[Swordmaker]

Highly recommended. . . for example, this explanation of something I have been trying to relate to the Apple naysayers for years:

"Why can't Apple consistently share where it gets its parts?

In part, it's because Apple doesn't always source parts from a single supplier, Schiller said. He added that those partnerships can change, meaning the parts change.

There is a larger reason, though.

. . .

"The most common scenario is simply that what we got from a supplier basically has been created so uniquely for Apple that implying it's an off-the-shelf part like others may get would be really misleading," Schiller said. "So it's best not to even talk about the source because that implies things that aren't true."

Ternus said it was, for the MacBook, a pattern repeated again and again. The full-sized keyboard that essentially defined the overall size of the MacBook could not simply be sourced from a company adept at building laptop keyboard modules. Apple found a keyboard supplier, and then redesigned the keyboard, including the mechanisms under each key, from the ground up. (Emphasis mine — Swordmaker)

As I have been trying to get through to the people who keep trying to claim that Apple computers are the same as XYZ that they can buy for hundreds of dollars less. . . Apple does NOT make their computers out of off-the-shelf parts, ordered from Joe Blow's Discount Parts R Us. Almost everything in an Apple product is custom made for Apple. This interview goes into some of that and how it happens.

[Swordmaker]

An excellent, highly recommended interview with Apple's Phil Schiller and semi-tour of 1 Infinite Loop discussing Apple's "perfection machine" and how Apple seeks to improve their products. — PING!

Interview with Apple's Phil Schiller on
Why Apple's products are different
Ping!

The Latest Apple/Mac/iOS Pings can be found by searching Keyword “ApplePingList” on Freerepublic’s Search.

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[ctdonath2]

“Almost everything in an Apple product is custom made for Apple.”

Which is why supply chain management genius Tim Cook is running the company. Jonny Ive designs the hardware, Tim makes sure all of it gets made (in minute detail) and all parts are made & flow together without problems regardless of what goes wrong (gee, our artificial sapphire manufacturer imploded? ok).

[dayglored]

I was going to say, "Fascinating", but instead...

"Oh, Okay."

[SamAdams76]

The quality of the Apple products that I own is phenomenal. My original iPod from 2003....just won’t die. I use it to store Christmas music and soon I will plug it into my audio system for another Christmas season.

[TXnMA]

Even as someone with intense industrial design and manufacturing technology experience, I must admit that scrolling through the images in that Mashable article was almost mind-blowing. The power of an integrated, obsessively-creative culture (backed by almost infinitely-deep pockets) produces astounding results.

Those FReepers who bad-mouth everything Apple (including FReepers who use them) definitely should take that "scroll".

I guarantee they will see excellence in design, integration, execution, manufacturing technology and structure that will be almost incomprehensible to them and to those who design and build their "stick bits & pieces together" products of choice. Example: what competing product has anything even remotely approaching the sophistication and quality of that aluminum MacBook chassis? And that's just the "low-tech" part...