SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — Rain Design’s new one-piece MacBook stand is made in the same factory that makes Apple’s unibody Macs, says the company.
According to vice president Aven Koh, the mTower Stand ($50) is carved from a single piece of aluminum using the same process that Apple pioneered for its one-piece MacBooks, a process known as “unibody.”
Rain Design said mastering the unibody process is much harder than it looks. The company worked for months getting the design right, before debuting here it at Macworld/iWorld this week.
The mTower Stand fits the 15-inch MacBook Pro, standing it upright when used with an external monitor. Versions for other MacBooks, including the popular Air models, are coming shortly.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
9 responses to “This One-Piece MacBook Stand Is Made In Same Factory As Apple’s Unibody Macs”
finally they actually sell carved aluminium, not just stamped metal :)
Am I the only one that thinks stands for your macbook are effing stupid?
Love the materials, but they need to try to ape Apple’s design language as well.
I still think the mStand is better… I’ve never understand the appeal of having you MB closed while attached to a screen rather than open and having 2 screens…
“a process known as “unibody.””
Or CNC machining as the rest of the world calls it ….
Well, You should know whats Unibody before commenting. You probably know the meaning of CNC properly. But thats not enough
Having just replaced on an MBP top case I’m pretty I know sure what unibody means…. The article makes it sound it sound like its amazing process, which if work you with things that a little bit more advanced the consumer level electronics its not…
Some of us use our Macbook Pro as a desktop replacement. So we would rather have it neatly in a stand off to the side of our desks then cluttering the desks with a laptop.
This is a lame product. The Twelve South book arc is much nicer, smaller footprint then this thing.. Not sure who will buy it, but hey always nice to have a little more competition.