Comment by pavlov
5 years ago
The toilet seat iBook is a cute retro object, but it wasn't very popular at the time. It was bulky even for a 1999 laptop.
When the "iceBook" replacement finally shipped in 2001, the new rectangular, lighter and thinner design was universally praised as much better:
https://lowendmac.com/2001/12-500-mhz-ibook-g3-dual-usb-mid-...
I remember this 2001 iBook was the first Mac for a lot of people who wouldn't have considered buying an Apple product previously. The Titanium PowerBook G4 with Mac OS X had started creating some interest in the new Apple, but it was way too expensive. The $1,299 iBook was a much more reasonable entry into the world of Unix Mac.
Also consider that when the clamshell iBook launched very few home users were buying laptops (it was also the first consumer laptop with wifi).
The later G3 and G4 iBooks were well timed, however.