The iMac was the turning point, not just for Apple, but for the industry. 'You don't need beige boxes anymore?!'. Wider USB adoption (the fact that there are still high end $300 motherboards with PS/2 speaks volumes about the PC market), the push towards non-bland designs, and from the iMac spawned renewed interest in Apple, and now we have the iPhone, which is probably more powerful than that old iMac.
I mean, it took time for Dell and crew to move to something other than beige, I think my first non-beige Dell was purchased in mid 2000, right around the time XP was coming out, it was all black instead of beige. Or rather, putty I guess is the technical term.
Soon the new iMacs will come out, allegedly with a redesigned exterior, I wonder what we will have next.
I still say the desk lamp models are one of the best ones. The slabs that we have had since then are nice I suppose, but the desk lamp actually seemed to be trying something new.