Apple Reportedly Sourcing Thinner Components for 2013 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro

[MacRumors]

While Apple's MacBook Air is already extremely thin and the new Retina MacBook Pro has reduced the thickness of the company's flagship notebook by 25%, work naturally continues on new ways to shave even more thickness from future versions of Apple's notebooks.

Digitimes reports that Apple is working with suppliers on a new process that will enable the company to shave 0.15 mm from the thickness of the light guide used to distribute lighting for the company's illuminated keyboard in the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

Apple will reduce the thickness of light guide plates for the illuminated keyboards in its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models from 0.4mm currently to 0.25mm in 2013, according to sources in Apple's supply chain.

Since the current injection process for the production of 0.4mm light guide plates has been optimized to its limit, makers utilizing extrusion processes are likely to win orders for 0.25mm light guide plates, the sources indicated.

A difference of 0.15mm seems a negligible reduction in thickness that would by itself be essentially imperceptible by users if it were even to translate to slightly thinner overall profiles for the machines, but the company is likely pursuing the reduction for some purpose. Apple is unlikely to significantly alter the overall form factor of next year's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, but combining small reductions in thickness for multiple components would pave the way for more significant overall reductions down the road.

Kyle Wiens from iFixIt speculates that the added thinness for the keyboard may help prevent the keyboard leaving residual marks on the screen when the laptop is closed.

Article Link: Apple Reportedly Sourcing Thinner Components for 2013 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Sometime in the spring I bet.

 

[nick_elt]

yeh the macbook air is far too thick.........

 

[Kentochan]

Sounds like great news, but would the the MacBook Air cannibalize MacBook Pro sales, or perhaps vice versa?

 

[davidwarren]

thinner parts could make room for larger batteries.

 

[applesith]

Where are the iMac and Mac Pro rumors??

 

[tann]

thinner parts could make room for larger batteries.

Larger batteries allow for retina draining screens on the smaller macbooks....

 

[flopticalcube]

ahhh... the infamous MacBook Lighter-Than-Air...

 

[Renzatic]

Ahh...ahhh...AHHH...AH-CHOOOOOOO!

...oh ****, I broke my Macbook.

 

[mattopotamus]

Sounds like great news, but would the the MacBook Air cannibalize MacBook Pro sales, or perhaps vice versa?

by keeping the Airs dual core, that will stop the cannibalism

 

[bannor]

Reminds me of Kramer slicing meat so thin you can't even see it.

How do you know you cut it?

I guess I just assumed.

 

[iBookG4user]

yeh the macbook air is far too thick.........

Just like how people thought that 1" thick laptops were amazing?

 

[KPOM]

yeh the macbook air is far too thick.........

Some ultrabooks are getting thinner. 0.15mm here, 0.15mm there, and it wouldn't surprise me if they can make the next Air a little smaller and lighter. Remember they claimed the thinner MagSafe 2 port would allow for thinner designs in the future.

 

[gnrredphoenix]

how about instead of trying to make your amazingly thin and fast notebooks even thinner, you come out with a freakin imac already!!!!!! holy jesus enough is enough....

 

[mojojojo333]

"Apple will reduce the thickness of light guide plates for the illuminated keyboards in its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models from 0.4mm currently to 0.25mm in 2013, according to sources in Apple's supply chain."

Tim Cook - "Yeah, we're doubling down on secrecy."

That's a pretty damn specific leak, Tim.

 

[DrumApple]

It's thin enough. Don't they remember the backlash of when Barbie became too thin!

Forget about the thinness and focus on getting a better screen (IPS, matte option), better keyboard, better speakers in there. The areas where the Air is falling short now.

 

[summitRun]

RE: MBA...its hard to improve on perfection. Cant imagine it being a much better machine than it already is

 

[guspasho]

What is the clearance between the keyboard and the screen when a retina MBP is closed?

 

[MOKHAN]

Mac news!

 

[basesloaded190]

What's the tallest component in the current models? Isn't it the TB port? They would have to shrink that down before getting any real size reductions

 

[futbalguy]

"Apple will reduce the thickness of light guide plates for the illuminated keyboards in its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models from 0.4mm currently to 0.25mm in 2013, according to sources in Apple's supply chain."

Tim Cook - "Yeah, we're doubling down on secrecy."

That's a pretty damn specific leak, Tim.

That reveals almost nothing about the future products. I dont think anyone who read this article is the least bit surprised. Yea, they have lots of leaks these days but stuff like this is completely fine.

 

[dagamer34]

Sometime in the spring I bet.

June 2013 with Haswell chips and the release of the next version of OS X. The great thing about Intel's product roadmaps is they are pretty darn easy to draw conclusions from.

 

[The Samurai]

Digitimes reports


[/looksaway]

 

[you people smh]

Sounds like great news, but would the the MacBook Air cannibalize MacBook Pro sales, or perhaps vice versa?

Good point.

Hopefully the people at apple read these forums.

The business people over there at that company rocketing toward a $1 trillion valuation probably never thought of that.....

 

[needfx]

the 2015 MacBook Air

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