iMac to Go

Apple introduced the iBook to fill in the fourth space in their reinvented "product matrix", an effort by returning CEO Steve Jobs to simplify Apple's product line into four distinctive spaces. 'Pro desktop' and 'Pro portable' were already filled by the Power Macintosh and PowerBooks, while a 'consumer desktop' was introduced with the iMac. All that remained was the 'consumer portable', which was finally introduced by Jobs as the iMac-styled iBook. Armed with a G3 and with the ability to add wireless networking thanks to AirPort, it was a hit, spawning a line of Macs which would continue until the Intel switchover of 2006.

The iBook has gone through two processor lines, two major case designs, and a number of small revisions along the way, its clock speed increasing by over a gigahertz and memory capacity expanding along with bigger hard disks, screens, and more. The concept of the consumer portable was a coup for Apple, who were able to sell many a laptop to people who would otherwise not have bought a costlier PowerBook. Its spirit lives on in the Intel-powered MacBook series.

iBooks typically boast excellent battery life, while offering performance equivalent to the prior generation of PowerBooks. While therefore not suitable for those who needed every drop of performance from their portables, the iBook line was typically not too far behind. The one major flaw in the iBooks was their case designs, in that opening them was routinely difficult. This made replacing and upgrading the hard and optical drives far harder than it needed to be.

Clamshell iBooks

• iBook July 1999-September 2000
  Introduced at MacWorld New York, the iBook represented a complete change from Apple's traditional black PowerBooks, just as the iMac represented a change from the Power Macs of before. Clad in a unique clamshell case with no physical latch, and looking similar to the iMac, it was quite the striking design, featuring some unique touches such as a built-in handle. The first iBooks sported a 300Mhz or 366Mhz G3 processor, and featured tray-loading CD-ROM drives; neither was upgradeable, however by popping open the keyboard one could install more RAM or add an AirPort card, connecting it to the antenna which runs through the iBook's display. The display itself features an 800x600 resolution; while useable enough for Mac OS 9, this is quite cramped if you choose to run Mac OS X on it. With enough RAM, it'll run either OS respectably. Original iBooks come in either 'Blueberry' or 'Tangerine' colours.


• iBook (FireWire) September 2000-May 2001
  The first revision of the iBook bumped the basic clock speed up to 366Mhz, and increased the hard disk to 10GB. A new colour was added (Key Lime), while one was dropped (Tangerine). The big difference, however, was the inclusion of a FireWire port - introduced on the Blue and White Power Macintosh G3, this high-speed interface was considerably faster than the USB port also offered, and allows for connecting to fast external drives and devices, as well as networking and FireWire Target Disk mode.
  
  There was also introduced a 'Special Edition' iBook, available in Key Lime or Graphite, boasting a nippy 466Mhz G3 and a tray-loading DVD-ROM drive, with a DVD decoder built-in to allow users to watch DVD movies on their iBook. The combination of a fast G3, AirPort, FireWire and DVD makes this the king of the early iBooks, and still a viable machine today if you can ignore the still-too-low 800x600 resolution.

Dual USB G3s

• iBook (Dual USB) May 2001-October 2001
  In typical Apple fashion, this revision of the iBook is referred to by the addition of another USB port - not the fact that the entire case has been redesigned! Now boasting a sleek, white exterior with transparency (dubbed the 'iceBook' by fans), the new iBook G3 retains all the features of the clamshells while improving on the clock speed (now 500Mhz), expandability (that second USB port), the optical drive (with CD-RW and combo drives now available), and at last the display, boasting a 12" monitor with 1024x768 resolution. Built-in RAM was either 64 or 128MB.


• iBook (Late 2001) October 2001-May 2002
  A speed bump of the iBook, offering up to a 600Mhz G3 (on a new 100Mhz bus), bigger hard disks, and 128Mb RAM on all models.


• iBook (14") October 2001-May 2002
  Alongside the above Late 2001 iBook came the third case design: a 14" iBook, styled in the same way as the white 12" iBooks but offering a bigger display (at the same resolution), a 600Mhz G3, 256MB RAM, a 20GB hard drive and a 'Combo drive'. Its larger battery boasted up to 6 hours' life on a single charge.


• iBook (16MB VRAM) and iBook (14" 16MB VRAM) May 2002-November 2002
  Another speed boost followed in May, increasing all iBooks' clock speed to 600 and 700Mhz. All iBooks now ran on a 100Mhz CPU bus, too. More importantly, the minimum hard drive capacity was now 20GB in the 12" model and 30GB in the 14", while all models now had 16MB of video RAM to play with on a new ATi Mobility Radeon - double the previous amount and a welcome increase. The CD-RW drive was dropped, options now reduced to either a tray-loading CD-ROM drive or a tray-loading combo drive.


• iBook (32MB VRAM) and iBook (14" 32MB VRAM) November 2002-April 2003
  With the clock speed increased to 800Mhz, the iBooks now lost their translucent outer shell and keyboard, instead becoming a uniform opaque white but otherwise identical in design to their previous models. However, the VRAM had again been doubled to a full 32MB, and the GPU had been upgraded to a Mobility Radeon 7500.


• iBook (800/900Mhz) and iBook (14" 800/900Mhz) April 2003-October 2003
  The final revision of the iBook G3 offered the fastest G3 processors Apple would ever ship - a speedy 900Mhz now being available and standard on the 14" model. Again the VRAM was a full 32MB, making this the fastest G3-powered Mac available from Apple. Apple knew however that the G3 was a little outdated at this point, and so had a couple of tricks up their sleeve...

iBooks G4

• iBook G4 October 2003-April 2004
  The first model of the iBook to be outfitted with a G4 replaced the last Macintosh Apple sold with a G3. The system bus again rose to 133Mhz to help, with 800, 933 and 1Ghz PowerPC G4 CPUs available. Memory was now provided by 128MB of DDR, and wireless networking was (as with all iBooks) available, this time using Apple's AirPort Extreme card. The dual USB ports and FireWire of the G3s were carried over, too, although the USB ports are now the speedier USB 2.0. Bluetooth was also an optional extra. The iBook G4 shipped in 12" and 14" sizes for all models. Graphics were provided by a 32MB ATi Radeon 9200. The iBook G4 also sees the end of tray-loading optical drives in Apple portables: from now on, slot-loading drives were used, in keeping with the sleek case design (but, however, eschewing the emergency eject hole by the same stroke).

  One point of note is that the 800Mhz model is the only iBook G4 officially incapable of running Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard"), which requires an 867Mhz or greater PowerPC G4. However, installing from a supported Mac via Target Disk Mode should result in a working system.

  No iBook G4 supports Mac OS 9.



• iBook G4 (Early 2004) April 2004-October 2004
  At long last, the on-board memory of the iBook was increased, now doubled to 256MB of DDR. The CPU speed was increased, too, dropping the sub-gigahertz models and adding one at a much faster 1.2Ghz. The combo and SuperDrive speeds were also increased, but otherwise this was a routine speed bump.


• iBook G4 (Late 2004) October 2004-July 2005
  Another slight speed bump of the line saw 1.2Ghz and 1.33Ghz models offered, with the low-end iBook seeing a price drop. The mid-range model gained an extra 20GB of hard drive space, while the top-end received a SuperDrive as standard.


• iBook G4 (Mid 2005) June 2005-May 2006
  The final revision of the iBook saw plenty of new features added. First and foremost, RAM was again bumped to 512MB DDR (very welcome for Mac OS X), while the CPU clock was upped to 1.33 and 1.42Ghz. Airport Extreme and Bluetooth were fitted as standard, soldered to the motherboard instead of the usual add-in expansion card. This model iBook also saw a hard drive upgrade to 40GB on the low-end model, and all models inherited the PowerBook's scrolling trackpad, a very welcome addition. Another feature brought to the iBook line from the PowerBook was the Sudden Motion Sensor, which would park the hard drive heads if a jolt or other swift movement were detected. The graphics card saw its first and last change, upped to a 32MB ATi Radeon 9550.