Apple's Brick: A Radical New Laptop?

The latest whispers are that Apple will announce a notebook made from a solid brick of aluminum.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the MacBook Air out of an interoffice envelope to showcase its thinness. Does Apple have another innovation coming with its "brick" product?
When they're not hand-wringing over the recent drop in Apple's share price, Mac enthusiasts have been transfixed lately by the mystery product, code-named "brick," that's due for release later this month.
Some bloggers and pundits have suggested it might be a new iteration of Apple TV or an updated Mac Mini. But according to a report on 9to5Mac.com, "brick" refers not to what it is, but how it's made. The Web site, which cites an anonymous source, says the code name has to do with a manufacturing process for Apple's MacBook and MacBook Pro lines of laptops. Apple (AAPL) will build the notebook out of a single piece of carved-out aluminum—a brick.
Whatever it signifies, the new computer may be precisely what Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer meant when he referred to a "new product transition that I can't talk about yet" during Apple's most recent earnings conference call in July. The transition is among the reasons Apple said it expects to make lower gross profit margins (BusinessWeek.com, 7/22/08) during the next several quarters.
But if the new product does prove to be a notebook made from a block of aluminum, how much pressure are Apple's margins likely to undergo? More to the point, would Apple's brick be a brick?

Savings on Materials and Labor

A radically different production method might well boost costs, at least at the outset. But there could also be savings from the change, says Kevin Keller, an analyst at market research firm iSuppli. "If you're working with one single unit of metal, you're reducing a lot of the materials costs and also a lot of labor time on assembly," he says. (full story Link)