27-02-2008 18:50

While I agree that the insides and main components have changed, the outside is pretty much the same. That leads to a larger market for pre-made mod parts with a lower manufacturing price. You can sell more pieces from the same mold if the cases are close enough. 
 
Now I don't know how big the market is technically, but if the market share keeps on growing, I can see this as a nice side/home business.

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27-02-2008 16:21

Trust me the spares issue is not that great. There are very few parts in common between generations except the laptops. 
 
Mac Minis only have the same cases. Intel ones are totally different to PPC; 
The G5 has no common parts with the Mac Pro, the dual core G5s don't use much from the single cores; 
I don't think there are an parts that can be swapped between any generation of iMac except the first two G5s; 
The MacBook cases are largely the same all the way through. Some cables are the same too; 
Same with the MBP; 
I haven't thoroughly checked my claims of zero interchangeable parts above, but the are close to zero at least. I am not counting hard disks or optical drives of course but Apple uses different part numbers for all its HDs. Often they have multiple part numbers for identical drives. 
Some of the airport cards can be swapped between Intel Macs, though many of these have different part numbers too. Same is true of the iSight cameras though they are less swappable.

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27-02-2008 12:01

you have to also consider the benefits of repairs, production, and design itself. Apple saves a good deal of money here.  
 
Is the design, Nirvana? Well, I honestly believe it is really close. The Mac Pro is a really solid, well designed case!

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