The real reason Apple went with the unibody enclosure
While poking around in Apple’s support discussion forums, faithful Macenstein reader Nicholas stumbled across what we think might be the real reason Apple decided to pour its research dollars into developing the new unibody construction technique used in its new MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
The post, entitled “MacBook Pro pulls out arm hair“, details the painful and potentially litigious exploits of a Sasquatch-like MacBook Pro user by the name of bdichiara who has encountered some ergonomic issues with the previous generation MacBook Pro:
MacBook Pro pulls out arm hair.
Posted: Jul 25, 2008 9:35 AMAnybody else experiencing this where the edge of the MacBook Pro between the gray and silver part, there’s a very tiny thin gap that sometimes pulls out arm hair? It’s rather painful and very annoying.
Given that Apple was likely already contemplating a long, drawn out court battle with the computing giant Psystar when this post hit, odds are Apple Legal decided it would be a more fiscally responsible move to totally revamp its notebook production facilities rather than face an army of Bigfoots (Biggfeet?) and their lawyers in court.
The Yeti lobby is always complaining. First they tried to get a complete ban on any and all velcro, then they protested double sided tape. Now this?! THEY CANT BE ALLOWED TO DO THIS!
Alas, I have indeed experienced the arm hair problem with my Powerbook G4. I’m glad the winter months are upon us, ’cause that means I’m probably already wearing long sleeves!
no joke. the first gen iphone when i would rub the top bar near the headphone jack up and down my neck. some hair would get stuck and get pulled out all the time
I’ll be watching this one closely…every time I slam the door on my Toyota, my arm gets caught…very painful…what were they thinking?!
The real ‘Real reason they went with unibody enclosure” is because eventually there will be no keys (as we know them today) on a version of apple’s laptop and thus the body needed to be sturdy enough to hold piece of glass (i.e. Large Touchscreen in place of the keys, think about the mousepad on the current iteration). They (Apple) have been trending us toward virtually flat keys on keyboards for the last two years in preparation for this. Its a gradual move towards the Keyboard less MacBook (if you own any recent Mac – desktop or laptop you are typing on keys that are virtually flat).
And when you use your imagination you will see that such a device will have a LOT of very practical uses. Turn such a laptop like that sideways and see what it looks like :-). You get it. There’s the real reason its a Unibody design. Stay ready!
Another reason why unibody;
The MBPs cannot be made any more thinner with built-in ODD without sacrificing rigidity.
Try lifting an MBP 15″ from right edge, single-handedly you will notice a flex.
Unibody lets the manufacturer rid of all pesky joins and enables cleaner, compact, rigider structures…..
……as the other poster says..maybe a tablet.
Yeah, I had the very first MacBook Pro and that used to happen to me ALL the time.
Stung like crazy :-/