A (Very) Brief History of Apple Notebooks Apple’s first foray into “portable computing” was a nightmare. The “ Macintosh Portable” was a failure largely due to the technology of the time. Released in 1989, the Macintosh Portable was basically a Macintosh SE with lead battery, it clocked in at a whopping 15.8 pounds.
Two years later, Apple released the first PowerBook machines. The machines were small, light-weight, and fast - thanks largely to Sony, who actually engineered the machines. The machines - and the subsequent PowerBook Duo family - were a huge success, albeit mostly within the business world. Their high price tags usually kept them out of schools and individual’s hands.
Starting in the late 1990s with the original iBook, Apple started aiming for the educational customers - as well as the average consumer - for the first time. In 2003, Steve Jobs predicted that one day notebooks would outsell desktops - a prediction that came true in Q3 2008.
The Original Debate: Power vs. Portability
For years, the question at the heart of the “desktop or laptop” debate was this: “Do I need power or portability?”
Earlier today, I asked my Twitter followers this question: “Do you prefer Desktops or Notebooks? Why?” Most of the responses were something like this “Desktop if I need power, a notebook if I want to sit on the couch and surf.” That point of view is valid - notebooks simply offer portability that cannot be matched. When was the last time you saw someone carry an iMac to class? But this thinking may be dated.
In the past, power and portability were (for the most part) mutually exclusive. The early Apple notebooks were great machines, but were far behind their desktop-counterparts. And for good reasons: smaller enclosures introduce unique issues with heat dissipation and the physical size of components that can be used. In fact, the heat problem was one of the main reasons Apple switched to Intel processors - IBM was never going to be able to shoehorn a G5 processor into a PowerBook without melting it.
If someone wanted power, they went with a desktop, but power was the price to be paid to be portable, until recently.
Blurring the Lines: The Future of the Debate May Be in Danger
When revamping the desktop line, Apple knew that most consumers were eyeing notebooks, but they still took care in their choices. I guarantee you there were meetings about how many USB ports to put on the back of the new Mac mini, and lots of internal memos about the death of Firewire 400. Putting Intel’s brand-new, badass Nehalem processors in the updated Mac Pros should keep the hardcore video and audio crew happy for a while, and the consumer-aimed iMac is a hoss of a machine, sporting a 24-inch display and 4GB of RAM.
In short, Apple’s desktop offerings are more powerful and better-priced than ever before, even as they’re being outsold by their portable cousins.
The old idea of “power vs. portability,” is fading - I think. The iMac and Mac mini run at about the same speed as the MacBook Pro and MacBook, respectively. By using portable components in the Mac mini and the iMac, Apple has closed the gap on their own. The 2.4Ghz Core2Duo chip in my MacBook Pro is the same 2.4Ghz Core2Duo chip in my iMac. There will always be outliers - the Mac Pro and the MacBook Air - but for the most part, Apple’s desktops and notebooks all run at about the same speed for what most users do.
Sure, desktops do have their advantages - more ports, larger screens, and better graphics cards, but the ability to lay on the couch and surf is far too appealing to deny. That said, it’s encouraging to see Apple to continue to spend time and money improving not only the portables, but the desktops as well.
