The “era” definitely began then but definitely didn’t have much impact other than cultural until a few years later. Really it should be called the iPod era, but even that lagged a while as Apple gave up on mainstreaming FireWire.

The iMac really did keep apple from falling down the well and dying. They were busy throwing whatever they could into the fight, and (to mix metaphors) tossing overboard anything that didn’t help. This was the era of iTunes, iDVD and iEverythingElse. The iPod was at first something to plug into that nascent iEcosystem. It began a period of growth.

Exactly my point. The iMac was a product for years before any of these other efforts. It did help, but it took all of these other products (most importantly the iPod, and eventually iTunes along with it) to really make it more than a flash in the pan. By the time it was effective, the iMac had been repositioned from an entry level computer to a status symbol (as displayed in many product placement ads), and eventually the non-workstation pro Mac. It’s iconic mainly because it was a pivotal historical point for Apple, not because it actually achieved that pivot.