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MacBook Updates Rumored To Include Glass Trackpad
CWmike writes to tell us that Seth Weintraub has been hearing some interesting rumors surrounding the next iteration of Apple's MacBook line. "I have been hearing some interesting things about Apple's upcoming line of portable computers. The talk amongst insiders on the new MacBooks is kind of scattered but here's a summation of what I've heard: The new models are thinner than current MacBook and MacBook Pros and slightly more rounded, taking design cues from the MacBook Air; the trackpad is glass, multi-touch and uses gestures. The screen isn't multi-touch; the body is manufactured out of one piece of aluminum. Eco-friendly, yet sturdy. Manufacturing process is completely different; the release date will be in the last weeks of September."
What makes this "eco-friendly"? The glass trackpad? The "manufactured out of one piece of aluminum"?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
What are the advantages of a glass trackpad? Wouldn't your finger stick to it?
Why, so you can glance up and down constantly to see what you're doing, and then curse occasionally as you press the wrong spot on the trackpad and open several programs at once?
I've used a few touchpads in my time, and the bad ones are the ones that either started off glossy, or became glossy because of wear. I'm fine with using glossy touch-screens for tapping around or stylus work, but trying to operate one as a mouse for a long period of time gets immensely annoying. The slightest bit of sweat on my fingertips makes them stick and stutter across.
I've not used an iPhone or iPod touch for long, but I got the impression that they were designed to favour short finger motions on the pad for precisely this reason. I'm not sure it would translate well into a touchpad.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Look up touchscreen gorilla arm.
That's why touch screens are not great and won't cause a revolution.
the MacBook Pro already has a multi-touch trackpad, so I'm not sure where the rumor part comes in...
I disagree...
I work at an Apple Store (therefor the AC, and obviously take what I say with a grain of salt as I'm as much a fanboi as the best of em').
From everyone's perspective, having repairs done in larger part replacements are much better. There is one flaw with your statement. The large replaced part isn't just thrown away, but rather can be refurbished.
Consider an LCD display on a laptop. We'll low-ball and say there are 7 individual replaceable parts and cables. Brick and Mortar big box retail stores get shipments from all shipping companies for all different purposes from all over the globe. With Air and Ground shipping for say 4 failed parts in an LCD panel (say it's a liquid damaged LCD) and you get shipments from DHL, UPS, and FedEx delivering all of your parts over a period of 3 days. Now, if you only have to order a monitor clam-shell instead of 4 different parts, you have 1 shipment on 1 single day. When you are sending parts back to be refurbed or recycled or trashed, you are sending a single item as opposed to several different packages. From an inventory standpoint this means MUCH less paperwork per shipment and less boxes/packing material being used to ship and be trashed/recycled.
For users, repairs can be done faster. (If repairs can be done while customer waits, only one car trip out to store)
For retail stores, more repairs can be done in-store. This means fewer repairs will be packaged and shipped out to repair centers.
I just don't see how single part replacements are bad. This allows Apple to help end users more effectively. It takes less shipping and packing, and as I've understood eco-matters (and I won't pretend to be the brightest bulb on the matter), air cargo and travel are pretty big carbon emitters. Apple can then refurb/recycle the part in a larger warehouse environment that is more adept at repairing the individual components of the larger part.
Any-hoo... just my $0.04
But metal is recyclable, plastic is not really recyclable. And about 8% of our crust is aluminum, plastic is from the oil, which is disappearing quickly. You may have noticed that aluminum is extracted from the ore, but did you know how plastic become plastic?
As carbon fiber reinforced plastic, I hope you realize that carbon fibers are made from polyacrylonitrile fibers by heating. And most CFRP products are absolutely not recyclable.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
So if I'm understanding this right if a $0.05 part goes out and it would not be covered under warranty the customer would be charged the fee for the whole system of parts (probably several hundred dollars) while Apple gets to refurbish and resell the system of parts after they replace the cheap part (plus in house labor rates). Yea I can see how this would be win/win for apple. The only way to make this fair would be to reimburse the original purchaser for the parts that would be reused during the refurb, sort of like a core charge when you bring back your old starter motor. I would also guess that someone somewhere also is making the call that if the time and material to refurbish a system if going to be more then what they can resell the refurbish for, it will still be tossed in a landfill.