How Apple will target consumers with a lower-cost MacBook -- again

Apple's expected less-expensive MacBook is one of the company's worst-kept secrets, but if it's priced right, it could become a huge hit — just as certain previous MacBooks did.

The original MacBook from 2006 — image credit: Apple
This anticipated new MacBook is expected to be significant because it will use an iPhone processor instead of the Mac's now usual M-series ones. It is that lower-cost processor that means Apple may be able to compete with Chromebooks.

That's key now, and it was important when Apple would release a MacBook range in 2015. But back in 2006 with the follow up to the iBook, the MacBook, the budget-priced and low specification Chromebook was five years away.

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How Apple will target consumers with a lower-cost MacBook — again

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William Gallagher

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Wed Feb 25 2026, 08:26 AM EST
9 minute read

The original MacBook from 2006 -- image credit: Apple

Apple's expected less-expensive MacBook is one of the company's worst-kept secrets, but if it's priced right, it could become a huge hit — just as certain previous MacBooks did.

This anticipated new MacBook is expected to be significant because it will use an iPhone processor instead of the Mac's now usual M-series ones. It is that lower-cost processor that means Apple may be able to compete with Chromebooks.

That's key now, and it was important when Apple would release a MacBook range in 2015. But back in 2006 with the follow up to the iBook, the MacBook, the budget-priced and low specification Chromebook was five years away.

Apple was still doing well in education, too, and with the consumer market. But Apple was also transitioning to a new processor family with the Intel Core Duo.

So for a brief time in 2006, the iBook G4 was still being sold while its successor, the MacBook, had been launched. Also at that point, Apple was around three months into selling the MacBook Pro, which had replaced the last PowerBook.

"Apple began the transition to Intel Core Duo-based notebooks in February with the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and now just 90 days later we have completed the transition with the release of the all new MacBook," Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said at the time. "The complete MacBook lineup leads the industry with Apple's trademark innovative design and advanced mobile features — from top to bottom it is the best notebook line that we have ever offered."

In retrospect, it seems that the more powerful MacBook Pro line was Apple's real focus that year. For its launch in January 2006, Steve Jobs talked about how the previous PowerPC processor family was not able to give the performance Apple wanted to provide its pro customers — and could get with Intel.

[Two open Apple MacBook laptops, one white in front and one black behind it, both displaying a blue desktop wallpaper and macOS dock on a plain white background]

The original two models of the MacBook — image credit: Apple

But Apple was moving everything over to Intel at that time, and it was also shedding the old names of both PowerBook and iBook. Steve Jobs expressly said that "We're kinda done with 'Power'."

He also said that "we want 'Mac' in the name of our products." While he didn't mention the iBook, and the launch of the MacBook was done by press release, the new machine was going to have to be called a Mac.

What was gained and lost

Apple's press release naturally concentrated on the benefits of the MacBook over the iBook, and there were many. The company claimed that the new MacBook was "up to five times faster than the iBook and up to four times faster than the 12-inch PowerBook."

The new model also:

• was 20% thinner than the iBook

• had a 79% brighter display

• had a 13-inch 1280x800 glossy display

• started with a 60GB hard drive

• Included Mini-DVI output

Those last points compared to the iBook's mini-VGA port, and 40GB hard drive for the entry-level $1,099 model ($1,774 in 2026 money). The last iBook started at $999 ($1,612).

How Apple presented the original MacBook on its site in 2006 — image credit: Apple

But then that starting level iBook had a 12.1-inch screen, and a higher cost $1,299 ($2095 in 2026 money) model had a 14.1-inch one, so the new MacBook's display came in the middle. You gained if you used to use the lower-cost iBook, but you lost out moving from the higher-price one.

At the time, users were in a similar situation to when Apple Silicon was introduced. Apple could talk up how much faster everything was, but until you used an M1 Mac or later, you couldn't appreciate the difference.

It's not as if Apple lies about specifications, when it even mentions them, but it does cherry-pick its results like every other manufacturer. In this case, Apple used SPECint and SPECfp rate tests when buyers wanted to know more real-world results.

They got them, too. Ars Technica ran through a slew of tests comparing the new MacBook to the old iBook.

Some of those tests, such as the Cinebench benchmark, were actually in Apple's favor — and dramatically so.

"The slightly faster processor on the MacBook results in the software lighting numbers to win here, but the MacBook Pro's graphics hardware is clearly superior, and the hardware rendering numbers bear that out," wrote the publication. "A comparison with the iBook's ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 is embarrassing, to say the least."

But then other improvements that users were likely to see were less marked. In ripping a CD, "the iBook was only slower by four seconds."

So in 2006, users were having to weigh up whether spending more was actually worth it for what they would be doing.

[Black laptop displaying a video call, showing three smiling people in large panels and a smaller participant window, with a blue desktop interface and app icons along the bottom]

Today it looks a little chunky, but the black MacBook is still gorgeous — image credit: Apple

And as it happens, they also had to work out whether spending a lot more money was worth it for what the MacBook looked like. Two base models were all-white, but there was also an extremely attractive all-black model — that started at $1,499 ($2,418 in 2026 money).

AppleInsider listed the full specifications of all of these the models, but you needed a magnifying glass to spot what the black model offers that was different. Apart from the color, the sole specification difference was that it came with an 80GB hard drive instead of a 60GB one.

You wanted a black one. You still wish today's MacBook Pro models could come in such a rich, dark black. But back then, you had to decide whether that color and that slightly larger drive was worth an extra $400 (now $645) to you.

Consumer and pro choices

Users then were also having to ponder whether their existing apps would run under the new Intel processor.

That concern affected all users during this transition, both from iBook to MacBook, and PowerBook to MacBook Pro. But without a MacBook Air to bridge the gap, users were more clearly delineated between consumer and professionals.

It's not just price/performance that separates casual or consumer users from heavy-duty work. That original MacBook Pro started at $1,999 (now $3,225), but it was also a much more professional-looking device.

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