I'm not sure how apple using milled aluminum really makes that process any cheaper though. It's not like they invented a new way to machine aluminum. It's still setup time, and machine time, and cleanup time, and anodize time, and pack and ship time. You can't really cut those corners. If what he's trying to say is that for small quantities the cost of a injection molding die is more than paying the high unit cost of machining aluminum, then ya I can probably believe that, but the question then is how many do you plan to make over the lifetime of the product?
It doesn't matter if you (or me, or anyone) can't work out how the price dropped. Apparently, it dropped.
The process probably isn't cheaper, you're right. But, I'll bet there are a lot more places around doing aluminum molding & milling, and competition alone will drive the price down. So, probably, margins have gone down, and that could be why it's less expensive, now.
The price of CNC machining has gone down over the years, but it's got nothing to do with Apple. Apple are at the front of the curve in terms of volume and the cost benefits you can get from efficiency, but they haven't pioneered any new manufacturing technologies that have changed anything, AFAIK.
Milling aluminum is all about how fast you can spin the spindle and how accurately you can move the axes into the spindle to cut the metal. There are things around that didn't exist 20 years ago, like air/oil lube, ceramic bearings, 60,000rpm spindles, linear motors and more. The newest machines can accelerate/decelerate their axes at over 2G's and can move and feed into the material at 2,000 inches per minute. Combined with 24k, 30k, 40k and higher spindles, that means parts that used to take 10 minutes to machine could now be machined in 2 or 3 minutes. In addition, software and electronics have kept up - you need a pretty fast processor to crunch all the numbers, read all the data and carefully move the motors in tiny increments and get accurate results. That's only happened in the past 10 years, really.
FWIW, Apple was using tons of Fanuc Robodrills, and they were also buying up all the small VMC's and Drill/Tap centers they could get their hands on.
The other thing that has driven costs down is just as the segment goes higher end, the cost of lower end machinery and processes drops. Right now there is a lot of advancement in multi-axis machining, cutting tools, materials and coatings. But milling aluminum is about as plain-jane as it gets, and anyone with a VMC can do it.
If Salae is getting decent pricing, I can't imagine those little housings costing more than $2-3 which would include the anodizing.
You have to make a LOT of them before injection molding becomes cheaper.
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