The ripoffs continue unabated; Apple has a long history of watching its innovations get poached by other companies, and what better place to see the latest crop of cheap knock-offs than PC Expo? The iMac's runaway success has led PC makers to adopt some or all of the iMac's distinctive characteristics in an attempt to horn in on the action: ease of use, all-in-one design, and colorful, playful enclosures are all pages from the iMac's book that are being photocopied in the latest offerings from the PC world. While many of the "hottest" items are ones we've already examined, like Packard Bell NEC's all-in-one Z1 (which looks like the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh's uglier little brother), some of these new systems really illustrate just how deep the iMac influence goes.

Take, for example, Microworkz's new iToaster, described in an MSNBC article. (Gee, the "i" stands for "Internet." Wonder where they got that idea?) The iToaster takes the whole "computer as appliance" theme to an extreme which may or may not catch on; basically, it's a $199 black box that you can connect to a monitor or a television and whose interface is nothing more complex than a slicker-looking Launcher. Turn it on, click one of the buttons to launch an application or visit a web site, and just turn the thing off when you're done. The iToaster is meant to represent the ultimate in simplicity and hassle-free computing. (To that end, at least Microworkz was smart enough not to put Windows on the thing.) Now, if you're looking at the price, functionality, and target market and thinking the iToaster sounds quite a bit like a WebTV, yeah, so do we. The interesting bit to us, though, is how clearly Microworkz is trying to capitalize on the iMac's success with its name and "appliance-grade" ease-of-use.

Think that's a stretch? Well, okay, then we'll take a detour into the Land of the Truly Shameless™. Faithful viewer Eg'z (that's pronounced "eeeeeg'z," by the way) was kind enough to point us towards a CNET article listing the "hottest hardware [they] could find" while walking the PC Expo floor. And what's at the top of the list? The Future Power "E-Power," which CNET describes as "iMac style on a PC." Take one look at the picture, and you'll see what they mean... To say that Future Power has copied the iMac's design "exactly" wouldn't be much of an exaggeration. It's got the iMac's all-in-one design, the same distinctive shape, the same two-tone color scheme. Heck, it's even got the same five fruit flavors, just renamed as jewel colors: amethyst, emerald, ruby, sapphire, and topaz. In AtAT's collective opinion, the E-Power looks so much like an iMac, Apple should have some pretty solid ground for filing and winning a trade dress lawsuit, since the average consumer could easily see an ad for the iMac and wind up buying an E-Power by accident instead. (By the way, we wouldn't mind seeing Apple steal some ideas back from Future Power-- the E-Power has twice the RAM of an iMac and only costs $799.)