While I sit around not buying a MacBook Pro, I’m trying to fathom why Apple decided to dump a widely known and perfectly good name, “Powerbook” for a terrible name like MacBook Pro. During the Macworld Stevenote, Jobs stated, “Today we are introducing a new notebook computer that we are calling the Macbook Pro. Its a new name because we’re kind of done with Power, and because we want Mac in the name of our products”. Huh?
The first Powerbooks did not have PowerPC chips. According to EveryMac, The Powerbook 100, 140, and 170 released on October 21, 1991 had 68HC000, and 68030 chips instead.  The PowerMacs did all have PowerPC chip, but that (PowerMac 6100) wasn’t released until 1994. So it is too long ago for me to remember, but I suspect the Power was originally part gimic and part naming scheme for designating products for Power users.

So something deeper is obviously going on with this stupid name change.  My guess is a cosolidation of the iBook and Powerbook lines into one line.  Maybe Apple doesn’t think they can create enough of a differentation to have two lines?  The Macbook is the lowend portable, and the MacBook Pro is the high end?

I guess it is another reason to sit tight and not buy.