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Apple Build Hardware Technology

Why You Can't Manufacture Like Apple 408

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."
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Why You Can't Manufacture Like Apple

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  • Me too. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @12:28PM (#47954471)

    Simply, you can't manufacture like Apple, because if you manage too, you'll be just as expensive and the vast majority will want the name brand anyway. It's a me, too, that doesn't work.

    But they had to buy 10k CNC machines to build 1M bodies? Doesn't sound right. Only 100 per machine.

    • Re:Me too. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @12:42PM (#47954525)
      There are a lot of companies in addition to Apple that have a manufacturing infrastructure that would be hard for a startup to emulate.
      • Re:Me too. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by the_B0fh ( 208483 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @12:47PM (#47954567) Homepage

        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.

      • There are a lot of companies in addition to Apple that have a manufacturing infrastructure that would be hard for a startup to emulate.

        The point is that Apple's design choices inspire people and those design choices are near impossible to emulate.

    • That 100 per machine is for some unit of time, probably a week.
    • But they had to buy 10k CNC machines to build 1M bodies? Doesn't sound right. Only 100 per machine.

      They were battery operated, and looked cool! No seams for battery doors or holes for pesky charger ports!

    • plus, you'll get sued by Apple...

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      you would be more expensive because you would not be manufacturing at the same scale. If you are making 10,000 widgets, and it costs $100K to set up and $10 to make, that is $20 a widget just to make. If you are manufacturing a million, that is $10.10, and probably much less due to other discounts.

      We see this in other industries. The F150 is now aluminum, which required not only the entire production line to be redone, but also supplied of aluminum to be created. This is only profitable because Ford se

  • by Lisias ( 447563 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @12:35PM (#47954489) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20, 2014 @12:42PM (#47954527)

      I don't think the problem was so much the fear of getting bought out, but the fear that if they didn't sell, Microsoft would make their own implementation that would put them out of business.

    • by khallow ( 566160 )
      But predatory in a good way. After all, if you were one of those companies with something Microsoft needed, you had a ready exit strategy for getting out of your business with ample profit - just sell the company to Microsoft.
      • by tomhath ( 637240 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @04:34PM (#47955707)
        But they didn't outright buy your company. They got an exclusive license on the product by promising to sell enough copies to make you rich. Then they released their own knockoff of the product (on which they didn't pay you any royalties) and you went out of business. Embrace - extend - extinguish.
      • by Mr. Freeman ( 933986 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @11:56PM (#47957231)
        They didn't buy you at fair value. They said that you could either sell to them at a severe loss, or they would make their own version of your product and put you out of business.

        With all the charity Bill Gates has been making press releases about lately, people seem to have forgotten that he received all that money in the first place by building a monopoly and using incredibly anti-competitive business tactics.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by khallow ( 566160 )

          They didn't buy you at fair value. They said that you could either sell to them at a severe loss, or they would make their own version of your product and put you out of business

          Then you weren't worth "fair value". I find it interesting how Microsoft dumped all this money into software firms and all of the replies to my post are complaints that they could have dumped more. Well, it's not their job to do that.

    • by Princeofcups ( 150855 ) <john@princeofcups.com> on Saturday September 20, 2014 @08:04PM (#47956469) Homepage

      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.

      Completely different. Microsoft would find a company that had a product that they wanted. That company had two options. Sell to Microsoft, or get destroyed. Sometimes it meant Microsoft finding a similar company, or developing in house. But either way, the masses would get a free product from Microsoft that sort of did the same thing, or pay for one that they don't realize is better. One prime example is Netscape. Microsoft bought Mosaic, called it IE, and gave it away for free. Bill Gates was renowned for "declaring war" on small companies. He is absolutely ruthless when someone says no to him, and lashes out like Stalin on steroids.

      What Apple did was buy some companies that could be used to make better products. Notice that the Microsoft ones were never, or rarely, better than the other guy. They forced it down your throat using their monopoly. These are also not competing companies, just those that have something that they want to use in house, not resell.

      Apple is an evil company, as are all companies. Microsoft at its peak was a criminal racket, and history will look back with an unbiased eye, and shake their heads that we let them run rampant like we did. If you want to know why, check out the history on the trade deficit in the 70's and 80's. Microsoft was one of the few companies that sold abroad. Also look at their campaign spending. They practically own the Washington state legislature. Now it doesn't seem like a big deal, since that's status quo. In the 80's, back when the US still had some integrity and a Constitution, it was cutting edge evil.

  • basic logistics (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Daneurysm ( 732825 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @12:39PM (#47954509)
    One of my many duties at work is very basic supply-side logistics for a much simpler form of manufacturing.

    If your organization needs to be told these things then you are already completely screwed.
  • by jones_supa ( 887896 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @12:42PM (#47954533)
    What I have sometimes pondered is why Google has not become its own hard disk drive manufacturer. Would it be feasible? I believe they continuously chuck in crazy amounts of storage into their data centers and make massive HDD orders.
  • by smash ( 1351 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @12:49PM (#47954595) Homepage Journal

    ... there's a reason apple don't make 35 different models of smartphone, 18 different laptop models, and 5 different lines of desktop (like other OEMs seem determined to do).

    Because stamping out 100 million copies of a single model (e.g., iphone) is a LOT more cost effective than trying to tool up to stamp out 10 million copies each of 10 different models. Which means that they can increase their profit margin or increase feature set at the same price as they see fit.

    • by SuricouRaven ( 1897204 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @02:26PM (#47955123)

      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.

      • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @02:50PM (#47955231)

        Those many different models are often just variations.

        That's true but every different option adds cost and complexity to the supply chain. The fewer versions of a product you make the lower your costs will be. Every product variation has extra administrative overhead cost, engineering cost, manufacturing cost, freight cost, inventory cost, etc. Whenever you buy from a company offering lots of options you are paying extra for them even if you don't actually take advantage of them because some of the costs are shared.

        Sometimes there are good reasons to offer products with extra options or multiple products but a lot of companies don't really think it through. My company produces a wire harness that goes into some SUVs. We produce two versions of this product which are identical except for a grommet. There was no technical requirement for the grommets to be different but two engineers in different wings of the company couldn't be bothered to talk with each other and so we now have to maintain two SKU numbers, two order books, two bills, get worse pricing on grommets because the volume on each is lower, pay more in freight, have to stock more inventory etc.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          It depends if having more models sells more devices. Apple clearly thinks that having two memory sizes will sell more iPhones.

          Look at Samsung's Galaxy line. They do different models for Europe, the US and the far East. Slightly different cases, different CPUs all sorts of things. They must have concluded that tailoring to each market would boost sales enough to overcome the extra cost of having multiple models.

      • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        The diagram is of a hypthetical super-laptop that contains the intersection of all the components of the various models that use that chassis

        My God -- quantum computing has arrived!

      • by smash ( 1351 )
        Check out samsung's model page for phones. Yes, sure; SOME are minor variations, but there's still a fuck-tonne of different chassis on there.
  • isn't an expert at everything. He wanted Apple to spend much of their cash reserve to buy back stock. Which would only enrich people like him who were in AAPL post-peak price (I believe he was in at an avg $400). These are the sorts of things you can do with their kind of money in the bank that will make you lots more money in the long run. Shareholder return is one of the things that needs to be balanced against the other things a company does.
  • If the startup made the same huge profit margins that Apple does, I don't see why doing any of these things would be a problem.

    The real lesson is that you'll need your customers to pay *a lot* more than it costs to make something if you want to do silly, expensive things while making it.

    • Economies of scale (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @01:21PM (#47954781)

      If the startup made the same huge profit margins that Apple does, I don't see why doing any of these things would be a problem.

      And if someone dropped billions of dollars in my hands I could do some pretty cool stuff too. What exactly is your point since that is a purely hypothetical conjecture? Startups don't have the kind of money that Apple does which is exactly the point.

      NO startup can possibly match Apple's manufacturing costs. Very few companies of any size are able to match Apple when it comes to manufacturing costs on the products they make because Apple can buy stuff at such enormous scales. Read up on economies of scale [wikipedia.org]. Apple only produces a small number of products so even companies like Samsung are unlikely to be able to match their costs because they spread out their purchases among more products. Apple is able to economically do things that set their products apart that at smaller scales would be economically impractical. This makes the gap even harder to close since it gives their products features that actually differentiate them from the competition in ways other than price.

  • the little guys can't compete in the same product space, until they decide to go make a new product category. like mobile devices that MS paid lip service to but didn't really do anything useful

  • by Rhyas ( 100444 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @01:01PM (#47954675) Journal

    Next up, Apple has more money to throw around than a Startup! Full Story @ 11!

    It's cute to see how much money they blow on their designs, but really, is this news, or stuff that matters?

    • by radtea ( 464814 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @03:41PM (#47955473)

      It's cute to see how much money they blow on their designs, but really, is this news, or stuff that matters?

      You would be amazed how unselfaware many startups are. In the late 90's, early 2000's time period I frequently had to remind people in companies with 2 - 200 employees selling niche products that "But Microsoft does it that way!" was an argument against doing it that way for us, because we were anything like Microsoft in terms of resources, product or market.

      You'd think that no one would ever have to be told that, but the reality is that most people look at something as incredibly difficult to build as Windows (in software) or an iPhone (in hardware) and think, "Yeah, I could knock that out over a weekend and ship a few million units a year, no problem!"

    • It's cute to see how much money they blow on their designs, but really, is this news, or stuff that matters?

      It matters to the geek who thinks that a kickstarter and 3D printer is a viable business plan in market where style, design, fit and finish in hardware matters.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20, 2014 @01:06PM (#47954709)

    My current CEO says form and style are essential in our next product. The board and him agree that design is the key to success. He says he was an Apple like feel that oozes quality. He wants to be like Steve Jobs.

    Then he says we're going to do that by hiring an undergrad design major part time from a local college once we finish our mechanical and board designs. He will polish it up and make it great.

    He said all this within 2 mins. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The project manager then offers up design tips from his wife...

    Also, I'm told we need to target Logitech's price point...

    People completely underestimate what it takes to make an Apple-like product. This is especially true for engineers (of which I am one) who tend think to since it's not technically hard to do, it must mean that designers don't bring much to the table. "I can bevel that edge", "That rounded corner isn't hard to do", etc etc. We also tend to think that function is most important and that form is an afterthought... even though we don't actually say that.

    • by jbeaupre ( 752124 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @07:28PM (#47956343)

      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.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    That's one heck of a sleep light.

    In completely unrelated news, Slashdot's support of non-ASCII characters is refreshingly anachronistic.

  • Cell phones, tablets and hand helds are in an arena subject to rapid change. Small companies will go through economic hell as they are forced to quickly change things to keep up with a rapidly changing market. The tooling, architecture, outside vendor supplies as well as an ever changing need for experts in various fields will quickly bankrupt most start ups. For example take that laser drill mentioned in the article. You are going to need at least one person with very deep knowledge of laser dril
  • 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

  • Some of that info seems bogus. 10,000 CNC mills? Unlikely. 10,000 CNC machines of all types across all of Apple manufacturing, maybe.

    There's a nice video about how Apple machines a round can for their round desktop computer. They're going through a lot of steps to make a can, yet they're doing it in a low-volume way. Here's how soft drink cans are made. [youtube.com] Same shape, but much higher production volume.

    Apple is doing this to justify charging $2700 for an x86-64 machine with midrange specs.

  • by sosume ( 680416 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @02:09PM (#47955041) Journal

    So, to recap, Apple wants a nicer looking sleep light, and as a result hip replacements just got a lot more expensive.

  • It is doable. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pubwvj ( 1045960 ) on Saturday September 20, 2014 @03:44PM (#47955493)

    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.

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