SuperDrive remained unchanged in this respect, although each new PowerBook boasted a longer battery life. Battery recall On May 20, 2005, Apple and the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of some Apple PowerBook G4 batteries. These batteries were manufactured by Sony; Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, Fujitsu and Acer laptops were also affected by the defective batteries. The joint Apple/CPSC press release stated that an internal short could cause the battery cells to overheat, posing a fire hazard. Approximately 128,000 defective units were sold. Though the problems first appeared to be solved, they continued for many users. In early August 2006, Engadget reported that a PowerBook had "violently exploded" because of faulty battery. On August 24, 2006, Apple and the CPSC announced an additional recall of more batteries for the same PowerBook models. About 1.1 million battery packs in the United States were recalled; an additional 700,000 were sold outside the U.S. Discontinuation At the 2006 Macworld Conference & Expo, the MacBook Pro was introduced. The new notebooks, however, only came in 15.4-inch models and the 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBooks remained available for sale at Apple stores and retailers, as well as the 15-inch model, which was sold until supplies ran out. On April 24, 2006 the 17-inch PowerBook G4 was replaced by a 17-inch MacBook Pro variant. The 12-inch PowerBook G4 remained available until May 16, 2006, when the MacBook was introduced as a replacement for the iBook. Because of its availability in highly powerful configurations, it was also considered a replacement for the 12-inch PowerBook, ending the nearly 15-year production of PowerBook-branded computers. An indirect successor, the 13-inch MacBook Pro, was introduced in mid 2009. Timeline Legacy Traditionally, the portable line trailed the desktops in the utilization of the latest processors, with the notable exception of the PowerBook G3, which was released simultaneously with the desktop Power Macintosh G3. PowerBooks would continue to trail behind the desktop Macs, however, never even adopting the G5 processor. This was due primarily to the extreme heat caused by most of the full-sized processors available and unacceptable power consumption. With the introduction of the Intel-based Macs, once again, the MacBook Pro joined the iMac in sharing the new technology simultaneously. See also IBM RS/6000 laptops and IBM ThinkPad 800 series — another based on a PowerPC CPUs laptops. iBook MacBook References External links Apple's PowerBook specifications - Specifications for G3 and