Atomic Delights

The setup / R&D costs for manufacturing alone must have been enormous. Greg Koenig wrote a great piece about the manufacturing process[1]. It's a really interesting read, even if you're not a big fan of Apple products. 1: http://atomicdelights.com/blog/a-glimpse-at-how-the-apple-watch-is-mad…

Here's the primary source: http://atomicdelights.com/blog/a-glimpse-at-how-the-apple-watch-is-mad… -- absolutely worth a read. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9195042

I don't get the amount of grudge towards Apple for the new MBPs. Yeah, they could support 32GB of Ram, more battery would be nice too, and yeah I think almost no one got overwhelmed by he innovation Apple brought to the table with them, but what are the alternatives? The author mentions in another post why he is done with Apple after his 2013 13" MBP and states he has no use for the Touch Bar. Thats fine, just get the Pro without the bar and with physical function keys. The build quality of other laptops just isn't on par with Apples. Greg Koenig and many others have analyzed why Apple has a tremendous edge over other vendors when it comes to building computers and gadgets from aluminum[1]. Also if your are used to macOS, its perfect integration of hardware and software, its polish and many of the very nicely crafted ("made with ︎love") 3rd party applications, it might be very hard to switch to a decent Linux distro, let alone Windows. It may be wise to first try the switch on your current Mac, inside a Virtual Machine … [1] http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic (Featured on HN ~ 2 weeks ago)

http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic: “Apple is the world's largest owner of CNC milling machines and swiss style lathes. Rumors are that the number is around 40,000 with about half dedicated to iPhone production. I've seen pictures of one shop with acres of Fanuc Robodrills making iPhones, and that was only one of about a dozen such facilities. Apple is such a huge buyer of a particular kind of mill (BT30 spindle drill-tap centers) that Fanuc, Brother and DMG Mori each have factories dedicated to building machines exclusively for Apple.”

I believe this is likely the article you are referring to, was widely shared at the time. > http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic

Yes, the Japanese CNC machine manufacturers Apple uses have entire factories dedicated to Apple-bound products. Source: http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic

see: http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic

http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic (and other blog posts on the same blog) seems to disagree that Apple "essentially assembles most stuff by hand" - e.g. > Apple is the world's largest owner of CNC milling machines and swiss style lathes.

I was reminded of this blog's analysis of the Apple Watch manufacturing process from its announcement video: http://atomicdelights.com/blog/a-glimpse-at-how-the-apple-watch-is-mad… The site also has a similar analysis of the Mac Pro.

Supposedly they're not using ceramic-matrix gold in the Edition, but rather a more traditional alloy.[1] [1] http://atomicdelights.com/blog/a-glimpse-at-how-the-apple-watch-is-mad…

I think someone posted this[1] here yesterday, but from the description: >Electrical current is run through aluminum in an acid bath, causing oxygen molecules to bond to aluminum producing a thin, uniform layer of aluminum oxide (basically: aluminum rust). Because this surface layer is porous, dye can be used to add nearly any color to the aluminum part before the surface is sealed. While they may talk about Jony Ive taking part in the design in order to convey additional prestige to the product, it could be more involved than just painting a regular Mac Pro. Isn't this how they color the iPod nano? Anyway, it is conceivable that they did at least oversee the addition of color, and that there was a small potential for needing someone with special expertise. [1] http://atomicdelights.com/blog/how-apple-makes-the-mac-pro

Eh. This product designer thinks otherwise: http://atomicdelights.com/blog/how-apple-makes-the-mac-pro

What can Apple do different than big incumbents? How about all the stuff HN goes gaga over when Tesla does it? I think you're selling design as a difference short, for Apple design is holistic and affects the entire product experience not just the look and feel or the entertainment ux. They design the manufacturing process to squeeze out nickels on the dollar and using CM means they avoid legacy overhead that weighs down behemoths like GM, VW and Toyota. They also don't have any legacy overhead tied to engineering around ICE. As we've seen with Tesla, they had to reinvent almost everything because most of the problems traditional car companies had been working on don't exist in an all-electric vehicle. Apple designs the buying process, which for cars is nightmare fuel for most people. Even in their normal retail stores, buying is easier, you can pick up some things off the shelf, ring it up yourself right where you're standing with the Store app and then walk out. This may be Apple's biggest advantage from the customer's perspective. Carplay I haven't used but I think you may be selling this short too, on /r/cars when an industry entertainment guy asked what they should be doing the most upvoted response was: get out of the way and make dumb screens for Android Auto and CarPlay [1]. Maybe you're right though and it is outclassed by some current offerings. Perhaps this area is an Apple weakness but another possibly is that CarPlay is to iCar as the Motorola ROKR was to…