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I don't think I mentioned anything about user-accessibility or servicing, I was just thinking from an assembly point of view. In my experience, which has never

by bradfa 5y ago

I don't think I mentioned anything about user-accessibility or servicing, I was just thinking from an assembly point of view. In my experience, which has never been at the scale or complexity of iPhone manufacturing volumes, anything with screws is a big no-no. You must minimize the number of screws and having things which snap fit is greatly preferred over a screwed connection. Even when robots are doing some of the assembly. If you have any videos of robots installing lots of tiny screws in mass manufacturing, I'd be genuinely interested to see that. I'm interested in volume manufacturing techniques.

ricardobeat 5y ago
If it is a "a horrible design to have to assemble reliably in mass quantities", fair to assume the focus of the design would have been serviceability, otherwise what would be the trade-off? The third option, which would be "Apple sucks at industrial design" seems like a stretch. Here is one from 2016 - it's using an iPhone as an example, but to be fair I don't know if this is actually used in the production line: https://youtu.be/BOY3oZ8SkZU?t=23 https://youtu.be/BOY3oZ8SkZU?t=23
- bradfa 5y ago
  Thanks for the video link, that's quite cool! I presume for high volume operations there'd be a screw feeder system rather than a tray of screws so that it only has to reloaded every few thousand screws.
- bradfa 5y ago
  I think the tradeoff would be it simply looks stellar and has probably great cooling for the given noise it makes. Apple seems to put a premium on their designs in these areas, and their customers seem to agree. For things like audio production, having a quiet PC may be super important, and this seems like a market Apple plays well in. Everything is a tradeoff, it was just surprising to me that each of those external ports is their own little PCB with flex cables to the motherboard and one or more screws each. Most other PC manufacturers would likely make a case that enables putting all of those ports directly soldered to the motherboard, with a slightly worse exterior design appearance.

by bradfa 5y ago

ricardobeat 5y ago

If it is a "a horrible design to have to assemble reliably in mass quantities", fair to assume the focus of the design would have been serviceability, otherwise what would be the trade-off? The third option, which would be "Apple sucks at industrial design" seems like a stretch. Here is one from 2016 - it's using an iPhone as an example, but to be fair I don't know if this is actually used in the production line: https://youtu.be/BOY3oZ8SkZU?t=23 https://youtu.be/BOY3oZ8SkZU?t=23

bradfa 5y ago
Thanks for the video link, that's quite cool! I presume for high volume operations there'd be a screw feeder system rather than a tray of screws so that it only has to reloaded every few thousand screws.
bradfa 5y ago
I think the tradeoff would be it simply looks stellar and has probably great cooling for the given noise it makes. Apple seems to put a premium on their designs in these areas, and their customers seem to agree. For things like audio production, having a quiet PC may be super important, and this seems like a market Apple plays well in. Everything is a tradeoff, it was just surprising to me that each of those external ports is their own little PCB with flex cables to the motherboard and one or more screws each. Most other PC manufacturers would likely make a case that enables putting all of those ports directly soldered to the motherboard, with a slightly worse exterior design appearance.