hey guys it's Greg with Apple explained
and today we're going to explore the
history of the MacBook Pro this topic
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video you'd like to see next now Apple
has released all kinds of notebooks
since the first Macintosh portable in
1997 but we don't have time to cover
every single model in this video so
we'll focus on the MacBook Pro and its
predecessor the PowerBook g4 since the
two are very closely related
so the PowerBook g4 was introduced by
Steve Jobs back in 2001 at the Macworld
Expo and it was a huge release it was
the first time Apple used pure titanium
metal in any of their products a sharp
contrast from the black plastic of the
PowerBook g3 that of itself was such a
cool concept that Apple included the
word when naming it the titanium
PowerBook g4 the notebook was just 1
inch thick which may not be impressive
by today's standards but the PowerBook
g3 was 1.7 inches thick so Apple had
reduced the Powerbooks thickness by 40%
which was an incredible feat of
Engineering it was also one of the first
notebooks with a widescreen aspect ratio
which Apple marketed as an ultra
widescreen display that measured 15.2
inches diagonally it also featured a
slot loading disk drive on the front
rather than on the side which made
inserting and removing discs more
convenient when space was tight now
although this notebooks official name
was titanium PowerBook g4 users
nicknamed it ty book which went well
with the lower end iBook now remember
how I said that this was the first time
Apple used titanium well it was also
their last you see the titanium metal
was painted in order to give it a more
attractive finish and that paint would
start to peel and bubble after extended
use especially around the trackpad and
palm rest but this wasn't the only
problem the hinge was made from plastic
and became notorious for breaking even
under typical use and because the video
cable was routed through the left side
of the hinge it was vulnerable to damage
causing random lines a jumbled screen or
backlight issues so while the titanium
PowerBook g4 had some good qualities
Apple knew they had to make it much more
durable which they did two years later
with the
aluminum PowerBook g4 it was released in
2003 and not only brought a new design
but lay the foundation for Apple's
notebook designs for the next five years
even the keyboard was given a big
upgrade it was a silver aluminum instead
of black plastic and featured
backlighting which was the first case of
keyboard backlighting seen on a notebook
computer in addition to the 15-inch
model this release reintroduced the
12-inch notebook back into apple's line
which was missing since 1998 but they
didn't stop there for the first time
ever Apple offered a 17 inch model in
their line of notebooks now the
transition from the PowerBook g4 to the
MacBook Pro in the beginning of 2006
wasn't as dramatic as you might expect
the MacBook Pro uses the same design as
the PowerBook g4 so they weren't really
distinguishable at first glance but the
MacBook Pro receives some exciting
updates that really modernized Apple's
notebook line things like the MagSafe
connector which would safely detach from
the notebook if its power cable was
accidently yanked out or the built-in
iSight camera which allowed for video
conferencing and taking fun pictures in
photobooth on the inside the macbook pro
ran on the intel core processor instead
of the PowerPC g4 chip and the optical
drive was reduced in size in order to
fit into the slightly smaller macbook
pro chassis which meant it ran slower
than in the PowerBook g4 and couldn't
write to dual layer DVDs the 15 inch
aluminum macbook pro model was released
first with the 17-inch model unveiled
three months later and Apple decided not
to release the MacBook Pro in a 12-inch
size which disappointed some users who
needed a pro notebook in an
ultraportable design now this line
received a series of speck bumps from
2006 to 2008 which included Intel Core 2
Duo processors doubled memory capacity
firewire 800 for the 15 inch model an
increase in hard drive capacity new and
Vidia g-force video cards and LED
display backlighting but the MacBook
Pros big update wouldn't come until late
2008 at a press event in Apple's
headquarters where they announced a new
15 inch macbook pro featuring what they
called a precision aluminum unibody
enclosure which basically meant that the
MacBook Pros chassis was made from one
piece of aluminum
rather than multiple individual parts
this unibody design was made possible by
innovations in the manufacturing process
that helped make the MacBook Air
possible
designers also moved all the MacBook
Pros ports to the left side of the case
and moved the optical drive from the
front to the right side similar to the
MacBook cool power saving feature was
that the MacBook Pro had two video cards
a powerful nvidia geforce 9600 m GT and
a more power efficient geforce 9400 M
and the notebook would switch between
these video cards seamlessly depending
on the task Apple decided to remove the
firewire 400 port on this model which
was quite controversial but the firewire
800 port remained in the original
unibody MacBook Pro came with a user
replaceable battery which was estimated
to provide five hours of use now the
display had a high-gloss finish thanks
to the edge to edge glass panel but
Apple still offered a matte option for
those who pervert a non reflective
screen the trackpad buttons were removed
completely since the entire track pad
was clickable but it was much harder to
register a click near the top of the
trackpad since that's where it was
mounted removing the buttons also allow
the trackpad area to be much bigger
making multi-touch gestures more
comfortable the back of that keyboard
went from silver aluminum back to black
plastic with separated sunken keys
designed to have a low profile for
optimal thinness
so this unibody update in 2008 applied
only to the 15-inch MacBook Pro Apple
continued to sell the previous
generation 17 inch model until it was
updated with the unibody design three
months later but the 17 inch model
received a few changes that the 15 inch
model didn't first was a non removable
battery that was shaped and fitted into
each laptop to maximize space it also
featured adaptive charging which used a
computer chip to optimize the charge
flow to reduce wear and tear on the
battery extending its overall life to
1,000 charge and discharge cycles rather
than 300 cycles and daily battery life
was estimated to be eight hours at
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference
in 2009 it was announced that the
13-inch unibody MacBook would be
upgraded and rebranded as a macbook pro
leaving only the white polycarbonate
model in the MacBook
it was also announced that the entire
MacBook Pro line would use the non
removable battery first introduced in
the 17-inch model with this new battery
the 13 and the 15 inch MacBook Pros
would each have up to 7 hours of battery
life while the 17-inch kept its
eight-hour capacity
three years later Apple gave the MacBook
Pro its second big update calling it the
MacBook Pro with Retina display this new
model featured a high resolution 15.4
inch 2880 by 1800 pixel Retina display
with in-plane switching it had more
pixels than the 27-inch iMac display in
an even wider color gamut it also had a
thinner Mac safe connector and ran on
Intel's third-generation core i7
processors but now let's talk about what
the MacBook Pro with Retina display
didn't include the disk drive was
dropped which allowed this model to be
just 0.71 inches thick that's 25 percent
thinner than its predecessor it also
didn't have an Ethernet port firewire
800 port or a Kensington lock slot and
instead of a hard disk drive the retina
model featured a solid-state drive which
was faster and more durable although
this generation of MacBook Pros didn't
have as many design changes as the last
there were a few minor changes made the
hinge was redesigned the power button
was moved from the upper right corner of
the chassis to the keyboard where the
disk eject button used to be also the
model name was no longer at the bottom
of the screen bezel instead it was moved
to the underside of the chassis similar
to an iOS device it was Apple's first
notebook not to have its model name
visible during use it was also the first
generation of MacBook Pros not to
include a 17 inch model a common
criticism of these MacBook Pros was that
they were less user upgradeable than
previous generations this was due to the
memory being soldered directly under the
logic board and therefore couldn't be
upgraded after you bought it the battery
was glued into place in attempts to
remove it may have destroyed the battery
or even the trackpad the entire case
used proprietary pentalobe screws and
couldn't be disassembled with standard
tools but while the battery was glued
recycling companies stated that the
design was only mildly inconvenient and
didn't hamper the recycling process for
years later in 2016 Apple introduced the
fourth generation of MacBook
Pros whose main feature was something
called the touch bar a multi-touch
enabled OLEDs strip built into the top
of the keyboard in place of the function
keys but there is a 13-inch MacBook Pro
model without this touch bar opting for
traditional function keys instead the
touch bar models also featured a
sapphire glass covered touch ID sensor
at the right end of the touch bar which
doubled as a power button the fourth gen
MacBook Pros introduced a
second-generation butterfly mechanism
keyboard that provided more key travel
than the first iteration on the retina
MacBook the 13 inch MacBook Pro had a
track pad that was 46% larger than its
predecessor while the 15-inch model had
a trackpad twice as large as the prior
generation these MacBook Pro models
followed the same design language of the
previous two generations with an
all-metal aluminum unibody enclosure in
separated black keys there were quite a
few design changes though like a thinner
chassis thinner screen bezel larger
trackpad the touch bar and a butterfly
keyboard with less key separation than
previous models the speaker grilles were
relocated to the sides of the keyboard
on the 13-inch models in this generation
of MacBook Pro came in two colors the
traditional silver in a darker space
gray color the MacBook Pro model name
returned to the bottom of a screen bezel
after being absent from the previous
generation and as with the retina
MacBook the new models replaced the
backlit white Apple logo with a
reflective metal inset Apple logo now
this generation of MacBook Pros stirred
up quite a bit of controversy the first
round of complaints were caused by its
lack of ports like the retina MacBook
the new MacBook Pros had only USB sea
ports so users had to buy and carry
around different adapters to connect
their peripherals the second round of
controversy was sparked by users
experiencing much shorter battery life
than Apple claimed even Consumer Reports
didn't initially recommend the MacBook
Pro citing inconsistent and
unpredictable battery life in its lab
testing however Apple and Consumer
Reports found that the results had been
affected by a bug caused by disabling
cashing in safaris developer tools
Consumer Reports performed the tests
again with a patched Mac OS and
retracted its original assessment but
Apple wasn't out of the woods yet there
was still one more problem the keyboard
a report by Apple Insider claimed that
the updated
like keyboard failed twice as often as
previous models usually caused by dirt
or small crumbs getting stuck beneath
the keys and because of the butterfly
mechanism users weren't able to remove
the keys themselves like on previous
models in May 2000 18 - class-action
lawsuits were filed against Apple
regarding the keyboard issue with one
alleging a constant threat of
non-responsive keys an accompanying
keyboard failure an accusing Apple of
not alerting consumers to the issue
since some claim that Apple knew about
the keyboards high failure rate before
it was even released now these lawsuits
are still ongoing so we don't know the
results but we'll definitely keep an eye
on them moving forward so that is the
history of the MacBook Pro if you want
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