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Why You Can't Manufacture Like Apple
HughPickens.com writes Medium reports that although many startups want to design something that mimics the fit and finish of an Apple product, it's a good way to go out of business. "What happened when Apple wanted to CNC machine a million MacBook bodies a year? They bought 10k CNC machines to do it. How about when they wanted to laser drill holes in MacBook Pros for the sleep light but only one company made a machine that could drill those 20 m holes in aluminum? It bought the company that made the machines and took all the inventory. And that time when they needed batteries to fit into a tiny machined housing but no manufacturer was willing to make batteries so thin? Apple made their own battery cells. From scratch." Other things that Apple often does that can cause problems for a startup include white plastic (which is the most difficult color to mold), CNC machining at scale (too expensive), Laser drilled holes (far more difficult than it may seem), molded plastic packaging (recycled cardboard is your friend), and 4-color, double-walled, matte boxes + HD foam inserts (It's not unusual for them to cost upwards of $12/unit at scale. And then they get thrown away.). "If you see a feature on an Apple device you want to copy, try to find it on another company's product. If you do, it's probably okay to design into your product. Otherwise, lower your expectations. I assure you it'll be better for your startup."
That's one heck of a sleep light.
In completely unrelated news, Slashdot's support of non-ASCII characters is refreshingly anachronistic.
Some of that info seems bogus. 10,000 CNC mills? Unlikely. 10,000 CNC machines of all types across all of Apple manufacturing, maybe.
I was skeptical too, but then I looked up the numbers and turns out 10,000 is actually an underestimation:
Foxconn, the Apple supplier that doubled factory pay after a spate of worker suicides, buys 800 programmable Robodrills from Fanuc every month - for about $62,000 each - to make the stainless steel band that wraps around the iPhone.
The Fanuc Robodrill is the world's common CNC machine measured by installation numbers and by total value thanks to Apple.
what the fuck are you smoking? iTunes has got to be by far, the worst music manager hands down I've ever used.
.isamusicplayer in the directory, just in case you know, it doesn't detect your MP3 player correctly, or your syncing to an SD card to put in said player.
>If you check the little box that says "let iTunes manage my music library" it does. It makes folders based upon ID3 tags and files that shit away proper. Now if you're one of those tards who thinks you can manage your library better than iTunes, maybe it will piss you off.
it does that now? winamp did that for years. In fact winamp could scan multiple directories and automaticly import music, videos and all media automaticly, with an array of options for guessing metadata if none was present.
Also, banshee, Rythmbox, and just about every other program does this too, and they all do if far far far better. ALL of these programs automaticly add and delete new music put in your Music folder, they can all sort your mp3s by filename, and you can turn that feature off. Banshee also has bulk ID3 editing modes, and also has a nice de-duplication feature to look through your library to help you find duplicate files to save disk space. Last time I used iTunes you had to import new music manually.
They all (banshee, winamp, rythmbox), sync with your iPod, android phones, MTP entabled music player, and the linux ones Banshee and Rythmbox follow the FreeDesktop.org format of being able to interpret any directory as a music player if you put a blank file named
I own several CNC machines. (www.RLT.com) In my experience, the operator and the maintenance make all the difference in how repeatable and accurate they are. I can get my machines repeatable within 5 thousandths of an inch (and these are cheap, kit CNC machines I had to assemble myself).
I call bullshit on drilling holes in aluminum. Aluminum is soft. I use woodworking tools to drill holes in it all the time and I have bits 1/64th of an inch that do just fine in aluminum. I also have specialized drills that can drill three or more holes simultaneously in the same material for an extremely accurate spacing between holes. There are an insane number of specialized and CNC drilling rigs out there. Maybe Apple did buy one company, but I'd be willing to bet big money it wasn't the only one that could do the job.
I also have laser machines. I regularly bore hundreds of holes in one piece of material with extremely good accuracy. (www.Yavoch.com) It still bothers me that my machine is off square by about 1/32 of an inch over its 8.2" length. But then, it's a cheap chinese laser machine. Whaddya expect? The only problem I have is finding material that's consistent enough. Thickness and density variance is a bigger factor than my repeatability. In most cases my cuts are more accurate than the thermal expansion capacity of the material.
"Good" packaging is a matter of opinion. Remember, you paid for all that packaging you're going to throw away. For me, just enough to protect the contents is all I want. Apple is taking advantage of a psychology trick. I learned this in film school. The first five pages of a script sell the script. The first 15 pages of a book are all most people will ever read. If they don't like the beginning of a movie, chances are they won't like the movie. Apple is setting your expectations and priming your feelings with that unboxing experience.
My Breville Food processor had Apple-equivalent packaging. Better actually, it came with a manual that was actually usable. (OK, I admit, it's a damn expensive food processor. There, I'm a fool for pretty shiny things too. Happy?)
Psychology works. Journalists know this too when they puff-up these non-articles.