Comments on: Apple cures the common cold and other stuff

Rumors of a "revolutionary" manufacturing process make the rounds--and this time the hype is off the charts.

[gary85739]

Machining is SLOW. Expect carbon fibre, which is stronger than steel & lighter than aluminum to be the real breakthru in future electronic cases...

[dylan214u]

Does Ron Enderle head up Cnet's Editorials/Blogs on Apple. Sure sounds like it these days

[jinx101a]

This process has been around for years, how exactly is this news worthy other than it will get rid of a few screws in the casing (and I'm sorry, that's not even news worthy). I know that those visible screws can be a deal breaker for most Mac users that cringe at the thought of how much they tarnish the image of the MacBook with their visible Phillips head.

All hype, no substance.

[stskhalsa]

The process described in the rumor is commonly known as "billet" manufacturing and it's been around for ages. In billet manufacturing an ingot is cast and then either machined or forged. The rumor just refers to a variety of extant machining methods.

The "billet Macbook" doesn't make much sense and it's clear that part of the rumor is silly. If you want to get a reality check on this just examine aftermarket auto and motorcycle parts prices. Check out a billet part (which is machined, by whatever means, from a block of aluminum, not cast or stamped - basically as described in the rumor.) and compare the price to a similar cast or stamped part. The billet part will be ENORMOUSLY more expensive. The reasons are simple - machining takes way way way more time than stamping, and a 10 lb. block of cast aluminum is drastically more expensive than a 5 oz. sheet of aluminum. Recycling? The cost of electricity alone to re-refine the aluminum scrap would be more than the cost of a hundred complete stamped cases.

While the "brick" may be about mass customization (The Machine that Changed the World, The Virtual Corporation), it's really unlikely billet manufacturing is the methodology. The costs both for time and money are just too high.

This rumor just sounds like somebody got wind of a project code name and ran with it.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Just thinking about it- how will any of this *reduce* the price of an Apple laptop? The answer is that it won't. It will only increase the price. Injection molding of plastic cases is far far cheaper than machining metal cases. You can do them by the millions and immediately recycle the bad ones back into the hopper and be remelted. A failure in a machined item means it has to be sent back to the smelter as scrap metal and Apple would have to pay for that same material to be returned again as raw material later.

I just don't see the economics of it.

[Magicland]

You want to do something revolutionary, start with a solid block of silicon and cut away anything that doesn't look like a computer, and end up with one that works. THAT'D be impressive. Nothing else mentioned in this article is.

[kakman1]

This brick sounds like a hoax.

[CSV1225]

http://rinit.at.ua/index/0-15 - site about common cold