A Mac is born

Oct 15, 2008 18:31 GMT  ·  By

Apple has come a very, very long way since it rolled out its first Macs. Apple's technological feats throughout the years literally sound off in this single video footage of how the new MacBook is crafted, starting from a solid brick of aluminum.

Senior Vice President, Design, Apple, Jony Ive, was chosen to do the talking in this video, and for good reason too. Some suggest he's up for the chief exec position. We would say that's not very far-fetched. But that's another story.

Ive declares that “the MacBook is [Apple's] most popular Mac.” He admits that, at one point, they decided to just “start over” with it. And they did, literally. Apple has abandoned its old methods of crafting the notebooks' shells and fitting the parts inside, to adopt a solution that is as complex as it is simple. “The new MacBook is a quite remarkable engineering achievement. It represents... a complete revolution in the way computers are made,” Ive says.

Apple's Senior Vice President of Design goes on to explain why such a revolutionary manufacturing process was in order for the new MacBook. Ive points out that “when you have multiple parts, you add size and weight.” Therefore, “you increase the opportunity for failure,” he reveals. So, Apple looked at the options available, and decided it was going to go with the “unibody” aluminum design. And “the only way to make that one part was to machine it from a single piece of aluminum.”

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Creating the new MacBook Pro

But why? Well, because “machining enables a level of precision that is completely unheard of in this industry,” according to Ive. More Apple officials appear in the video, explaining how much they've been able to achieve with the new MacBook from a technological to the environmental point of view. Ive concludes by saying, “I don't know how we could make something any more essential, any simpler... than the new Macbook.”

It's definitely worth the seven-minute watch, if only just to see Ive's dedication to being a part of Apple. Use the link below to either watch the video online, or to download it for your iPod or computer.

The New MacBook, How It's Made