2002 – 2006retired
EMac
“Built for classrooms, shaped like a friendly toaster, gone but never graded down”
“It left the building the way it lived: first through the door, so everything else could follow.”
The PowerBook, known as Macintosh PowerBook before 1997, was Apple's family of laptops for the professional market, sold from 1991 to 2006. It went through several major revisions and redesigns over its lifetime, often being the first to incorporate features that would later become standard in competing laptops. People loved it because it wasn't just keeping up — it was showing everyone else the way.
In 1999 the line was joined by the home and education-focused iBook family, but the PowerBook remained the pro's machine of choice. When Apple began its transition to Intel processors, the PowerBook was replaced by the MacBook Pro in 2006, and the name was retired. Fifteen years of firsts will do that: eventually you get to rest on your laurels, which are, in this case, every laptop you've ever used.
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“Built for classrooms, shaped like a friendly toaster, gone but never graded down”
“The colorful laptop with a handle, gone but still opening like a lunchbox in our hearts”
“White plastic, big heart: the people's Mac went home smiling.”