iMac with 16 GB memory from 32 MB, 2 TB SSD from a 4 GB spinning hard drive, 10,000 GB Ethernet from 100 MB, 6 speakers from 2, and a 24 inch screen from 15. We also have it in colors, it’s 11.5mm and weights 9.75 pounds.

[@KCM25NJL]

10,000 GB Ethernet? Are you from the future? xD

[@SithLordAnakin]

Cool Bandwidth Story, Bro

[@CookLaurel-s4n]

Robinson Shirley Hernandez Jose Clark Kimberly

[@jasonmrosko7168]

Apple 2 will have the biggest houses on the unemployment line

[@MikePianoMan85]

Watching this on my iPhone 15 pro.... Just imagine having this phone back then..

[@SithLordAnakin]

You wouldve been robbed

[@JamesBledsoe-m1o]

Wilson Kimberly Miller Margaret Harris Edward

[@googlegilbertlevinmars322]

Wasn’t very happy with apple with iPhone lately but I am happy to say as someone who grew up in the 2000s in a private Catholic school who had these computers, thanks for the new 2021 iMac m1 chip version baseline. Brings back nostalgia. Do I want green or purple? Amazing stuff.

[@lect0n7]

Speaking as someone who grew up starting on an Apple ][ plus, then had Windows PC’s (going from Windows 3.1 to Windows 3.11 Windows for Workgroups, to Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, _then BACK to 2000)_ Currently, I have a 2012 Apple MacBook Pro (which came stock w/ 4GB Ram & 500GB HDD) which started running like shit around 2019, & *NOW* has 16GB RAM & a 1TB SSD which I did myself in my bedroom _[All of that being said]_ Do you have *ANY IDEA* how easily it’d be to manipulate the Compaq PC’s so they’d intentionally run like shit? They could’ve been running Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Kinetix 3D Studio Max, and take up all the memory with 3D rendering & TSR _(terminate-and-stay memory residents programs)_ which their programmers could’ve programmed easily

[@seanhamilton4169]

The low resolution of the video made sense to distribute on the World Wide Web in 1998 as people used dial-up internet (has a maximum speed of 56,000 bits for every second), but we now need higher quality footage of the full event now that internet speeds have improved. This upload is not of the full event as portions of the event done after the 26:50 mark are missing from this upload. Apple, Inc. published a video to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Steve Jobs's death, and that video contains a short excerpt of this event. Apple's montage contains higher quality footage of this exact event and other events from the late 1990s to the early 2000s for which the footage widely distributed is at varying levels of low quality due to internet speeds of the time (Uniform Resource Locator: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZa2cp2BZ6h1e6M (footage of this event is at 1:05-1:14 in the montage); Apple's montage contains video material from the 1980s, which predates the internet as a common thing). It is unknown what the storage medium of the footage of the event is, but if the video was recorded to the storage medium as interlaced (every other line in the frame is captured at different intervals), the footage as uploaded to the World Wide Web needs to be stored and displayed at the intended temporal resolution caused by the interlacing (The excerpt present in Apple's montage is most likely missing half the frames: Apple's upload is at 30 images per second while the intended temporal resolution is 60 images per second).

[@youtubehub8190]

17:49 lmaoo

[@EnglishPolishOnline]

I've been a fan of Steve Jobs for 11 years now and I really appreciate the quality of Apple products. However, I was always into DOS and Windows 95/98 and I really think they were the better options - because they were OPEN. I still can't deal with Apple's closed ecosystem bullshit. Having said that, I respect Apple. Weird but true.

[@sxymike12]

My grandparents got one of these and I thought they just put a case over their Macintosh Perfoma than I started using it and realized it was a new one. The first thing that came out of my mouth was "Can I have the performa"? 🤣🤣

[@sawilliams]

Why does it look like its from 1942?

[@ricardomlourenco]

The greatest showman! 👏

[@jajajajajaja867]

Steve was one of a kind

[@keithsweat7513]

This was the start of the most valuable company on earth (yhea I know they tetter with another company bite me)

[@GXKid06]

Watching this on a ipad with 8 gigs of ram like 👀 a screamer?

[@OmarQunsul]

He made me want to buy it in 2023 😅

[@supernastja_art]

25 years later 💀💀💀💀💀

[@deepthread]

He was talking about 100 million profit and 2 billion valuation

[@buowerc]

hard

[@davidc1280]

Le meilleur iMac jamais construit

[@britneyworld]

In 1998 Abdul traya registered the apple iMac domain . So interesting

[@johndoe5743]

The G3 is, to this day, the most beautiful computer ever designed

[@XxsoonerbornxX]

He saved the company more than once and they still tried to oust him.

[@galloe]

That thing looks like Judy Jetson's Easy Bake Oven.

[@CCFREFS]

I remember using these In an internet cafe in the early 2000s

[@Tobtura]

Steve Jobs invented THE SHADE OF IT ALLL

[@auralplex]

If you think about it, Apple is the same today with the M1 processors. M1 run much faster, cooler, and as a result, basically silently compared to Intel/Windows offerings. Steve Jobs really was an incredible human being for the tech world with his vision.

[@NKWTI]

Yes, I've noticed that too. Great stuff.

[@MosesMatsepane]

No one sold products better than Steve.

[@iamgermane]

If the PowerPC chip was so good they would still be using it! Ya they abandoned it for the Intel chips!

[@looking_33]

And they abandoned those too, time moves forward.

[@YouB3anz]

looks like judy jetsons easy bake oven

[@nextgencupid]

Shout out to apple 2 team, just the top guys

[@856hooligan]

Little did he know it would be around almost 30 years from then lol

[@chriswy697]

What software was the "director" demo using?

[@ferrreira]

Director, from Macromedia

[@looking_33]

director. lol.

[@celioazevedoofficial]

Steve Jobs, genius, the best.

[@Brandonyoungblood50]

Did he use a teleprompter?

[@mahmudhasanworld]

Still I want to have one with same design

[@iamgermane]

13 years later he was dead.

[@CuartoDieciseis]

Historical moments part 1

[@TwoPencils]

Computer history's DINOSAURS

[@kortejan690]

Mmbop, mmbob.... The Hansson era. I personally thought this computer kinda sucked.

[@EmlynInTheMix]

Damn what happened to infrared technology?

[@impracticalrunner7529]

Bluetooth killed the infrared

[@rbrick3685]

It got murdered by the much better and more reliable Bluetooth

[@looking_33]

@@rbrick3685I still use it on my tv remote

[@kortejan690]

It's really, really fast. It's really, really big.

[@evodgamehunter4290]

It was really compacted for a fully functional desktop at the time. You have to give credit where it’s due