The White MacBook is dead

While we haven’t been able to find an announcement from Apple, it appears that the white unibody MacBook is dead.

The URL for the product now redirects to Apple’s 404 page, and the model is no longer listed on Apple’s Mac page:

This ends a long-running product line for Apple.

The MacBook was first introduced as an iBook-replacement back in 2006, and sold incredibly well. While earlier models were plagued with overheating and case cracking issues, Apple experimented with the case and design very little until 2008, when the company wrapped the machine in aluminum, but left out the FireWire port and other features found in the MacBook Pro. Less than a year later, Apple unveiled the white plastic unibody version pictured above, and started selling the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Now, Apple just offers two notebooks lines — the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. With the MacBook Air starting at $999, Apple still has a sub-$1000 machine on the market.

We are still digging to see if the machine is gone for everyone, or has just gone educational-only. If the latter is true, it may still be avaible for purchase by educational institutions, just not end customers.

Farewell, MacBook. We hope the big laptop sleeve in the sky was ready for you.

Stephen Hackett, formerly a Lead Mac Genius at Apple, now spends his days running the IT department of a large non-profit in Memphis, TN. He writes about Apple, design and journalism at forkbombr.net. Like all twenty-somethings, you can find him on Twitter. Oh, and he has a dogcow tattoo.