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 get together
Visually, the iBook resembled a continuation of the “lickable” aesthetic of the colourful iMac G3, which launched a 12 months earlier. The iMac G3 got here in a spread of vibrant, translucent colours, with a curvy design and a rubberized texture that made folks wish 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 seemed 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 vibrant inexperienced shade accessible completely from the Apple On-line Retailer).
A clamshell design and a variety of colours
Picture: Apple
Apple cemented the iMac comparability with commercials that referred to as the iBook an “iMac to go.” Just like the iMac, the iBook boasted a PowerPC G3 CPU, an optical drive and commonplace USB, Ethernet and modem ports.
Additionally just like the iMac, it ditched the floppy drive. To benefit from the AirPort card, the iBook included a customized inner 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 present, it was new on the time. And, like the perfect Apple improvements, it supplied a delicate reminder that the iBook was straightforward to make use of for novices.
iBook turns into successful for Apple
Picture: Apple
The $1,599 iBook turned a giant hit with customers instantly. Apple’s laptop computer line had been a large number for a lot of the Nineteen 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 inexpensive pricing made it immediately clear who Apple constructed the machine for. The laptop computer turned a smash with customers, and plenty of retailers took preorders forward of its launch.
The colourful clamshell design (dubbed “Barbie’s bathroom seat” by some critics on the time) was outdated by the extra serious-looking white polycarbonate iBook in 2001. Nevertheless, the colourful laptop computer marked an vital step in Apple’s improvement. Its design served as an amazing piece of selling for Cupertino. And its whimsical design made Apple — nonetheless considered a distinct segment laptop firm on the time — look welcoming and pleasant.
iBook’s AirPort card fueled the Wi-Fi revolution
The iBook’s concentrate on Wi-Fi — due to Apple’s new AirPort card — showcased the corporate’s potential to innovate technologically. However it additionally helped usher within the type of connectivity that might 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 — dwell onstage through the iBook’s unveiling — to reveal the ability of wi-fi networking.
Did you personal a 1999-era iBook? What was the primary Apple laptop computer you owned? Depart your feedback and reminiscences under.
