important models at a glance

As early as 2003, apple predicted that notebooks would outstrip classic desktop computers. The forecast was true - apple has long since sold significantly more notebooks than desktop macs. In a new article, mactechnews.de introduces the long history of apple notebooks, discusses the early models and describes how the concept of portable macs has evolved over more than 20 years.

macintosh portable (1989)

In september 1989, apple made its first attempt to launch a portable macintosh. Of course, you could carry the classic cube mac around without any major problems, but it wasn't designed for that. This first portable macintosh was called "macintosh portable", was delivered with mac os 6.0.4, weighed just under 8 kilograms and even had a hard drive with up to 40 megabytes on request. Apple used a motorola 68000 with a clock speed of 16 mhz and 0.5 kb l1 cache as the processor. For an extra charge of several thousand marks, the ram could be expanded from one to nine megabytes. The active matrix display with 9.8" supported a resolution of 640x400 pixels - considerably less than an ipad. Apple did not find many customers with the macintosh portable. The device was unwieldy, heavy, extremely slow, could hardly be expanded - and cost at least 6500 dollars.

the first powerbooks

4000 dollars cheaper than a macintosh portable, a third of the weight, just as slow and no internal floppy drive - apple made the next attempt with this recipe. The powerbook 100 received relatively good reviews, found numerous customers and coined a product name that apple retained for almost 15 years. At the same time as the powerbook 100, apple also released the powerbook 140 and powerbook 170 models. The powerbook 100 served as the cheapest model; the logic board developed and produced by sony was also responsible for the lower price. In the powerbook 140 and 170, apple relied on its own board and motorola's considerably more powerful 68030 processor. 25 mhz, l1 cache and even a floating point unit made the powerbook 170 a quite fast portable device. With a base price of 4600 dollars, however, you had to put more than twice as much money on the table as for a slower powerbook 100 without a floppy drive.

powerbook 165c/180c

As a mac user, you were denied quite long color displays. While color monitors had long been standard in the pc camp, apple only gradually switched to color in the 90s. The first powerbook with an active matrix color display was the powerbook 180c, released in june 1993, which allowed only 16 shades of gray and now had 256 colors available. With the powerbook 165c, there had already been a color display, but it relied on a passive matrix and was therefore not nearly as sharp as the powerbook 180c. With a clock speed of 33 mhz, apple also used the fastest processor ever installed in a powerbook. Up to 160 mb of data could already be carried on the go. For the color representation, apple had to resort to a graphics chip with 512 kb of memory. The predecessor model of the powerbook only had 128 kb, and before that there were not even its own graphics chips.

macintosh duodock / powerbook duo

The in-between laptop and desktop. The overall system consisted of a stationary and a mobile unit. If the user worked at the desk, the mobile device was pushed into a kind of docking station. The dimensions were impressive. The macbook air is not apple's first ultra-compact notebook, apple already had a notebook in the mid-90s with the dimensions of a sheet of paper weighing only two kilograms in its range. Between 1992 and 1997, apple launched the duo 210, 230, 250, 270c, 280, 280c, and 2300c models. The small keyboard, which made text input a bit difficult, caused criticism. Apple first offered models with passive matrix displays, but then switched to the much sharper active matrix displays.

powerbook 500-series: showing its curves

The powerbook 500 series introduced a long-awaited refresh to the powerbook line. Released in may 1994, the 500 series (code-named “Blackbird”) bid farewell to the boxy “snow white” design of the powerbook 100 series and replaced it with a smoother design inspired by the powerbook duo.  The duo remained on sale as Apple’s lightweight notebook while the 500 took over the full-sized spot. Along with the duo 280 and 280c introduced at the same time, the powerbook 500 models were the first powerbook to replace the workhorse 68030 cpu with a fast 68040. In addition it is notable for adding various new features to the powerbook line including the trackpad, expansion bay, and built-in ethernet.

powerbook 190/190c

Introduced in august 1995, the powerbook 180/180c was apple's last mac with motorola's 68k processor. The 68lc040 had a clock speed of up to 66 mhz and had 8 kb of l1 cache. An expansion slot made it possible to use third-party drives, and the device also had two card slots. An infrared receiver was available as an option, and external monitors could also be connected. Apple shipped the powerbook 190c with 4 or 8 mb of ram, up to 40 mb in total were supported. Nothing changed in the resolution, which remained at 640x480 pixels. Apple sold the powerbook 190cs with a color display for a price of 2300 dollars. With the switch from 68k processors to the powerpc platform, the powerbook 190 became the end of an era. Since the first macintosh in 1984, apple had relied on the 68k platform, but with the powerpc, a much more powerful architecture was now available.

powerbook 5300 - switching to powerpc

Apple wanted to do everything right with this model in the summer of 1995 and set the highest expectations for the concept. With the powerbook 5300, apple introduced the first notebook with a powerpc processor, which was the successor to the very successful powerbook 500 series. At that time, there were four models with processors of different speeds (powerpc 603e with 100 or 117 mhz), and various screens from 9.5" to 10.4" with up to 16 bit color depth. The right solution should be available for every user. However, it soon became apparent that apple could do little to counter the market launch of windows 95. The powerbook 5300 was plagued by a number of problems, from the highly flammable batteries to motherboard failures and breaking cases. The recall, which was mainly due to the installed battery, led to enormous supply bottlenecks, so that no new devices could be delivered at all. The expression "dead on arrival" was also often heard, many devices arrived at the customer defective. Apple's reputation suffered sustainably from the catastrophic market launch of the powerbook 5300.

powerbook 1400

Apple used an internal cd drive for the first time in october 1996. The powerbook 1400 was available with a powerpc processor of 117, 133 or 166 mhz. Up to two gb of data could be taken with you on the go, and the user could also upgrade the device to 64 mb of ram. Modules for ethernet or video cards were also possible via the expansion bays. Originally, the powerbook 1400 was delivered with system 7.5.2, the last system still supported is mac os 9.1. An update to mac os 9.2 or even os x, on the other hand, was no longer possible. A word about the screen resolution: it increased from 640x480 to 800x600 pixels. The graphics chip now had one mb of its own memory as standard.

macintosh powerbook G3

The next huge step came in november 1997 with the macintosh powerbook g3. A clock speed of 250 mhz and the 100 mhz backside cache, which was used for the first time, enabled computing power that was previously not possible in notebooks. The powerbook g3 had a new interior, but still had the design of the older powerbook 3400. By the way, it was not possible to install mac os x on the first powerbook g3. While the successor already supported mac os x 10.2.8 at most, the powerbook g3 had to stay with os 9.1. The powerbook g3 was delivered with mac os 8. The direct successor to the powerbook g3 appeared six months later in a completely new design and for the first time with 3d graphics acceleration in an apple laptop (ati 3d rage lt). The clock speed increased to up to 292 mhz, and an additional battery, an optical drive or a zip drive could also be inserted via the expansion slot. The customer had the choice between 12.1", 13.3" and 14.1" for the display. With good equipment, the price was about 7000 dollars, the cheapest model was available from 2299 dollars.

Ibook G3

The imac quickly turned out to be a great success - and apple also wanted to offer a comparable concept on the notebook market. Analogous to powermac and imac, there should therefore be powerbook and ibook. In july 1999, the first ibook was released. Depending on the perception, the ibook g3 was either called a "women's handbag" or pejoratively called a "toilet lid". Even if the design was controversial, the concept itself was quite impressive. The ibook g3 came with airport, relied on agp graphics, had a carrying handle and made use of apple's new "unified logic board architecture" (uma). Apple was thus able to use important components in all model series, thus saving costs and also accelerating further development. With a starting price of $1599, the ibook g3 was $900 cheaper than a powerbook. A g3 with 300 or 366 mhz was used as the processor, and an ati rage mobility provided a resolution of 800x600 pixels on the 12.1" display.

powerbook G4

Announced in january 2001, the powerbook g4 relied on a g4 processor with 400 or 500 mhz. For a starting price of 2599 dollars, you got 10 gb of storage capacity, a dvd drive and an ati rage 128 graphics card. The resolution climbed to a new record of 1152x768 pixels, and the display diagonal was 15.2 inches. Shipped with os 9.1, apple supported the first powerbook g4 up to mac os x 10.4.11. The design is also completely new: apple is fundamentally saying goodbye to the previous case design and has the new macbook pro with titanium case instead of plastic rolling off the production line. Even 10 years later, the first powerbook g4 still looks relatively modern, even if the computing power is hardly sufficient for many applications.

powerbook G4 12", 15" and 17"

Apple's ad at the time is remembered by many: the giant nba player yao ming operates a small powerbook with 12", while next to him the small vern troyer holds the 17" bolide in his hands. First, steve jobs presented the large model with 17" at the macworld expo 2003, and later showed the small version with only 12" as "one more thing", which quickly enjoyed great popularity. The powerbooks were equipped with g4 processors (867 mhz to 1 ghz), and the innovations included firewire 800 and the backlit keyboard. In the time leading up to intel's switch, apple remained true to these greats and from then on offered powerbooks with 12", 15" and 17" as well as ibooks with 12" and 14". However, customers who wanted to purchase a 15" powerbook in the new design had to be patient for another nine months. Apple switched from the previous titanium case to aluminum - still apple's preferred material today.

ibook G4

The ibook was very well received by customers and became a very popular model. After the introduction of the ibook g3, apple had fundamentally revised the design and also offered a second screen size of 14.1". In october 2003, the ibook g4 was introduced. The new model was available with up to 1.0 ghz, and the g4 processor allowed ibook users considerably more computing power than the previously used g3. For the first time, an ibook could also have more than 1 gb of ram - a memory bar (128 mb) was soldered, and an additional space allowed for larger ram. The ibook g4 also had usb 2. Depending on the equipment and size, the device cost between 1099 and 1499 dollars. This made the model $500 cheaper than the first-generation ibook.

macbook pro

In july 2005, steve jobs announced the switch to intel processors at wwdc in san francisco. Half a year later, the first intel macs were already available, much earlier than previously announced by apple (originally planned was a two-year conversion phase with the first intel devices after one year). Apple changed the name of the notebook line from powerbook to macbook pro, as it wanted to have the product designation "mac" in all computer series. The macbook pro was supposed to be launched with 1.67 and 1.83 ghz, and the ready-to-sell models even came with a core duo with 1.83 and 2.0 ghz respectively. 2.16 ghz was offered as an option at an additional cost. Furthermore, the first macbook pro had an integrated isight, an even thinner case, the magsafe power connector and front row with remote control - but firewire 800 was omitted, as was the integrated modem. The resolution was 1440x900 pixels, and even 2560x1600 pixels were possible for external monitors. Since a 32-bit processor works in the first macbook pro, it is no longer possible to install 10.7 lion. Only the successor model with core 2 duo made the switch to 64 bit and is therefore lion compatible.

macbook

The name of the successor to the ibook was pretty clear after the presentation of the macbook pro. In the run-up to the meeting, there was speculation primarily as to whether the macbook will have one or two processor cores. Apple decided to give both configurations two cores with 1.83 or 2.0 ghz. Two aspects caused heated discussions: the lack of a graphics card and the use of intel's not particularly powerful graphics chipset, as well as the reflective display. While apple had previously relied on anti-glare displays, the macbook represented a turnaround ... And was not the only model with a mirror display. Gradually, apple switched all displays to "glossy" - i.e. To high gloss. In the meantime, macbook air, macbook pro and imac have mirror displays, and the macbook pro also has anti-glare screens for an extra charge.

macbook pro with unibody case

While the first macbook pro was still clearly similar to the last powerbook, apple introduced new models in the fall of 2008. These rely on the so-called unibody housing, which is milled in one piece from aluminum. Apple expects this to provide significantly more stability, among other things. The macbook also appeared in unibody production. For a few months, there was an aluminum macbook until apple renamed the previous macbook to macbook pro nine months later and only referred to the white plastic model as "macbook". The decision to do without firewire in the macbook 13" caused a lot of excitement. The clear protest prompted apple to rely on firewire again for the successor, but to only give the white "unibody" macbook usb. The reflective display was also an innovation that caused strict rejection and loud complaints from some sides. Apple has remained true to the unibody design over the past three years. The main changes since autumn 2008 include the permanently installed batteries and the switch to processors with four processor cores. In the current series, dual-core processors work in the 13.3-inch model, while 15-inch and 17-inch quad-core processors work in macbook pro.

macbook air

In january 2008, the first macbook air was released, after months of rumors about an ultra-mobile notebook from apple. Apple did without an optical drive, expandable ram and firewire, among other things. For the horrendous surcharge of 999 dollars, an ssd could be ordered instead of a conventional hard drive; the starting price would have been just under 2800 dollars. Many users wondered what the point of such a model was - the test reports were largely negative, apple could not achieve high sales figures. However, this changed abruptly with the generation presented at the end of 2010. The problem child in the range became one of the most popular models and has enjoyed high sales figures ever since. Apple now equips all models only with an ssd instead of a conventional hard drive, relies on a core i5 (optionally also i7) instead of the aging core 2 duo and once again installs a keyboard with backlight. The macbook air is so successful that rumors are already circulating that there will soon be a macbook air 15" - in addition to the previous models with 11.6" and 13.3".