After his return to Apple in 1996, Steve Jobs chose a design that Jonathan Ive was working on to develop as a prototype for a new Apple product. The result was the iMac G3 Bondi Blue, which is credited as the Mac that saved Apple. It sold to both established Apple users and generated tremendous business with new users.

Among the computer’s innovative features is the incorporation of a digital media drive and a modem to plug straight into an internet connection. It was also the first computer to eliminate the 3.5 inch floppy drive, replacing it with the facility to connect to external devices. Other manufacturers quickly followed this lead.

The Bondi Blue’s other outstanding features are its form and colour. At a time when nearly all other computer makers were producing beige boxes, the iMac computer and screen was housed in one cone-shaped translucent plastic housing with a handle on the top.

Ive commented: “The iMac isn’t about candy-coloured computers. The iMac is about making a computer that is really quiet, that doesn’t need a fan, that wakes up in fifteen seconds, that has the best sound system in a consumer computer, a superfine display. It’s about a complete computer that expresses it on the outside as well.”

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