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11" MacBook Air Disassembled
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- hugh3 16y agoNeat! It's obvious from the outside that they've put a helluva lot of thought into how to package this, but it's even more obvious from the inside. I wonder what the next-generation Mac Mini will look like. Take out the batteries and the remaining components would be truly tiny. What I'd kinda like is to unplug my computer from its desktop keyboard and screen at the end of the day, take it home in my pocket, and plug it into my keyboard and screen at home.
- jon914 16y agoThis reminds me of an anecdote where Jobs was arguing with an engineer about the look of the original Mac's internals: "I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it's inside the box. A great carpenter isn't going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody's going to see it."
- btn 16y agoThe complete story for that anecdote can be found on folklore.org: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=PC_Board_Esthetics.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=PC_Board_Esthetic...
- sz 16y agoThat's actually one of the selling points for me. Something that elegant inside the case seems very unlikely to have questionable engineering behind it. My old Dell, on the other hand...
- ojbyrne 16y agoMy (wild-ass) prediction: full computer in an Apple TV form factor.
- sahillavingia 16y agoThe Mac Mini comes darn close.
- ojbyrne 16y agoI mean the new apple tv: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/apple_tv?mco=MTM3NTM1Nzk http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/apple... Size and weight Height: 0.9 inches (23 mm) Width: 3.9 inches (98 mm) Depth: 3.9 inches (98 mm) Weight: 0.6 pounds Current MacMini Size: Height: 1.4 inches (3.6 cm) Width: 7.7 inches (19.7 cm) Depth: 7.7 inches (19.7 cm) Weight: 3.0 pounds (1.37 kg)
- MrFoof 16y agoHaving disassembled a mid-2010 Mac Mini, the main limiting factor right now is without question the optical drive. The space required for an optical disk drastically increases its footprint. Replacing a 2.5" disk with a mini-PCIE SSD a la the MacBook Air would also free up valuable space. They certainly could get the computer to within spitting distance of the new Apple TV, if it lost the optical drive. Overall, I can't discount the current Mini's usefulness. With a Seagate Momentus XT and 8GB of memory it's a great development box (spinning up 4GB VMs with ease), great every day machine, and even plays games decently enough (including Starcraft II). Power consumption with a 23" display and external FW800 disk rounds out to 45-60W depending on the display's brightness. However, the real "zero footprint" Mac is still the iMac. With the Mini, I still need a display, and the requisite display cable and second power cable.
- bemmu 16y agoAnd work as an iPhone while it's in your pocket.
- chesspro 16y agoIt's really a shame apple put in a 5-point Security Torx for the bottom casing. Just got a new toolkit a few weeks ago... but it doesn't have the security torx tip. But overall really nice form factor. I love how neat and well fit everything looks.
- tlrobinson 16y agoWhy? There's no user replaceable/upgradable parts. If you're going to the trouble of buying a part and replacing it touurself surely you can get the right screwdriver.
- aristus 16y agoIt's an anti-geek arms race that I have never liked. I worked at an authorized Nintendo shop almost 20 years ago. "Regular" Torx screwdrivers, the kind you can pick up for nothing today, were hard to come by back then. They cost something like $50 direct from Nintendo. Every new model required some special tool for no reason except to make it harder for Joe Blow to take things apart. I understand the many reasons for it, but it's still anti-geek, physical DRM.
- illumin8 16y agoIt doesn't cost $50 to buy the tools you need to open any hardware: http://www.ecrater.com/p/6143994/security-bits-set-tamper-proof http://www.ecrater.com/p/6143994/security-bits-set-tamper-pr...
- jws 16y agoAre you sure about that? I don't see the 5 sided Torx-Plus bits. But then I'm also not certain that the new MBA uses a Torx-Plus, the recess' lobes look a little too circular.
- hugh3 16y agoAnti-geek? What could be more geeky than owning a five-point security torx screwdriver?
- hackermom 16y agoApple hater or Apple lover, I don't think anyone can disagree about their laptops and their Mac Mini being masterpieces of engineering. Really amazing compactness.
- mahmud 16y agoYou can love Apple products and hate Apple policies.
- WozRocks 16y agoActually, you can't. People who "hate apple's policies" are people who hate apple for ideological reasons and are attempting to rationalize it. If you understand apple's policies you'll realize that all of them are designed to produce the best user experience for consumers. I've never seen apple do something malicious, like I have Dell and Microsoft, nor betray their customers, like I have seen Microsoft, Google and Facebook do. These "policies" that people hate generally amount to nothing more than failing to march according to some rigid stallmanesque ideology.
- ghotli 16y ago"WozRocks", your bias is showing.
- mahmud 16y agoI thought it was a troll account created only 12 hours ago, to give "Apple fans" a bad name. To be fair to "WozRocks" though, I, personally, am kind of an Apple hater ;-) so his/her comments might not be without a context.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- WozRocks 16y agoWhile I appreciate you calling me a troll and then saying "to be fair" your response is still argument to the person, and thus you are an example of why hacker news is a place where intelligent discussion is difficult. You are a detriment to this site. Of course, you are so wrapped up in your bigotry that you will never see it. You must project your own failures on others, and call them "Trolls". You are an Apple hater because you are not a hacker, you are a poser, of the kind that has come to infest sites like this, bringing down the level of discussion to the point where no actual hacker discussion goes on. In fact, last one I saw, you came in and attacked the questioner and pissed your ignorance all over the thread managing to successfully derail it. If that is not the definition of a troll, I don't know what is.
- Spic 16y agoI was kind of hoping that the times when the power and sleep buttons are put directly on the keyboard are long gone for good, so now I was very, very surprised to see the power button right above the delete key, looking just like the eject.
- jonhendry 16y agoThe power button really is a hassle if you use the 12 South BookArc stand. You have to lift the laptop out of the stand, open it up, hit the power button, close the laptop before it fully starts... Some kind of external power button would be really nice.
- icegreentea 16y agoIf I was the engineering putting the MBA together, I would think that in the back of my mind as I decided that baked on SSDs were the way to go that this wouldn't catch on with everyone (manufacturers). I mean, there's no way you deny that incredible space savings you get. But you're also locking in the main storage, something that people have been able to change in their laptops for (seeming) forever, something that I probably just did in my own MBP (cause those base Toshiba units are kinda funky) a few months ago.
- MrFoof 16y agoI'm fairly certain that the SSD is basically a Mini PCI-E card. The overall dimensions are uncommon, but I believe there's no common standard for the size of Mini-PCIe SSDs in the first place. In theory, the drive could be upgraded. Securing it to the chassis is a challenge left to the reader.
- stellar678 16y agoMight be interesting for this to turn into a new storage standard. It doesn't seem like they had to go through any particular shenanigans to cram the flash chips onto that form-factor. Then the non-upgradeable MBA main storage would become upgradeable.
- gcb 16y agoThe SSD looks like Asus eee pc 1000's mini PCI-e one. They're available in 7in (for asus and toshibas) and 5in (for dell mini) and now what? 10in?
- hboon 16y agoAny idea at all why Apple calls them "Flash drives" rather than SSD?