Apple cures the common cold and other stuff
"It is totally revolutionary, a game changer. One of the biggest Apple innovations in a decade. The MacBook manufacturing process up to this point has been outsourced to Chinese or Taiwanese manufacturers like Foxconn. Now Apple is in charge. The company has spent the last few years building an entirely new manufacturing process that uses lasers and jets of water to carve the MacBooks out of a brick of aluminum. (Yes, this sounded a bit crazy to us as well. But our source is adamant so bear with us. He says Apple has built a manufacturing process that would make Henry Ford proud.)"
Henry Ford? Yowza.
At the same time, Mike Schramm from TUAW.com writes that Nvidia is offering sneak peeks of the product to employees. He speculates that the units may include "some extra Nvidia power," presumably to turn the MacBook into a more serious game machine.
Something up his sleeve?
(Credit: CNET News)Of course, some or all--or none--of the above may be accurate. The hype cycle always works the Mac faithful into a lather, and this time the meter is simply off the charts. The "brick," as it's being referred to, may shape up to be quite the story. (And Apple definitely could use a different narrative after a steady stock decline topped off by a phony Steve Jobs rumor.) But if the breakthrough isn't as revolutionary as the early leaks suggest, will we be talking about the brick the way we now recall the Segway? Just wondering.
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
"Extra Nvidia power" might refer to the Macbook using the same sort of dual-GPU setup as some newer PC notebooks, namely the ability to boot with either integrated graphics for power savings or discrete graphics for performance. There--some additional speculation!
Anyway if this is true it could be really cool but does it not mean that macbooks would be extremely difficult to open up? And this may sound silly but if it is created out of a solid block of aluminum will they not need to slick it open and carve the inside to put the parts in? I know there must be ways around these problems I just can;t think of them. Any ideas?
Although there seems to be no concrete verification, we all know that Apple is about competitive difference and total control over its product line. Such a revolutionary manufacturing process, in the US, would increase Apple's control and allow quicker product change. It could be more of forward-looking "think different" from Steve.
Syllogism as follows:
A- Article stipulates revolutionary new process carves w/ laser and water.
B- Laser and water are not revolutionary, and do nat carve, they cut, and havebeen used by Apple and it's vendors for decades, if for nothing else cutting circuit boards.
Therefore
C- The author had nothing to write about today, and concocted some bull3|nit.
No game-changer there.
Apple needs to do something, however.
Too much of the tech we take for granted comes from overseas.
Apple needs to start making its own stuff.
America needs to sever the import umbilical.
Simple folks want U.S. made and cheap. That is not possible.
Foreign is not a dirty word.
New electronics will be made of carbon fibre, stronger than steel,lighter than aluminum and manufactured at lightspeeds faster than any known machining process now or within a 100yrs!
And Aluminum is bridle, Plastic is more forgiving and lighter too.
More practical would be, if every town would upgrade the traffic light "Computer" Network. To get a green wave light. If you know what that is. It would save this country a lot of gal gasoline= $
But, the traffic light "network" is mostly still from the 60.
Not this above nonsense, useless.
Plastic would not save this country gasoline, it takes oil to make plastic.
FAIL.
Hypothetically, if you order a computer at the on-line Apple Store, the case for each computer can be form fitted for the particular hard drive, video card, etc. that you are requesting - thereby minimized overall size for each particular option set.
While Apple could now have multiple manufacturing lines for each permutation that a customer could order in its existing manufacturing process, economies of scale would probably may make such multiple lines less cost effective. The "brick" process may make economies of scale irrelevant - e.g. making 1,000 identical cases costs the same per unit as 1,000 custom cases.
Why should I have a computer case that is 2mm thinker to accommodate a hard drive (or other option) that I didn't purchase?. You can even cut your name, company, or other designs into the case.
Never mind that each user could customize the notebook in other ways for their particular tastes - although I doubt Apple would allow individuals to significantly change the look of their product.
I doubt this is what the rumors are about, but just because high-pressure water jets et. al. have been around for awhile doesn't mean that new processes that leverage those strengths can't be revolutionary.
I also don't seem them using solid ingots of Al and custom carving each unit. You'd have significantly added weight over a standard pressed shell and the cost differential would be substantial (as would the wastage and excess processing costs).
May I suggest a revolutionary new idea for CNET?
Try reporting real news instead of rumor an innuendo to drive traffic to this site.
I agree with drcocktail. The satirical headline says it all.
Actually Apple has been building awesome graphic hardware systems that can easily play all the current generation high power video games without any issue- the problem is that the game makers simply don't care. They aren't really paying much attention to the Apple platform due to the small market share. The economics simply aren't there yet. A few games have been ported over and met with lacklustre results. The time isn't right yet .
I think Apple will benefit from doing their own in house manufacturing for keeping the sticker price very high and their costs down load yieilding even greater profits. But they must do this for many years to pay off the investment of those facilities. If they esperience any design failure (AC power bricks catching fire, batteries, case damage, etc), then they have to eat those costs completely and can't simply sue the manufacturer to replace it- they are that manufacturer. That could be costly not only in money but also reputation. They would have nobody to blame but themselves.
It's a tricky situation for them to be in.
AAPL going down the crapper=Crapple !
With respect to your concern about "more pressing issues," Android isn't an iPhone competitor as much as it is a WinMo competitor, Amazon MP3 would be a greater concern if the tracks were DRM'ed, MySpace Music isn't a concern at all, and the drop in market cap is a market related issue (after all, despite announcing the G1, Google has cratered right alongside Apple; should they be concerned about pressing issues too?) Only tools make strategic decisions based on market fluctuations; I guess we know where you fall. Cheers.
- by john55440 October 5, 2008 1:49 PM PDT
- Cutting with lasers and water jets has been around for ages.
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- by Perry_Clease October 5, 2008 4:44 PM PDT
- Apple has fashion and function on equal terms.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (42 Comments)The rumor is consistent, however, with Apple's philosopy of (yawn) putting fashion before function. I don't buy a particular computer because the case is pretty. (grin)