BY 1997, APPLE was close to going out of business. Returning CEO Steve Jobs quickly diagnosed the problem: Apple was making too many products and they weren’t good enough. To use Jobs’ favorite quote from hockey player Wayne Gretzky, Apple needed to “skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been”. And with the iMac, Apple did. It’s hard to overstate the effect the iMac had on everything. Doomsayers mocked its lack of floppy drive and the candy–colored cases, but those colors were a tonic in a world of beige boxes and the iMac would influence the design of everything from steam irons to sex toys.
Apple sold nearly
