TECH TITANS: APPLE DESKTOPS

The top non-booky Macs ranked for greatness

Behind blue dyes

The clear blue shell let you gawp at the innards. This wasn't a first for Apple, but it looked a lot better than the old eMate 300.

Spy generation

Rivals snarked at Apple replacing floppy disks and other legacy tech with a CD drive and USB ports... and then did exactly the same.

01 iMAC G3

The iMac was in many ways a spiritual successor to the very first Macintosh. Here was an all-in-one that was radically different from anything else out there; a computer for the rest of us'; and a piece of hardware that changed everything for Apple.

In hindsight, it all seems obvious. The iMac showed off Apple's eye for design, in being a computer you didn't want to hide away: instead of a beige box, you got something that simultaneously appeared to have been beamed in from both The Jetsons and the actual future.

But it wasn't all surface: Apple had considered the entire experience. Out of the box, it could get you online. The screen was great. The speakers were thumpy. And although it wasn't the most powerful computer around, it offered more than enough clout for most people.

Its retro-futuristic cool grabbed hold to the point that the entire tech industry began frenziedly sticking transparent plastic to their wares in the (vain) hope of replicating Apple's success.