the imac turns 10 but are it days numbered.

In early May of 1998, Apple launched a computer that was said to "deliver the things consumers care about most - the excitement of the Internet and the simplicity of the Mac." That computer was, of course, the iMac, a fruity-colored all-in-one machine that was advertised as being ridiculously easy to set up, use, and take online with (still a somewhat tricky process back in the late 90s). Now, 10 years on, Ars Technica takes a look back at the evolution of the iMac, and makes a few predictions about the machine's future.

Since then, the machine has shrunk considerably, ditching the giant old CRT monitor in favor of slim and bright LCD displays. Despite its size-shrink, it has also grown in performance in huge leaps and bounds. The first machine had a 233 megahertz CPU and just 32-megabytes of memory, while the latest model can be equipped with a 3.06 gigahertz CPU and two-gigabytes of memory. There's still no floppy disc on offer, though.

The iMac has continued to be quite popular, but Ars predicts its days are numbered. With two-thirds of all Macs being sold today going in laptop form, and that number doing nothing but increasing as people embrace mobile computing, the belief is that the iMac will go the way of the Macintosh Classic II, lost to the annals of history.