Macintosh History: 2000

At Macworld Expo in January 2000, Steve Jobs announced he would no longer be interim CEO, that Mac OS X Client would be finished before Macworld Expo in January 2001, and no new hardware.

We did see new portable Macs in February, notably the "Pismo" PowerBook, the first new model since 1987 not to bear the name PowerBook G3. Pismo came in 400 and 500 MHz models, added FireWire ports, and eliminated the SCSI port of all previous PowerBooks.

Apple also boosted base memory in the iBook from 32 MB to 64 MB and introduced the graphite 366 MHz iBook Special Edition.

But perhaps the biggest news in February was the availability of the 500 MHz Power Macintosh G4, a product first announced in August 1999.

Macworld New York

There were no new product announcements until the July Macworld Expo in New York, where Apple made no changes to the portable line while overhauling the desktop line.

The big news was the Cube, properly known as the Power Mac (not Macintosh) G4 Cube. Inside a transparent 581 cubic inch case Apple stuffed a DVD drive, hard drive, AGP video card, space for 1.5 GB of memory, an AirPort antenna and room for an AirPort card, a v.90 modem, USB and FireWire ports, a 450 or 500 MHz G4 processor, and a brand new connector to both power and display images on Apple's newest monitors.

The 'Sawtooth' Power Macintosh G4 was discontinued at 450 and 500 MHz, replaced by a dual-processor model(often called 'Digital Audio' models, as they lacked an analog microphone jack and included CD burners) with no increase in price.

But the biggest changes were reserved for the iMac. Apple abandoned blueberry, grape, strawberry, lime, and tangerine for a new spectrum of colors. The basic iMac had the same specifications as the 350 MHz blueberry entry level model, but would come in indigo and sell for $799, $200 less than the old one, but didn't ship until September.

The new iMac DV ran at 400 MHz, just like the earlier iMac DV, but did not include a DVD drive. The DV came in indigo and ruby at a $999 price.

Next up the line was the iMac DV+, which replaced the pervious iMac DV feature-for-feature, but with a 450 MHz processor. In addition to ruby and indigo, the $1,299 DV+ was also available in sage.

At the top of the iMac line was the new iMac Special Edition. The 500 MHz processor was 25% faster than the old iMac SE, and it was available in both the older graphite and a stark new white called snow.

Mac OS X Preview Release

The biggest change since Apple returned to profitability was the better-late-than-never beta release of Mac OS X (billed as a "preview" release) on Sept. 13.

This was also the date Apple unveiled new versions of the clamshell iBooks. The new models used the PowerPC 750cx CPU, which has an onboard 256 KB level 2 cache. In terms of features, the big addition was a FireWire port. The new models included an entry-level 366 MHz iBook in indigo or Key lime and a faster 466 MHz iMac SE in graphite or Key lime. The latter also included a DVD-ROM drive.