In a new in-depth interview with John Ternus, Apple's VP Hardware Engineering, and Phil Schiller, Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing we learn about Apple's internal perfectionism machine. Schiller tells Mashable that "Across the board, our goal is to make the best in the categories we choose to compete in."

Mashable's intriguing new report starts with a fascinating tidbit about Apple's attention to detail. In retrospect, it was easy to miss — a bit of combined technology never really seen before in a laptop. Everyone missed it, even those who tore down the ultra-portable MacBook, even those who looked right at it.

The little strip of black along the two back edges of the MacBook's twin speakers could easily have been mistaken for a bit of shielding or a vibration dampener. Except, that's not what it is.

Some like to call it the "Speaktenna." The black strip along the back edge of the MacBook speakers is a never-before-tried combination of speakers and antennas for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It's a fairly ingenious bit of space-saving technology that teardown artists ignored.

But that's not really the story. It's about what "speaktenna" represents: the Apple way of conceiving, designing and building its products.

Schiller notes that the unique teams at Apple are "not only integrated and designing something together, they're actually thinking of features that could only exist because of that integration and solving problems that could only be solved because of that unique advantage."

Schiller added that "Ever since Steve came back [in 1997] and worked with Jony on redefining the entire process, the industrial design teams, the engineering teams are joined at the hip in the work they do," Schiller said. "They think up solutions to problems together as the disciplines are merged into a seamless process."

Schiller later reveals that "When we look at creating each new product, one of the great things about the process is the product teams are free to re-imagine a product any way that would make it better. They're not tied to a schedule, to force it into a specific time window, not tied to past definitions of the product." It's a great interview and you could read the rest of Mashable's full report here.

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