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'Brick' Refers to the MacBook Manufacturing Process
- Thread starter imapfsr
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exactly. I bet they would also recycle the aluminum, too. It'd be much easier than just throwing it away.
I would imagine that the bulk of the shaping is done with a hydraulic press. Ever seen how they make an aluminum scuba tank? They start with a disk and then use a hydraulic ram to force the disk into a long cylinder. The process is very fast. With enough force aluminum can flow like putty. The lasers would only be used to perform some fine detailed work.
bmx frames are exactly what came to my mind as well, I always buy american made frames, I have a sickchild instrumental at the moment. another bicycle/motorycle company that I believe makes everything from scratch in the U.S. is http://roundwheels.com/
and of course don't forget about Red Wing Shoes
yup. even then i think the lasers would be overkill. anything that needs stamped out is done in the press.
as far as the recycling goes, i don't think there is any shop in the world that would just throw away their aluminum scrap.
It's called drawing (or deep drawing in the case of a scuba tank). It's the process used to make the case for the current MacBook Pro.
I just knew someone had mentioned the manufacturer process and Apple getting some special fabrication before.
$899- base macbook
$1699- base MBP
....come on , they said competitive .may even be less if they go for dropping the optical drive and making that as an optional extra
VW does not currently have a US plant, but are building to produce the next generation Jetta and a North American replacement for the Passat. Toyota has plants in Indiana (two, one shared with Subaru), Texas, Alabama, West Viriginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and california (shared with GM).
strength and quality - got my vote +1
Complexity in case design - hmm... Could mean more specialized products.
Also, aluminum recycles a lot better than plastic. Melt it down and reshape it. Plastic, once it is formed can only be recycled so many times before it is useless.
Also aluminum distributes heat better, and we all know with the dual core chips - the laptops (both PC and apple) tend to run hotter. I think this will also allow for some better cooling mechanisms as well.
Also, with using recycled aluminum - that means they can get the metal from anywhere (cars, soda cans, old laptops, etc) - wouldn't that cut manufacturing costs as well?
also, with the weakening dollar and the number of jobs needed here in the states - would make sense to put the factory here. I mean with the housing crisis and all the money apple has, they could pickup property cheap (I know a few factory buildings in NC could use some occupants)....
*On a side note - was in starbucks today. I thought it was kinda cool to see a couple of dell's sitting in the corner and a few people hovering around a MBP
Complexity in case design - hmm... Could mean more specialized products.
Also, aluminum recycles a lot better than plastic. Melt it down and reshape it. Plastic, once it is formed can only be recycled so many times before it is useless.
Also aluminum distributes heat better, and we all know with the dual core chips - the laptops (both PC and apple) tend to run hotter. I think this will also allow for some better cooling mechanisms as well.
Also, with using recycled aluminum - that means they can get the metal from anywhere (cars, soda cans, old laptops, etc) - wouldn't that cut manufacturing costs as well?
also, with the weakening dollar and the number of jobs needed here in the states - would make sense to put the factory here. I mean with the housing crisis and all the money apple has, they could pickup property cheap (I know a few factory buildings in NC could use some occupants)....
*On a side note - was in starbucks today. I thought it was kinda cool to see a couple of dell's sitting in the corner and a few people hovering around a MBP
industrial state of affairs
"Are there actually any products (apart from american cars, and they are not exactly a good advert for quality) made from scratch in the USA?"
Consumer level, not so much. Industrial level? Heat exchangers and pumps and boilers, and distillation columns and good high-pressure piping, oh yes, The US is still in business. That is the only part of the economy still going just now.
As for the machined (with or without lasers) out of brick of aluminum, no one does that anymore. Way too wasteful. Near-Net shape has been the mantra for over 20 years now. Extrude it, stamp it, do whatever it takes to take the correct (and minimum) amount of metal and get it into shape as closely as possible before final machining, and preferably without any final machining at all. Cuttings on the floor even with recycling, which the factories always did long before Earth Day, is just so much wasted money.
And yes, I am a metallurgical engineer.
"Are there actually any products (apart from american cars, and they are not exactly a good advert for quality) made from scratch in the USA?"
Consumer level, not so much. Industrial level? Heat exchangers and pumps and boilers, and distillation columns and good high-pressure piping, oh yes, The US is still in business. That is the only part of the economy still going just now.
As for the machined (with or without lasers) out of brick of aluminum, no one does that anymore. Way too wasteful. Near-Net shape has been the mantra for over 20 years now. Extrude it, stamp it, do whatever it takes to take the correct (and minimum) amount of metal and get it into shape as closely as possible before final machining, and preferably without any final machining at all. Cuttings on the floor even with recycling, which the factories always did long before Earth Day, is just so much wasted money.
And yes, I am a metallurgical engineer.
Sorry about being flippant with my earlier reply.
I'm already an engineer, in fact I design pressed metal components and the press tooling used to manufacture them. I do know a little bit about bending things.
I wasn't being an hater, it's just a lot of people are getting carried away on this thread without properly knowing how the new case will be made. It will be interesting to see what they come out with (hopefully on the 14th)
This is all great as long as the RAM, HDD, etc are still user accessible. Turning the MB/MBP into the ipod in that regard would be totally unacceptable. I'm not willing to spend the money Apple charges for memory. I hope they don't raise the minimum RAM spec. I want as little memory as possible to keep the price down so I can go buy 4 GB of Crucial RAM for $80.
It doesn't seem like doing this would make sense, because then whenever anyone had a problem with their MB and brought it into the apple store, even the techs couldn't get inside it to check things out.
Guess we'll have to wait and see...
It doesn't seem like doing this would make sense, because then whenever anyone had a problem with their MB and brought it into the apple store, even the techs couldn't get inside it to check things out.
Guess we'll have to wait and see...
That is the key there.
So, 14" Aluminium MacBook of $799 to 14" Black Aluminium MacBook of $999.
MacBook Pros: mid to high $1000's (from 16" MacBook Pro of $1499 to to 18" MacBook Pro of $1799).
MacBook Air: $1299.
That should be competitive enough.
This is very interesting indeed. This move takes Apple another step above being a simple OEM such as Dell.
I very much doubt this would happen in the US. It'll probably be in China:
- Cheaper land
- Cheaper electricity
- Less taxes and government meddling
- Simpler logistics. Apple can keep the same shipping routes they already have.
- Locked exchange rate against the US dollar
- Cheaper aluminium. It's all produced there from the bauxite ore. It produces 1/5th of the world's aluminium. Shipping it to the US increases its price, which is bad if you're just going to send it on its way to Europe or back to China (growing economy, you may have heard).
Also, we'd have heard something. Building a factory requires lots of paperwork, which is all public domain. Shipping the product in 9 days also requires some factory workers.
I very much doubt this would happen in the US. It'll probably be in China:
- Cheaper land
- Cheaper electricity
- Less taxes and government meddling
- Simpler logistics. Apple can keep the same shipping routes they already have.
- Locked exchange rate against the US dollar
- Cheaper aluminium. It's all produced there from the bauxite ore. It produces 1/5th of the world's aluminium. Shipping it to the US increases its price, which is bad if you're just going to send it on its way to Europe or back to China (growing economy, you may have heard).
Also, we'd have heard something. Building a factory requires lots of paperwork, which is all public domain. Shipping the product in 9 days also requires some factory workers.
Exactly! How can we run out of it? It's not like it disappears. I was always told the earth has the same amount of water it had millions of years ago.
Anyways banyways, I bet they will recycle the water. It'd be much cheaper. I wonder if they would recycle the light
I think recycled water makes sense. what the earth is running out of is drinkable water, due to our pollution. Some cities now give away gray water (processed waste-water or rain run-off that cannot be made drinkable), this is used instead of using regular drinking/tap water for irrigation, car washing, etc).
I also think with using lasers and water jets, there is less of a chance for contaminiation of hydralic fluid, etc - this way it would be cheaper to recycle as you would not have to heat it as much to burn out the contaminiated material. the more and longer you have to heat it, the more good material gets burnt up and lost.
I don't know much about how this works, but with lasers - would there be less waste than stamping? I mean, once you stamp there are a lot of shaving that takes place and then sanding to smooth out. Where as with lasers - it is a precise cut, so therefore you are not creating as much unusable metal dust.
Hey, rather than brushed aluminum, take all that metal flake and really spiff up the appearance.... But in a better way than paint. I work the paint off the keys of my Dell XSP before it died.
9to5mac says that "There are no seams in the final product, so it is smooth."
I wonder what this really means? The case must still consists of several pieces, right? They have to put in a motherboard there, support removable HDD and battery, etc. I am just curious what the differences will really be.
I wonder what this really means? The case must still consists of several pieces, right? They have to put in a motherboard there, support removable HDD and battery, etc. I am just curious what the differences will really be.