Apple’s Chinese Casing Supplier to Reopen

Catcher Technology, which supplies casings for Apple products, said it’s plant will be fully reopened and operational by the end of the month. Reuters reports that the plant was partially shut down earlier this month as Chinese authorities responded to complaints about pollution. Catcher expected it’s sales to be off by 20% this month because of the shut down.

Unibody Cases Made from Single Block of Aluminum

From Apple’s Unibody Promo Video

The company reportedly makes the unibody cases for Apple’s popular line of MacBook Airs and MacBook Pro laptops, in addition to making cases for other manufacturers. The company isn’t as well known outside the industry as companies like Foxconn, which assembles many of Apple’s products, but it was seen as a key supplier for Apple due to the manufacturing techniques employed to make Apple’s portable cases.

When Apple introduced the Unibody design of the MacBook Pro, the company released a video highlighting some of the manufacturing process for the casing, which is likely produced by Catcher Technology. That process starts with a single block of aluminum, as seen in the image above, and includes machining from robots, as seen in the image below.

ROBOTS!

Robots Work on Keyboard Portion of MacBook Pro Case

If you haven’t watched that video on Apple’s site, we recommend it as an interesting one.

Bryan Chaffin contributed to this article.