5 ms·

I wonder if Apple will ever make a waterproof laptop or tablet. It seems like they could easily make the macbook air waterproof at this point, if they were so

• mschuster91 3y ago
  > What do people who want use their macs out in the field do? "Out in the field" jobs? That's typically stuff for heavily rugged Windows laptops (e.g. Panasonic Toughbook). I wonder what you could use a Mac device for in that area, the software used for such jobs (e.g. industrial control, car programming or mapping stuff) is almost exclusively Windows-only.
  • Teever 3y ago
    What I mean by that is do people make quality waterproof cases for macs? I wonder why Apple has never considered making a toughbook type machine for real field work.
    • zontorol 3y ago
      Toughbooks are not fashionable and look like tools. Macbooks are supposed to look like jewelry.
      • nijave 3y ago
        In a way, Toughbooks are the exact opposites of MacBooks.
    • gumby 3y ago
      Volume, I’m sure. They sell a large volume of a small number of SKUs so go for the minimum feature set that can get them out a couple of sigmas of the target market. Anything else is aftermarket (special case) or just “buy something else”. There are a few exceptions. I wonder how many Mac pros they really sell. I assume it’s really a “halo” product that sells more Mac studios and MacBook pros. Also the Mac in general is a low volume product for Apple. It’s 10% of units in the PC market (but what % of profit?) and about 10% of their revenue. (If they were truly run with a bean counter mentality would they even ship Macs?)
      • frandroid 3y ago
        Half of developers in North America, and especially those at top tier companies, use Macs. You can't buy that kind of top tech mindshare with marketing. Also now with the M-series CPUs, Macbooks aren't PC Clones anymore, they're back in the game of being an exclusive platform, which will get even more exclusive as they add other specialized chips. Their sales share of the market and as you mention, their profit share of the market keeps increasing, so even on that alone, why would a bean counter decide to drop them? Don't forget Apple's size... the AirPod business, stood alone, would be a Fortune 500 company. Even if an Apple business is a bit small compared to the iPhone, it's still a humongous business by any other comparator. I'm not an Apple fanboy (e.g. I use an old Chinese Android phone) but I'm still awed by their business.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • mschuster91 3y ago
          > Their sales share of the market and as you mention, their profit share of the market keeps increasing, so even on that alone, why would a bean counter decide to drop them? Apple at the moment doesn't have any marketshare in rugged, "out in the field" laptop computers. Obviously if any company can brute force an entry into any market it's Apple, but they would need significant investments into third parties that hold potential customers hostage to Windows, and Apple Just Does Not Do That unless the third party in question is a direct supplier of theirs.
• threeseed 3y ago
  A lot of people in creative industries e.g. musicians, editors, designers etc often have to work outdoors sometimes in dusty, rugged areas.
• httpz 3y ago
  It doesn't even have to be waterproof to prevent 99% water damage cases. It just needs to be water resistant against liquid pours from the top, like how a car can withstand rain.
  • millzlane 3y ago
    Most of the liquid spills I see are from people carrying water bottles in their bags with the laptop.
    • jansimonek 3y ago
      Yup, just happened to me yesterday. I was in a hurry and didn’t screw lid of a coffee thermos correctly. Luckily the mac seems to have survived.
    • chris_wot 3y ago
      I can confirm. I work at a school with a massive fleet of Macs. The kids generally kill their devices with water by keeping their water bottle in the same bag as their MacBook. Doesn’t matter how often I tell them not to, they insist on doing this.
      • Someone 3y ago
        What do you expect them to do instead? Carry two bags? Keep the bottle in their hand at all times? I think both are highly inconvenient. There are backpacks with bottle holders on the outside, but in my experience, those aren’t very good at holding a bottle. Not bringing a bottle probably is the best option, but that may not be a good option in very hot climates.
        • chris_wot 3y ago
          Yes. The risk of a water bottle opening in a student’s bag and ruining a laptop, causing a very expensive repair is worse than the inconvenience of keeping the bottle outside of their bag. How would you avoid water damage due to the scenario? Or do you consider it normal and unavoidable?
• stephen_g 3y ago
  Having used ruggedised laptops in the past - usually the keyboards are pretty horrible if they're fully waterproof. Depends between model to model, but the most fully-waterproof ones we had had a full membrane over the keyboard, making it super spongey and terrible to type on. An iPad on the other hard would be pretty easy to make fully waterproof like the phones, since it only has a couple of buttons and one port.
  • Gigachad 3y ago
    They could just make the keyboard an easily replaceable part and have it waterproofed off underneath the keyboard.
  • dgrin91 3y ago
    Touchscreens are terrible for any sort of environment requiring ruggedized gear. A little bit of rain or dirt makes the touch screen get very confused and totally useless for actual touch.
    • tonyarkles 3y ago
      Resistive touchscreens work ok in that kind of environment, can be used with gloves… but suck quite a bit otherwise. None of the fun multitouch stuff, just a single pressure point to click with
      • scarface_74 3y ago
        Old Rant: way back in the day Garmin made a capacitive touch screen watch for runners. Why did they think this was a good idea seeing that your hands would be sweaty and wet if you were running 2023 rant: if I press the button on my watch and tell Siri to “start swim workout” when I’m in the water, my watch still expects me to press a button on the screen while I’m in the water.
        • Shadowmist 3y ago
          Do that finger pinch thing
• nailer 3y ago
  I wonder the same. We used to take cell phones not being waterproof as standard. Now everybody expects them to be waterproof. The idea that is single spilled coffee can cause $1000 of damage or more to a laptop is ridiculous.
  • blackoil 3y ago
    Spill proof should be possible reasonably. Think pad used to have channels for water drainage not sure they still have them. Dunking proof laptop would be possible but tradeoff not worth it.
    • ykonstant 3y ago
      They don't; they DON'T still have them. I pestered my department to get me a Lenovo instead of a Dell because I had bought into the reliability hype; one minor water-spill later, my laptop freaked out and since then has permanently degraded performance. See if I get another Lenovo ever again. But anyway, if you are like me with arm mobility issues and in danger of spilling stuff on your laptop, get some custom made rugged laptop because no manufacturer cares anymore; if anything, they seem to care the other way round.
  • DonHopkins 3y ago
    My x86 Macbook Pro ran so hot I could have used it to make coffee and foam milk!
• gnicholas 3y ago
  Making the ports waterproof would be pretty easy, since they can do that on iPhones. But what about the ventilation areas? That's much trickier, I'd think. Making a waterproof iPad should be trivial since it has the same ports as an iPhone.
  • FredFS456 3y ago
    MacBook Airs no longer have ventilation
    • astrange 3y ago
      You're thinking of fans.
    • gnicholas 3y ago
      When the lid is open, I can see what appear to be vents. There is no active cooling, but I believe there are still holes where air escapes.
  • macrolime 3y ago
    Watercooling or passive cooling with external heat sinks.
    • gnicholas 3y ago
      Has Apple ever made a water-cooled computer? I agree this could be done with heat sinks, but was just pointing out that the current MBA design isn't on the cusp of waterproof.
      • paleface 3y ago
        > Has Apple ever made a water-cooled computer? The latter period of the G5, were water cooled, IIRC. They suffered from problems due to corrosion, though.
  • lloeki 3y ago
    > Making the ports waterproof would be pretty easy, since they can do that on iPhones iPhones are not waterproof, they're IP68 water resistant. Apple even describes the port as being a liquid egress (and thus ingress) point in their public "oops I dunked my phone in water" support documentation. Dry your iPhone: 1. Tap your iPhone gently against your hand with the connector facing down to remove excess liquid. Leave your iPhone in a dry area with some airflow https://support.apple.com/en-us/102643 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102643
• dathinab 3y ago
  Making a keyboard fully water proof is tricky and often leads to subpar experiences. If you don't have a fan making everything else but the keyboard(and mousepad) water resistant is not hard, and with a bit more trickery about how the keyboard are connected you can get to everything but keyboard waterproof too. Issue is then you also need a easy replaceable keyboard and hand replacement keyboard out so that people can have them ready them "just in case". Which both doesn't seem in the interest of Apple if you look at their actions in recent years. I think currently the best chance for a new consumer laptop which is water proof and convenient to use would be a tablet which has no fan but still provides okay performance and then some "dock on" keyboard like e.g. in the style of the Microsoft Surface or similar. Then you could have a version where the keyboard is also water proof or a version where if it drops in water you replace the nicer to use keyboard with a new one etc.
  • kjkjadksj 3y ago
    My iBook G4 I think was the last mac with a keyboard you could replace without using tools and opening the case.