I never thought about this approach. I like it, I think.
It's kinda what I talked about yesterday, about something taking the best of the iBook (affordable, small, etc.) and 12" PowerBook (better graphics, DVI, spanning, etc.) and combining them into one unit.
Maybe the iBook remains (in a new 13" widescreen form, of course), but with a Core Solo and gets down to the $799-ish range. Super affordable, still a step up in performance (bus, cache, etc.) over the G4, with all the usual, expected ports and features. It can start to go head-to-head with those cheaper PC laptops, but it'll actually have dedicated graphics, etc. Oh, and OS X.
Then, occupying that ~$1299 neighborhood, this "in-between" laptop, simply called the MacBook: definitely a step up from the iBook, but - just like the 12" PowerBook - not packing
all the features, ports that make the 15" (and 17") models...well, "Pro"?
I could live with that, sure!
Not saying that I fully buy into the subject of this thread. But the basic idea and gist makes some sense, sure.
Get the iBooks (Core Solo, etc.) as affordable as possible (but still don't skimp on features...still have wireless, combo drives, FireWire, etc.).
Then have the 14" iBook (pricewise) and the 12" PowerBook (features/specs) meld into a 13" MacBook costing somewhere in the $1199-1399 range?
They'd sell like hotcakes, I'm sure. And a worthy successor to the 12" PowerBook. If they were silver, that's all the better for some I'm sure...
I'd kinda like it if Apple kept the iBook name. I know it doesn't have "Mac" in the title, but still. It's short and snappy, trades on the famous "i" thing, its established, etc. (I know, I know..."PowerBook" was well-established too...tough).