3 ms·

Off-topic - I love the fact that Apple takes care to make the insides look as nice as the outside. Everything from the layout to the boards looks so good.

exitb 3y ago
It always looked good, but I’m honestly impressed how tetris-like their design has became. It truly feels like there’s no wasted volume in there. That being said, it’s all horrible from the repairability point of view.
- masklinn 3y ago
  Apple is really inconsistent and more than a touch schizophrenic about this. The laptops get scores of 2~4 (the touchbar iterations were an amazing 1, you have to look for the Surface Laptop or an orange to get worse), meanwhile the iphone 14 debuted a new design which earned a 7.
  - sudhirj 3y ago
    They design to meet their internal (supply chain and exec decision) constraints and considerations. Sometimes those factors align with ifixit’s scores, but that’s more likely a coincidence.
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    >Apple is really inconsistent and more than a touch schizophrenic about this. >The laptops get scores of 2~4 (the touchbar iterations were an amazing 1, you have to look for the Surface Laptop or an orange to get worse), meanwhile the iphone 14 debuted a new design which earned a 7. I'm more optimistic than sudhirj. There is a longstanding trend in Apple, going back to the Apple II versus Macintosh 128K, of alternating between open and sealed designs. As just one of many, many examples: The iBook G3 (not the clamshell)? Very sealed. iBook G4? Quite open, despite its exterior having very few changes.
agumonkey 3y ago
reminds me of some audiophile brands, the innards were so clean and symmetrical..
ttfkam 3y ago
Don't see how this is off-topic.
kitsunesoba 3y ago
It's something they started focusing more on I want to say some point in the early-mid 2000s. The innards of the PowerMac G4 towers and PowerBook/iBook G4s weren't very nice looking, and the latter were an absolute nightmare to disassemble with 3x as many screws as seen in the video above. Where that changed was with the PowerMac G5 and iMac G5 on the desktop side of things and the unibody MacBooks on the portable side. The internals of the first couple revisions of 20" iMac G5 in particular were very nice both aesthetically and from a serviceability standpoint, which they unfortunately degraded with later revisions by making it necessary to remove the screen to access internals.
- nikau 3y ago
  The early ibooks designs were outsourced, to asus I believe. I remember they were dangerous to repair as the screw lengths were all different and you could screw a long screw into a short hole which would cut into some pcb traces.
  - kitsunesoba 3y ago
    Interesting, do you know if that applies to the fruit colored models or the later white ones? I disassembled a white iBook G4 ages ago and it was a real mess to take apart.
    - nikau 3y ago
      was either the g3 or g4 ibook (my g3 was such a lemon it got replaced with a g4)
037 3y ago
Probably you already know this, but it was a Steve Jobs thing: Growing up, Jobs once helped his father build a fence around their family home in Mountain View. While working, Paul shared a piece of advice with Jobs: “You’ve got to make the back of the fence, that nobody will see, just as good looking as the front of the fence. Even though nobody will see it, you will know, and that will show that you’re dedicated to making something perfect.” The idea stuck with Jobs. While at the helm of Apple, Jobs insisted that every element of the Macintosh computer be beautiful, down to the circuit boards inside. “Look at the memory chips. That’s ugly. The lines are too close together,” Jobs said of the circuits in Isaacson’s biography. […] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/10/how-steve-jobs-developed-his-design-philosophy-for-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/10/how-steve-jobs-developed-his...

exitb 3y ago

It always looked good, but I’m honestly impressed how tetris-like their design has became. It truly feels like there’s no wasted volume in there. That being said, it’s all horrible from the repairability point of view.

masklinn 3y ago
Apple is really inconsistent and more than a touch schizophrenic about this. The laptops get scores of 2~4 (the touchbar iterations were an amazing 1, you have to look for the Surface Laptop or an orange to get worse), meanwhile the iphone 14 debuted a new design which earned a 7.
- sudhirj 3y ago
  They design to meet their internal (supply chain and exec decision) constraints and considerations. Sometimes those factors align with ifixit’s scores, but that’s more likely a coincidence.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >Apple is really inconsistent and more than a touch schizophrenic about this. >The laptops get scores of 2~4 (the touchbar iterations were an amazing 1, you have to look for the Surface Laptop or an orange to get worse), meanwhile the iphone 14 debuted a new design which earned a 7. I'm more optimistic than sudhirj. There is a longstanding trend in Apple, going back to the Apple II versus Macintosh 128K, of alternating between open and sealed designs. As just one of many, many examples: The iBook G3 (not the clamshell)? Very sealed. iBook G4? Quite open, despite its exterior having very few changes.

agumonkey 3y ago

reminds me of some audiophile brands, the innards were so clean and symmetrical..

ttfkam 3y ago

Don't see how this is off-topic.

kitsunesoba 3y ago

It's something they started focusing more on I want to say some point in the early-mid 2000s. The innards of the PowerMac G4 towers and PowerBook/iBook G4s weren't very nice looking, and the latter were an absolute nightmare to disassemble with 3x as many screws as seen in the video above. Where that changed was with the PowerMac G5 and iMac G5 on the desktop side of things and the unibody MacBooks on the portable side. The internals of the first couple revisions of 20" iMac G5 in particular were very nice both aesthetically and from a serviceability standpoint, which they unfortunately degraded with later revisions by making it necessary to remove the screen to access internals.

nikau 3y ago
The early ibooks designs were outsourced, to asus I believe. I remember they were dangerous to repair as the screw lengths were all different and you could screw a long screw into a short hole which would cut into some pcb traces.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  Interesting, do you know if that applies to the fruit colored models or the later white ones? I disassembled a white iBook G4 ages ago and it was a real mess to take apart.
  - nikau 3y ago
    was either the g3 or g4 ibook (my g3 was such a lemon it got replaced with a g4)

037 3y ago

Probably you already know this, but it was a Steve Jobs thing: Growing up, Jobs once helped his father build a fence around their family home in Mountain View. While working, Paul shared a piece of advice with Jobs: “You’ve got to make the back of the fence, that nobody will see, just as good looking as the front of the fence. Even though nobody will see it, you will know, and that will show that you’re dedicated to making something perfect.” The idea stuck with Jobs. While at the helm of Apple, Jobs insisted that every element of the Macintosh computer be beautiful, down to the circuit boards inside. “Look at the memory chips. That’s ugly. The lines are too close together,” Jobs said of the circuits in Isaacson’s biography. […] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/10/how-steve-jobs-developed-his-design-philosophy-for-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/10/how-steve-jobs-developed-his...