Apple continued to sell the MacBook to educational institutions until February 2012. On July 20, 2011, the MacBook was discontinued for consumer purchase as it had been effectively superseded by the MacBook Air which had a lower entry price. A third design, introduced in late 2009, had retained a similar unibody design but changed back to white polycarbonate. The second type was introduced in October 2008 alongside the 15-inch MacBook Pro the MacBook shared the more expensive laptop's unibody aluminium casing, but omitted FireWire. The original model used a combination of polycarbonate and fiberglass casing which was modeled after the iBook G4. There have been three separate designs of the MacBook. Collectively, the MacBook brand is the 'world's top-selling line of premium laptops.' For five months in 2008, it was the best-selling laptop of any brand in US retail stores. Positioned as the low end of the MacBook family, below the premium ultra-portable MacBook Air and the powerful MacBook Pro, the MacBook was aimed at the consumer and education markets.

It replaced the iBook series of notebooks as a part of Apple's transition from PowerPC to Intel processors.

A new line of computers by the same name was released in 2015, serving the same purpose as an entry-level laptop. The MacBook is a line of Macintosh notebook computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Inc.

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