14 DAY TRIAL // By now you’re probably well accustomed to Apple’s “making of” videos for the company’s various products, including iPhone, iPad, and even MacBook computers. But the video they made for the new Mac Pro is something else.
Every year Apple either invents or invests in new technologies that help make its products more robust, lighter, smaller, more space- and power-efficient, and the company just loves showing us the steps it takes to achieve these goals.
With the new Mac Pro, Apple is pushing the boundaries of automation, with robots handling almost the full production cycle of a Mac Pro, from lathing and grinding, to I/O cutout milling and anodizing.
Product designer Greg Koenig explains it best:
"Deep drawing is a process that very efficiently produces a "net shape" part. Apple could have just chucked a giant hunk of aluminum in a lathe and created the same part, but that amount of metal removal is extremely inefficient. Deep drawing efficiently creates a hunk of metal that is very close to the final shape of a Mac Pro in just a couple of operations. After that, the Mac Pro enclosure is lathe turned to clean up the surface and achieve desired tolerance, polished, placed back in a machining center to produce the I/O, power button and chamfer features and finally anodized."