Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Professional 19 years in the past as we speak on the 2006 Macworld Convention & Expo.
Jobs unveiled the MacBook Professional as the primary Mac pocket book to transition from PowerPC processors to Intel’s Core Duo structure. Designed to be an Intel-based alternative for the PowerBook line, the MacBook Professional took the same aluminum chassis and added an Intel Core processor, a webcam, and the MagSafe energy connector. Its show was 67% brighter than its predecessor, matching the luminance of Apple’s standalone Cinema Shows.
Apple claimed that the Intel processors delivered “as much as 4 occasions the efficiency of the PowerBook G4.” The transition was supported by Rosetta, a software program translation layer that allowed PowerPC purposes to run on Intel-based Macs.
The unique MacBook Professional got here in two configurations, each with 15.4-inch widescreen shows providing 1440 x 900 decision. The entry-level mannequin featured a 1.67 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 512MB of DDR2 RAM, and an 80GB laborious drive, whereas the higher-end mannequin boasted a 1.83 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 100GB laborious drive. Each fashions included ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics playing cards. The 15-inch mannequin weighed simply 5.6 kilos and was just one inch thick.
It additionally featured two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 400 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and an ExpressCard/34 slot for expandability. The exclusion of FireWire 800 within the preliminary 15-inch fashions drew criticism from some customers, however this port was later restored in subsequent revisions. Initially solely obtainable with a 15-inch show, Apple launched a 17-inch variant in April 2006.
Through the years, the MacBook Professional line advanced by numerous design and technological iterations, together with the unibody building in 2008, the Retina show in 2012, and the controversial Contact Bar in 2016. The transition from Intel to Apple Silicon in 2020 marked the top of the Intel-based MacBook Professional period, as Apple moved to its proprietary M1, M1 Professional, and M1 Max chips.
