The tiny latch that the iBook G4 used. (via NotebookBlog)

The tiny hooks that once defined using a PowerBook

At this point, we’ve had laptops without mechanical closing mechanisms for so long that it’s surprising we ever did it another way.

But while they’ve long faded from view, they were a mainstay of laptop designs for decades. They particularly defined one of the best-remembered eras of Apple’s MacBook lineup: the early Steve Jobs glory years, between the release of the Titanium PowerBook G4 in early 2001 and the unibody MacBook Pro in late 2008.

While latches existed from the earliest days of the PowerBook, the latches on the PowerBook G4, iBook G4, and early MacBook Pros clearly classed up the joint. They essentially hid themselves from view until you needed them, so you never had to think about them.

The model that introduced this dynamic, 2001’s Titanium PowerBook G4, closed with a single hook that only exposed itself when it was close to a magnet. That magnet was located at the edge of the laptop, just below the trackpad, and could be depressed with a single button that essentially moved the magnets out of the way.

Hooks weren’t entirely new to laptops. For example, the ThinkPad’s famed 701c, with its expanding “butterfly” keyboard, had small hooks that drop down from the screen as you close the device. Those just drop into place with the help of gravity, assuming that when you close the lid, you’re going to close it all the way.

Apple’s innovation was the magnets, which essentially made the device more elegant and reliable in one fell swoop. However, it was still a fine mechanical part, and fine mechanical parts break down over time. In a retrospective on the Titanium PowerBook G4 from a few years back, Colin Wirth from This Does Not Compute showed how the latch on his only worked after a few tries.

And there were other issues, too. If you put a magnet near the latch, the computer would take that as a sign that the latch had been attached—and put it to sleep. Cool feature, except if you’re someone who enjoys magnets as fidget devices.

(On the plus side, as iFixit shows, the magnetic part of the latch could be replaced by simply taking out the hard drive in the Powerbook, making it one of the easier repairs on that device.)

While Apple quickly dropped titanium in favor of aluminum in its PowerBooks—in part because of unrelated hinge-design issues—the latch design stayed put until 2006, when the original Intel MacBook Pro introduced a webcam, facilitating a redesign. Now, it used two small latches instead of one slightly larger one.

In retrospect, the hooks feel like a weird choice. As 512 Pixels founder Stephen Hackett wrote for MacStories in 2018, the tiny hooks, pulled into place with a magnet, were actually introduced after Apple first introduced a spring-based magnetic closing mechanism in the original iBook.

“This made the computer more rugged, which served the machine well in the homes and schools where it was often found,” he said, before revealing that they (unfortunately) got rid of the design with the next iBook generation.

That iBook misadventure notwithstanding: For years, you couldn’t buy an Apple laptop without some sort of tiny hook-fastening system connecting things together.

The 2006 MacBook was the turning point for how we latched laptops. Look ma, no mechanical parts! (Mac Users Guide/Flickr)

Our magnet-shaped future only truly kicked off in earnest with the 2006 polycarbonate MacBook, which got rid of the hooks entirely in favor of magnets. As Ars Technica’s Clint Ecker wrote at the time, it was a welcome refining attempt:

When the lid is closed, these attract to what I presume are magnets in the frame and the machine is held very securely shut. It makes for a very slick looking form factor, and the lack of latches and keyholes really tightens up the already sleek design.

The MacBook Pro would soldier on with hooks for two and a half more years before it got a redesign. But the magnets were clearly a pivot point for Apple, as the removal of the magnetic parts clearly helped the company shrink things down for the original MacBook Air in 2008. It was clear that the hooks had finally gotten in the way of Apple’s industrial design ambitions. The magnets could stay, though.

It’s one of the most subtle design decisions Apple ever made with its laptops, and users benefited greatly from it.

The Eee PC didn’t have a latch in sight, and that was OK. The hinge tolerance did the heavy lifting. (Andrew Mason/Flickr)

The stiff hinge: how other companies latch laptops without magnets

We don’t talk much about how we close laptops anymore. No hook or latch mechanisms are likely to be found. But all that said, magnets aren’t necessarily the only way to do this.

Like Apple, other companies had to adjust their latches in the mid-2000s, as built-in webcams became the norm. Sure, examples of laptop webcams exist in the wild as far back as 1998’s Sony Vaio C1, but it gradually became an expected feature in the late 2000s.

Even the priced-to-sell Asus Eee PC, which started the netbook trend of that period, came with a webcam. But one thing it didn’t have was hooks, or even a latch. Rather, it used another design dynamic that became popular during the period—the stiff hinge. Essentially, to open it, you couldn’t just one-finger it. Rather, it was a two-hand job.

How are you supposed to tell whether a laptop closes with magnets or not? Some laptop reviewers look for what they call the one-finger opening mechanism, where you can open a laptop with a single finger. It is a sign of strong magnets, but less aggressive hinge tolerances. When the hinge is loose, and you don’t have magnets to ensure the laptop screen stays in place, there’s a good chance the laptop will spill open in your bag. When the hinge tolerances are less forgiving, it’ll stay in place, but you will likely need two hands to open it up.

Despite the tech industry’s affinity for well-placed magnets, the stiff hinge still has a place at the lower end of the market, where fit-and-finish things like the ability to open laptops with a single finger are less of an issue.

For example, I recently bought a ThinkPad L440, a cut-down version of the legendary ThinkPad T440p, from Goodwill a couple of months ago for like $15. I’ve been slowly nursing it to health, upgrading it with new parts, a few bucks at a time, with the goal of making it a surprisingly powerful stealth writing device. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t have any magnets in the hinge. Instead, it stays shut thanks to stiff tension in the hinge mechanism, preventing it from flying open accidentally.

Likewise, my five-year-old PineBook Pro, which I bought for $200? A similar hinge-driven closing mechanism. But my HP Envy uses magnets, as do many more premium devices. Two-in-one devices also use magnets, but in my experience, the hinges on those devices are looser to make them more flexible.

All that said, if you need a laptop with a straight-on latch in 2025, your best bet is likely the Panasonic Toughbook, a computer that looks like it was built a generation ago, but is less concerned with elegance than military-grade rigidity.

Are we better off without hooks and latches? I think so. But I think, like everything else in tech, it’s a sign we had to try a few things first.