
11" MacBook Air Disassembled - GICodeWarrior
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Air-11-Inch-Model-A1370-Teardown/3745/1
======
hugh3
Neat! It's obvious from the outside that they've put a helluva lot of thought
into how to package this, but it's even more obvious from the inside.

I wonder what the next-generation Mac Mini will look like. Take out the
batteries and the remaining components would be truly tiny. What I'd kinda
like is to unplug my computer from its desktop keyboard and screen at the end
of the day, take it home in my pocket, and plug it into my keyboard and screen
at home.

~~~
jon914
This reminds me of an anecdote where Jobs was arguing with an engineer about
the look of the original Mac's internals:

"I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it's inside the box. A
great carpenter isn't going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even
though nobody's going to see it."

~~~
btn
The complete story for that anecdote can be found on folklore.org:
[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=PC_Board_Esthetic...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=PC_Board_Esthetics.txt)

------
Spic
I was kind of hoping that the times when the power and sleep buttons are put
directly on the keyboard are long gone for good, so now I was very, very
surprised to see the power button right above the delete key, looking just
like the eject.

~~~
jonhendry
The power button really is a hassle if you use the 12 South BookArc stand. You
have to lift the laptop out of the stand, open it up, hit the power button,
close the laptop before it fully starts...

Some kind of external power button would be really nice.

------
chesspro
It's really a shame apple put in a 5-point Security Torx for the bottom
casing. Just got a new toolkit a few weeks ago... but it doesn't have the
security torx tip.

But overall really nice form factor. I love how neat and well fit everything
looks.

~~~
tlrobinson
Why? There's no user replaceable/upgradable parts. If you're going to the
trouble of buying a part and replacing it touurself surely you can get the
right screwdriver.

~~~
aristus
It's an anti-geek arms race that I have never liked. I worked at an authorized
Nintendo shop almost 20 years ago. "Regular" Torx screwdrivers, the kind you
can pick up for nothing today, were hard to come by back then. They cost
something like $50 direct from Nintendo. Every new model required some special
tool for no reason except to make it harder for Joe Blow to take things apart.
I understand the many reasons for it, but it's still anti-geek, physical DRM.

~~~
hugh3
Anti-geek? What could be more geeky than owning a five-point security torx
screwdriver?

~~~
aristus
...not having to buy them? Being a geek is not about _owning toys_. It's about
being open, curious, and observant.

There are hundreds of these types of screwheads now. The regular Torx used to
be a security screwhead. Now that everyone has a Torx they whip out a
5-pointed Torx, call that one the "security" version and start the stupid
cycle over again. This excludes people from hacking and learning, eg children.

~~~
jws
The regular torx was never intended as a security screw head. It was just
designed for powered assembly in an environment where screw driver bits are
consumables.

Matching the 3 screwdrivers in the kitchen's "everything drawer" was not part
of the design specification.

~~~
rubidium
Thank you jws for the sanity here. It's not "anti-geek", it's engineering and
manufacturing (and, I may add, keeping 5-year old Timmy from opening his dad's
new MacBook Air and frying the innards with the screwdriver they keep in the
kitchen drawer).

Not to be too negative, but if you can't find a way to quickly get inside,
maybe you shouldn't be there in the first place. A real tinkerer/geek knows
how to make their own tools in no time.

~~~
aristus
I think you are confusing two kinds of exclusivity: that from real technical
challenge which teaches you something (eg how to correctly disassemble a
machine) and that from random speedbumps (eg an exotic screwhead).

Have you tried to make a Torx head? I suppose you could get the shape with
some kind of mouldable plastic or epoxy, but that's probably not strong enough
in practice. They are designed to be set with much higher torque than Philips,
hence the name.

------
icegreentea
If I was the engineering putting the MBA together, I would think that in the
back of my mind as I decided that baked on SSDs were the way to go that this
wouldn't catch on with everyone (manufacturers).

I mean, there's no way you deny that incredible space savings you get. But
you're also locking in the main storage, something that people have been able
to change in their laptops for (seeming) forever, something that I probably
just did in my own MBP (cause those base Toshiba units are kinda funky) a few
months ago.

~~~
MrFoof
I'm fairly certain that the SSD is basically a Mini PCI-E card. The overall
dimensions are uncommon, but I believe there's no common standard for the size
of Mini-PCIe SSDs in the first place.

In theory, the drive could be upgraded. Securing it to the chassis is a
challenge left to the reader.

~~~
stellar678
Might be interesting for this to turn into a new storage standard. It doesn't
seem like they had to go through any particular shenanigans to cram the flash
chips onto that form-factor. Then the non-upgradeable MBA main storage would
become upgradeable.

------
hboon
Any idea at all why Apple calls them "Flash drives" rather than SSD?

------
hackermom
Apple hater or Apple lover, I don't think anyone can disagree about their
laptops and their Mac Mini being masterpieces of engineering. Really amazing
compactness.

~~~
mahmud
You can love Apple products and hate Apple policies.

~~~
WozRocks
Actually, you can't. People who "hate apple's policies" are people who hate
apple for ideological reasons and are attempting to rationalize it.

If you understand apple's policies you'll realize that all of them are
designed to produce the best user experience for consumers.

I've never seen apple do something malicious, like I have Dell and Microsoft,
nor betray their customers, like I have seen Microsoft, Google and Facebook
do.

These "policies" that people hate generally amount to nothing more than
failing to march according to some rigid stallmanesque ideology.

~~~
ghotli
"WozRocks", your bias is showing.

~~~
mahmud
I thought it was a troll account created only 12 hours ago, to give "Apple
fans" a bad name.

To be fair to "WozRocks" though, I, _personally_ , am kind of an Apple hater
;-) so his/her comments might not be without a context.

------
gcb
The SSD looks like Asus eee pc 1000's mini PCI-e one.

They're available in 7in (for asus and toshibas) and 5in (for dell mini) and
now what? 10in?

