July 21, 1999: The iBook, Apple’s colourful clamshell laptop computer that’s a hybrid of the iMac and the PowerBook, arrives and launches a Wi-Fi revolution.
Apple’s new AirPort networking card is the important thing part that delivers cable-free web entry to the lots for the primary time.
Apple iBook brings Wi-Fi to the laptop computer occasion
Visually, the iBook resembled a continuation of the “lickable” aesthetic of the colourful iMac G3, which launched a yr earlier. The iMac G3 got here in a variety of brilliant, translucent colours, with a curvy design and a rubberized texture that made folks need to attain out and contact it.
In the identical means that the iMac appeared barely gelatinous and organic, the iBook took its inspiration from nature with a “clamshell” design that regarded a bit like an undersea creature. Apple initially launched the iBook in Blueberry and Tangerine colours. Later, it added Indigo, Graphite and Key Lime (a brilliant inexperienced coloration out there solely from the Apple On-line Retailer).
A clamshell design and a variety of colours
The iBook was clearly marketed because the iMac of the laptop computer world.
Picture: Apple
Apple cemented the iMac comparability with ads that known as the iBook an “iMac to go.” Just like the iMac, the iBook boasted a PowerPC G3 CPUan optical drive and customary USB, Ethernet and modem ports.
Additionally just like the iMac, it ditched the floppy drive. To make the most of the AirPort card, the iBook included a customized inside slot and built-in antennas. As well as, it was Apple’s first Mac to make use of the corporate’s “Unified Logic Board Structure”, which compressed the machine’s core options into two chips, alongside AGP and Extremely DMA assist.
The iBook boasted the then-novel contact of a latchless lid that “awakened” the laptop computer when opened. Though this conceit is utilized by nearly each laptop-maker at the moment, it was new on the time. And, like the very best Apple improvements, it supplied a delicate reminder that the iBook was straightforward to make use of for novices.
iBook turns into successful for Apple
Apple’s promoting performed up the iBook’s enjoyable design.
Picture: Apple
The $1,599 iBook grew to become an enormous hit with shoppers instantly. Apple’s laptop computer line had been a large number for a lot of the Nineties, with Performa, Quadra, LC, Energy Macintosh and PowerBook fashions providing a bewildering variety of choices for brand spanking new prospects.
The iBook modified all that. Its enjoyable aesthetic and reasonably priced pricing made it immediately clear who Apple constructed the machine for. The laptop computer grew to become a smash with shoppers, and lots of retailers took preorders forward of its launch.
The colourful clamshell design (dubbed “Barbie’s rest room seat” by some critics on the time) was outmoded by the extra serious-looking white polycarbonate iBook in 2001. Nevertheless, the colourful laptop computer marked an essential step in Apple’s growth. Its design served as an awesome piece of promoting for Cupertino. And its whimsical design made Apple — nonetheless regarded as a distinct segment laptop firm on the time — look welcoming and pleasant.
iBook’s AirPort card fueled the Wi-Fi revolution
The iBook’s deal with Wi-Fi — because of Apple’s new AirPort card — showcased the corporate’s capability to innovate technologically. Nevertheless it additionally helped usher within the form of connectivity that may make options like iTunes so successful within the decade that adopted.
It didn’t harm something that Apple exec Phil Schiller took a death-defying 20-foot leap — stay onstage throughout the iBook’s unveiling — to show the facility of wi-fi networking.
Did you personal a 1999-era iBook? What was the primary Apple laptop computer you owned? Go away your feedback and reminiscences beneath.
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