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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."
it appears to be a very predatory way of doing business on my eyes.
I remember an article I read on the late 80's or early 90's about how some small companies of that era feared growing too fast and ended up catching the attention of Microsoft, that at that time was buying everything and everybody (prices are pretty lower at that times). Building something cool that Microsoft would need was the fastest way of going out ot business.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
It's not just the infrastructure but how Apple pulls people along. Before the MacBook unibodies came out, you couldn't get Al milling machines in quantity at any price. Once Apple made it cool, now everyone and their brother have an Al milling machine.
The disk drive makers, and there are only two left, are companies that have been doing nothing but making disk drives for 30 years. This is true for a reason - they are focused entirely on making disk drives and nothing else, and they have the decades of experience to do it right. Their prices are insanely low and their quality is very high. Google knows that it would never catch up to their abilities.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
If only Apple took such pride in craftsmanship with iTunes, I would agree completely.
Buggy, non-intuitive, tons of undocumented features. "It Just Works" does not apply to that steaming load.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
There are amusing efforts to sell disk drives to Google. Near Google HQ there is a movie theater complex. I once saw an ad run before a movie. Two minutes of sales pitch for bulk purchases of enterprise hard drives, with lots of technical detail. Clearly this was addressed to a very specific audience.
Reading this, you would think that Apple is the only large company making tech.
This is what all large companies do. For instance, Windows was built on hundreds of companies that Microsoft went out and bought because they needed the tech. Samsung builds shit from scratch all the time, and probably has more CNC machines at its disposal than Apple.
This is nothing more than an Apple puff piece. To remove the marketing content, one would have to replace Apple with "large corporation", then the article's title would just be "No, You Can't Manufacture Like a Large Corporation". Then you can replace the author's name with "Duh".
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Those many different models are often just variations.
It's always fun trying to read a service diagram for Toshiba laptops. The diagram is of a hypthetical super-laptop that contains the intersection of all the components of the various models that use that chassis - it'll have a flash drive and an HD fitted in the same bay, two devices in one mini-PCIe slot, and so on. You open it up and find that the diagram shows three wifi antennas, but the model you are working on only has one. Screws are especially fun, as it'll sometimes show two screws going into one slot. You get use to it after a while.
I'll stop bashing when I stop reading reports about their Labor abuses. Deal?
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We are a small family farm.
We're building our own USDA/State inspected meat processing facility - almost done.
I designed the facility myself from scratch.
We have done all the construction of our building.
We will do all the work in the facility ourselves.
We built much of the equipment for our butcher shop, mostly out of stainless steel.
We built many of the tools to build the above equipment.
We invented techniques, tools and processes to do what we need to do.
More people need to innovate.
It is quite doable.
My favorite is still the articles that talked about the suicides at Foxconn facilities making XBoxes for Microsoft, yet included pictures of Apple products for the story.
Laser drilling holes in aluminum is rocket science. Reflective and high heat-transfer.
Careful with that word "we." I'm an engineer, but put a huge emphasis on industrial design. The form of my designs are integral to the function. They don't just hold the electro-mechanicals I'm designing (which is my specialty), they are the interface with my users.
So I fuss for days sometimes to get the right distances and sizes to fit 95% asian woman and 95% western men. Tweaking the curvature transition of complex surfaces to feel natural, give tactile feedback, and be able to be injection molded from a single pull mold (yeah, I do preliminary mold design too). While still containing and constraining internal mechanisms (which I also design). Choosing textures and colors that build on that base. And so on. Often I have people with industrial design or fine arts degrees consulting on the designs.
It's not rocket science, but you are right: it shouldn't just be slapped together at the last minute.
Bevels and rounded corners? Easy stuff. There's an optimum, but not a huge sensitivity. Where Apple and others excel is under the skin, as well as fit and finish.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Samsung's packaging for the Galaxy S3 is very slick. Also, Dell's origami packaging for their 4k displays is absolutely brilliant.