Most, I'm sure. But personally the first time I saw light shining through my metal laptop, I was amazed, a little delighted, and slightly confused about how they were doing it (because, as the article mentions, the holes are too small to see).
I did. I used microscopic lens to see how they are made, you will see concentric holes that are microns wide.
I was amazed too, I knew it only could be made by lasers but I was delighted how someone could have that original idea. It is brilliant, and so elegant.
Arguably, knowing that the laptop camera (or the wireless keyboard bluetooth pairing) is not active is not as useful information.
http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/macbook-air-w...
I'm still looking for the old shots (from around 08) which had a few nice shots of the unlit holes (the holes are much smaller than they appear here.)
...now I know the answer: the lasers are so expensive and in such short supply it would presumably create a bottleneck in the production - esp given the surface area of the logo and thus the amount of holes needed.
Also, I'm not sure how the computer would look without a logo interupting it. I guess almost every other manufacturer comes close to this, but I think an Apple computer would feel wrong with a a view of unbroken alumninum.
Exactly. Buying billboards on the most expensive streets in the world is very expensive. Having your customers sitting lined up in a row in coffee shops with their laptop lids with the lighted apple logo pointing outward to the street on these very same streets must be very valuable advertising. I'm constantly amazed when I walk by coffee shops and see the typical 75% apple market share, when just a decade ago they were really a niche player.
It's only when it's off that they would miss out - but most of the time if my laptop is out of my bag then it's on.
It still took them a while to put them on the right way up. The first few laptops they sold with the Apple logo on the lid, they were oriented so they were "right way up" for the user when the lid was closed. That made them all upside down in all those tech conference shots from the stage...
There is already something similar on one of the numerous android handsets out there where the 4 hardware keys turn 90 degrees when you switch from portrait to landscape mode. Not quite as polished, but similar in concept.
You can verify that by changing the display brightness, the logo will change brightness accordingly. Or just hold the turned-off laptop in front of a bright light source, the apple-shaped hole wil, be visible through the screen
Using them on a much larger area would make them a lot more visible as a whole, even without light. The result would probably look like a vaguely apple-looking smudge. Somehow I don't think it would pass.
That's ~$25 million for just 100 of those lasers. If they bought hundreds of them, that means they paid tens of millions or even over $100 million just for that light effect.
That bar is actually a series of those small holes to let the light through. The green light for the metal casing came later IIRC.
Is the magnetic power supply attachment worth $10 more (actually yes it is!)
Or the lack of 'Intel' inside 'designed for blah' stickers all over the case - these cost Apple $5
Or the way the lid fits to the case when closed with no gap, or the rounded corners of the windows on MacOS?