In an enclosed space like a compact laptop (MacBook Air) you don't need the fan anywhere near the heatsink. Think about a long tube; you can put the fan anywhere in it and the total airflow will be about the same. I'm a bit surprised someone experienced with laptops doesn't know this?

It seems more like he just wanted to rail against Apple products. I've been there, but my rant is usually about the quality control of their hardware.

Yah--he just wants to complain. If you open your attic window and the front door on a windy day---the house will ventilate. Air will move past...stuff in the house.

Lots of laptops around my house; the Apple stuff gives us the least problems.

Perfect? nope. But...still good enough.

I'm an Apple hater. I hate its business practice, greed that's way above and beyond the norm, hubris, closed eco-system, terrible OS, dumb/outdated design (but marketed to shit as "intuitive/elegant") on and on I can go, but one thing I can't fairly hate is its hardware build and material.

I don't see much wrong (other than "not optimal") with the heat sink/fan distance here. The way the fins are aligned do allow air flow to direct to the fan. Takes a fraction of a second to generate the wind tunnel effect, and all the components between the fan & heatsink just need to be able to withstand the heat, and they surely do.

It's easy to see why they do it. That's "height". Apple want to make the Air as thin as possible, they can't do that by stacking 4 components together.

I guess Louis has never seen the inside of a server. No server CPUs have fans attached, but instead rely on other fans inside the chassis. Probably Apple should have made that small heatsink out of copper, but were trying to save money instead.

Apple deserves to be railed against though - recent years they treat their laptops as throwaway like phones. If you have one, make sure you’re religiously doing backups and bought the AppleCare warranty. After that expires, be ready to shell out another $1200+