Engadget:

If it wasn’t for the iMac, Apple as we know it today wouldn’t exist.

Most Apple fans know the story: Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1997, after Apple bought his company Next. He took over as interim CEO that September, and immediately set about tightening up the sprawling mess of products Apple was producing. But in May of 1998, Steve Jobs introduced the first product that came to define his next decade at Apple; it went on sale three months later.

I will always maintain that it’s impossible to overestimate the importance of the iMac to Apple. It literally saved the company from a buy out by any number of vultures and is the foundation today’s Apple is built on. It’s the last remaining product from that time and Apple has kept the name for 21 years, longer than any other single product line.