[jrmg]

The 1998 ‘Power Macintosh G3 All In One’ is an interesting stepping stone to the iMac. Beige, blockier than the iMac, but noticeably curvier than preceding Power Macs. A return to the single unit design, and the first use of translucent plastic.

https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Power_Macintosh_G3_All-In-One

[pavlov]

I believe the first use of translucent plastic by Apple was the Newton eMate 300, designed by Jonathan Ive and released in early 1997 when Gil Amelio was still CEO:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300

The photo in the Wikipedia article isn't very good. The actual color of the translucent plastic is a brighter teal, fairly close to the "Bondi Blue" of the iMac that followed.

[einr]

If you wanna dig real deep, the first use would have been on the Power Macintosh 9600. It's subtle -- you can just about see it in the Wikipedia photo -- but it has a translucent blue plastic latch button on the top of the machine that I believe is the same shade as the eMate. It was introduced about a month earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_9600

[yardie]

Similarly, Apple was experimenting with new metal casting techniques and used them to create the Sim Removal Tool included with every iPhone. The theory at the time was they were going to use this new cast in upcoming iPhones. But ended up going with milled stainless steel instead.

[pavlov]

Oh, that's cool. Sneaky Bondi button.

Also reminded me that Apple actually sold a dual 604e / 200 MHz system in the OS 8 era. I'm guessing the only software that could have made use of the second processor would have been some specially optimized routines in Photoshop or similar.

[karmelapple]

I had one and can confirm - it’s about the same as bondi blue.