Imagine a sunflower. Now imagine a computer that looks like one. Now imagine a sunflower-style computer that runs a interface that mimics the appearance and feeling of glass. That’s what I’m staring at – at least online – and I can’t look away from this iMac G4 that runs floating glass.
It’s pretty mashup. The iconic IMAC G4 launched 23 years ago with OS X and Liquid Glass is part of MacOS Tahoe 26 Public Beta, launched just a few days ago. The project, discovered by 9TO5MAC, is the brain child of Colby Sheets, which first took 2002 all-in-one, turned it off and installed an M1 MAC Mini in 2021.
He posted about it on X, and in this latest follow-up he showed a few pictures of what MacOS 26 would look like on the iMac G4S fluent, 15-inch active matrix LCD screen.
Liquid glass in MacOS 26 Tahoe looks great on iMac G4 BTW 🙂↕ Pic.twitter.com/VKSD7OEFD4August 2, 2025
In a word it looks nice, but it’s not just that the macOS 26 interface is trying to run on the fine line between frosted glass mimic and readable interface elements. I’m not sure I would be so captivated if it wasn’t on the all-framed first floating screen, all-in-one iMac.
I have some attachment to this system because it leads me back to a central moment in technical history.
It was a recession, not a good time for computing or even the Internet, which experienced the demand for the quick deflation of the dot-com bubble. Our industry needed something.
The last design and development kick had come surprisingly from Apple, who, under returning CEO Steve Jobs’ guidance, introduced the first candy-colored all-in-one iMac, which was both a design and commercial hit.
Things had been relatively quiet since then, with only the original iPod, more of a consumer electronic unit, to inspire Apple Minions and gadget enthusiasts as a whole. On the computer side it was doldrums. Many of Windows Whitebox PC companies were either acquired or disappeared (Gateway, Emachines, Zeos), and what the rest of the industry produced was mostly uninspiring tower -PCs.
Blooming technology
IMAC arrived as a cover story in Time Magazine on January 14, 2002. It was weeks before the unofficial reveal of the product on Macworld, so we all pore over the story and wondered about the images of this truly unique system.
With only a 10.4 inch in diameter, circular, dome-white base, chromium arm and liquid thin panel display, the iMac G4 did not look like the last iMac or any of the all-in-one PCs that then fill Best Buy, Circuit City and Micro Center shelves.
The design was quite intentional. Jobs told that time for the conversation he had in his flower garden in the backyard with then Apple designer Jony Iive about how the new iMac should deviate from the previous and undoubtedly still quite popular model.
“Why have a flat screen if you have to glome all these things on your back? Why stand a computer on its side when it really wants to be horizontal and on the ground? Let each element be what it is, be true to oneself.” Instead of looking like the old iMac, the thing should look more like the flowers in the garden. Jobs said, “It should look like a sunflower.”
And so does. The iMac G4 (for the CPU inside) is arguably the most plant -like of all iMacs sooner or later. New iMacs still have a floating display, but the base is flat and devoid of components, which now all fit nicely inside the screen panel body. Any other design and Colby Sheets probably couldn’t have pushed the Mac Mini components inside the classic iMac.
Up close and still out of reach
A few months after the Time Magazine article and the Macworld launch, an iMac G4 finally arrived at the PC magazine where I worked in 2002. Personally, it was even more impressive. Our first look paid tribute to the design of the new system, though we were not excited about the “unimportant” keyboard and one-button mouse. Still the bundled software that included iMovie, iTunes, IDVD (the system could burn CDs and DVDs), and iPhoto was out among PC offers.
My romance of this design is a direct result of its briefness. Apple switched away from the Sunflower look within two years and replaced it with the iMac G5, which set the design language for all future iMacs.
However, I have reason to think about the iMac G4 every so often. On many of my weekly walks with my wife, we drive through our small town and walk past all the business shops. Inside one, quite close to a window, is an iMac G4. I’ve never seen it turned on, but every time I fantasize about marjoring into the company and asking the proprietor to sell it to me.
Maybe one day. And then I assume that I am tarnishing it and running macos 26.
