“Although most of Intel’s ultrabook presser was a wash for Mac fans, the chipmaker did drop one extraordinarily interesting slide, showing exactly how Apple could make its next MacBook Air redesign almost 66% thinner,” John Brownlee reports for Cult of Mac.
“Intel VP Mooly Eden says that in next-gen ultrabooks, 18mm thickness will be just the beginning,” Brownlee reports. “He says that the form factor can be slimmed down dramatically, and it all has to do with advantages in battery technology.”
Brownlee reports, “Thanks to prismatic batteries, the MacBook Air’s battery thickness could be reduced to just 6.5mm. That’s almost two-thirds less thick as current Airs, with no sacrifice in battery life.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple would have to include a tourniquet in every box.
MacDailyNews Note: On January 7, 2003, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced during his Macworld Expo keynote that the 17-inch PowerBook he’d just unveiled used Lithuim Prismatic batteries to deliver 4.5 hour battery life (and that it would boot only into Mac OS X).
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Also announced:
Richard Branson would be soon be making yet another attempt to circumnavigate the globe suspended from a flock of Macbook Airs.
“Mooly” should focus more on headgear that makes him look like a 50 year-old 12 year-old and let Jony and Apple worry about what the next MBA will look like.
I remember some time back, Apple bought the exclusive rights to a new, proprietary metal alloy that can be extremely thin, without sacrificing rigidity or strength. Beginning with the iPhone 3GS, the little doohickey that ejects the SIM card is made out of it (just try and bend it). It appears that Apple can make the MacBook Air a lot thinner than we imagine.
The technology is called ‘LiquidMetal’.
http://gigaom.com/apple/apple-buys-exclusive-rights-metal-alloy-technology/
The MBAs are already about as thin as practical–tapered at the back, thin on the front. Any thinner and you’d have a hard time fitting ports for Thunderbolt, USB, SD card slot, headphone… even power.
Keep the current thickness, double the battery life.
Or triple it 🙂
I have to say that I doubt 66% could actually happen. I know the insides of that machine pretty well and unless they come up with a way to make a more efficient smaller heatsink, smaller capacitors for use on the logic board, and hell integrate the logic board into the case! It’s not going to happen. 15-20% is more likely if they thin the metal, but seriously we are already dealing with some very tight clearances. Check out the ifixit tear down.
Agreed, MacTech84. That Intel estimate does not take into account real world design issues and constraint. For instance, stiffness. An OLED display might buy a few mm reduction over an LED backlit LCD display, but that is probably at least a couple of years away in terms of cost practicality. You could reduce thickness even more if you eliminate the real keyboard in favor of a touch-based typing input. But I doubt that many people would be in favor of that, and it would require more power than a passive keyboard.
I also agree with mossman and others – at some point most people would favor an increase in runtime over a reduction in thickness or weight.
CES News Flash… following the “rumour” that Apple will be reducing the thickness of the next MBA by 66%, MBA cloners… oops, Ultrabook manufacturers, were falling over each other claiming their products will be 67% thinner later this year.
It could also make cappuccino, smack your ass and call you baby…. since we are throwing out insatiable rumors. This has been verified by a source close to Apple of course.
I thought the rumors were the direct result of “supply chain checks”.
Please also remember that stock analysts base predictions off of rumors, in the coming weeks expect the stock to increase 100% only to have it drop 99% once they realize apple could only get a 65% reduction not 66%
Brownlee hasn’t thought this through and repeating his mistakes in the headline just makes the situation worse.
The ability to use 6.5mmflat batteries instead of 18mm cylindrical ones creates new packaging possibilities, but I see nothing that would indicate that the energy density of the new batteries is proportionally improved to the same degree. Without a substantial improvement in energy density we will still need an equivalent physical volume of battery per unit energy to provide equivalent performance. That volume will need to be located somewhere, and I’m not under the impression that there is a lot of free space available within the cases of either of the MBA models.
Besides that, the battery is just one of the components that determine the overall dimensions of the device in question. One needs to account for the shell thickness, keyboard thickness and screen thickness as well, so a 66% reduction in battery thickness cannot possibly result in a 66% reduction in overall device thickness.
There are also some basic structural engineering considerations that get in the way of a 66% thinner MBA. The machined aluminum cases that Apple uses for the MBA define the current state of the art when it comes to the combination of weight, volume, cost and structural rigidity. Making an equally rigid but lighter version could be done, but it would involve more expensive materials and fabrication techniques, potentially adding to both cost and thickness. Making a thinner, lower volume version could be done, but it would require more expensive and/or higher density materials and be structurally flimsy and likely heavier as well. Pretty much everybody else is already making their own versions that are cheaper, but they are invariably thicker and/or flimsier.
What we have yet to get any information on is the structural characteristics of the new flatter batteries. Perhaps the best way to make use of them will be as stressed core elements in the thinner sections of a new MBA design.