Apple computers are made for those who purchases a computer. They are engineered to look great on a demo shelf.
«During the first Jobsian era at Apple, I used to joke that Steve Jobs cared deeply about Apple customers from the moment they first considered purchasing an Apple computer right up until the time their check cleared the bank.» (Bruce Tognazzini)
Jony Ive here. I’ll come back and help make your new keyboard perfectly flat and seamless- touchpad based, and we’ll remove all ports. Bluetooth devices only.
Alan Dye here. I'm coming back to Apple, and the next versions of the operating systems will not even have visible controls or icons. You just have to click on the beautiful, clear windows and hope you're interacting with the right UI elements.
I had a blackberry passport and it had a lot going for it(best keyboard ever on a phone) but one thing I really liked for reasons I don't understand is it had a square screen and took square photos.
My custom XFWM theme has square corners on windows without focus and large-radius rounded corners on the one window with focus.
The square corners are part of a 2 pixel wide border (one black, one white) because who needs to waste space on handling things we aren't manipulating? But the title bar is high-contrast, because you'll go looking for it when you want to switch windows.
The round corners go with a fairly thick border in a customizable color, usually something very bright in the yellow, orange or cyan ranges. When you sit down, you should immediately know what is active.
For real. Doesn't help that the three/four finger swipe between full screen windows/workspaces has a mandatory animation that you can't disable (you can turn on "reduce motion", but it simply changes the scrolling animation into an equally time-wasting fading animation).
Virtual machines aren't the solution for day-to-day computing though. You're missing out on the graphics acceleration, being able to plug things in that just work, and so on.
Nope. Virtual windows are rectangular because the screen is also rectangular while being small enough to see the edges within our field of view.
They don't have to be any particular shape or size. The property of being virtual overrides everything else when free of these self-imposed constraints.
Even if you lose the GUI and go back to text, the ideal terminal is a plane of infinite columns of arbitrary cell size that dynamically fills your field of view.
I'd further argue that the only reason VR/AR isn't more widely adopted is the lack of orthographic vs perspective modality per application (and uncomfortable headsets). In VR/AR, you don't want a window manager or even windows at all. What you want is a field manager (as in FOV "fields" of varying opacity that can be composited by the user). Shape and size is just an arbitrary region blended in with the environment.
For the sake of ergonomics, you'd more often prefer to project an interface onto a surface if you had the choice. When you don't, you probably want the projection to be orthographic, but for the edges to be fuzzy if not invisible. You'd generally want to be able to layer these interfaces as well instead of having opaque rectangles always in your way.
I don't think GP was advocating for actually square windows. Rather that the corners should be right angles.
This makes perfect sense considering that most LCD displays, and practically all computer displays, don't have rounded corners. This trend of rounding displays and GUI elements is purely an aesthetic choice. I also find this obnoxious since the only thing it does is rob me of a few pixels which are often useful.
But considering Apple users have accepted living without a large block of pixels dead center at the top of the screen, which they've been sold as a "feature", the rounded corners are likely even less of an issue.
I'm not sure that an infinite plane of pixels makes sense even in XR. I want to see a clear edge of where digital content begins and ends, and a rectangle is the simplest and most optimal shape for that. So I would rather have physical display-like floating rectangles, than floating text in arbitrary locations, or rounded off corners for the sake of aesthetics. I'm not opposed to a very slight rounding off of edges on certain elements, but the trend Apple is pushing is supremely ridiculous.
I am autistic and I also enjoy the sharp edges, I rub my wrists up and down them sometimes and generally play with them, I find it very satisfying. I also suspect the laptop might not be as easy to carry around when open if edges were rounded?
I'm conflicted -- the author's rounded Mac looks more comfortable to use, but aesthetically it looks worse. He turned the track pad notch into an amorphous shape that looks like a mistake.
I don't think there's anything inherently autistic about that. We just finally have these technologies sufficiently mature that materials and design are no longer strictly dictated by their function.
These objects are becoming more like clothing and less like unyielding industrial machines. It's to the point that I'd be genuinely disgusted to handle any used laptop regardless of how "clean" it is.
The seasons idea is interesting -- to me, both proposals feel wrong. I think it's because the weather changes that I perceive seem to lag behind the changes to daylight length by a few weeks.
I would propose boundaries that align partly with how I perceive the weather, and partly with how we plan our year (by months): Summer starts June 1st, Fall starts September 1st, Winter starts December 1st, and Spring starts March 1st.
There's a significant lag between the longer days and the resulting higher temperatures though, which does make the seasons make more sense temperature-wise.
The author seems to not realize the season are about temperature not about sunlight. If you align the season to northern hemisphere temperatures, where the first week of August is usually the hottest, they make sense.
Depending on how I'm using the computer, I may definitely have deep marks after working laying down, but if I sit in a wood chair for a while it's the same thing- and my forearm is much tougher than behind my knee.
I suppose I would prefer it nice and rounded and soft on my wrist - but I don't feel like it's quite as extreme as this thread would have you believe lol
if you want to do this, there is a better technique than shown in this video.
get a single-cut fine file, maybe with a little more weight than the one in the video. single cut file has diagonal slots and allows firm and continuous contact with the piece. most files are double cut, have two sets of slots and look like bumpy diamonds. they remove more material but tend to bounce.
use long even strokes with firm pressure, only during the fore stroke. watch out for roll-off, where you unconsciously change the angle or pressure of the file as you're at the end of the stroke.
you can make a pretty even-looking chamfer that way.
My work computer is missing two keys and has been since they signed it out to me.
I'm betting they don't notice if I file down the corners. Hell they probably wouldn't notice if I just cut the corners off with a fret saw. But God forbid I try to install an ad blocker or use Firefox.
I promise you they’re claiming taxes on the depreciation of that machine every year. If anything they’ll be upset you didn’t tell them sooner so they could have claimed more.
If you're a US employee being paid market wages, the cost of the Macbook is rather trivial compared to how much you cost the company, and how much it costs them for you to be not working. But some lower-level managers and employees don't seem to understand this.
“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF THE PRICE FOR THE PARTS AND LABOR TO REPLACE A SINGLE, GENUINE, APPLE-BRAND, 2021, MACBOOK PRO KEYCAP?!?! CALL THE ACCOUNTANTS, WE WONT BE PAYING TAXES FOR A FEW YEARS!!!”
I thought this was going to be on a softwarefix for the appalling inconsistency that are macOS Tahoe window corners. What I found deeply disturbed me, though I must agree, the edges are a bit more sharp then I'd like and a slight curvature could probably prevent them showing wear and tear [0]. Good on op for doing something they like, even if it's really out there and I could see more "pillowy" hardware becoming a thing now, after a few years of sharp edged devices.
Since I mentioned Tahoe, it bears repeating, my spotlight is still broken.
I'm not brave enough to try this on my own, but I applaud the effort. I'm pretty sure I'm developing lasting calluses on the underside of my wrists from all the constant rubbing against the sharp edge of my MBP.
Maybe it's because I type like one would play the piano (with hands curved, fingers well below the palms), but I've never ran into an issue like this with a laptop before, wrists always clear the edges by a couple inches.
I too find the sharp corners incredibly uncomfortable for my weak sensitive baby wrists but I chose to overcome this by wearing a wrist band. Two very different approaches
Yea, that's ugly. I'm sure it could've been done more gracefully with 15 minutes more effort. But judging from the general wear and tear on this poor Mac I guess they don't even consider the resale value.
Sure, but comfort != abuse :D
Apart from the filing, I can't think of ways to make such a recent Mac look like this. Did it suffer a plane crash? Acid attack? Thermite fire?
I appreciate the customization, but would probably make an effort to make it not look like (another) accident.
> This was on my work computer. I expect to similarly modify future work computers, and I would be happy to help you modify yours if you need a little encouragement.
I don’t understand the actual decision but I appreciate the gusto with which it was made.
The main reason to consider resale value is 1-2 years later you may want to upgrade and selling it to another person typically yields you more money than trading it in with Apple. Doing something like this may decrease how much you could sell it for later.
If you’re not planning on doing that then it’s not really a factor for you.
At one point due to the way I was using my just above my wrist my skin basically calloused from the edge of the macbook. Now at least the lid is not that sharp but it used to be I recall and I always worried about kids getting hit by it in case of an accident.
Another thing that multiple generation of MacBook Airs used to do is constantly be running (sometimes quite painful) amounts of electricity through your wrists if they accidentally touched the metal.
Not sure if the Apple Silicon devices have the same issue - but it was consistent through at least 3 different generations.
Sharp edges and an axehead-like profile wear down the bottom of the laptop sleeve in my office-commuter hand luggage. Solved by putting my old MacBook Air in a neoprene pocket case before putting the whole thing, now with the double-thickness :-( p into my sachel.
I'm very tempted to try this although I worry that the rubber "seal" around the edges of the screen will no longer have anything to butt up against, meaning there's glass-on-metal contact when it's closed?
Are your wrists supposed to be coming into contact with that? I suspect many of us have bad posture and do rest our wrists like that, but if your concern is wrist comfort, you probably want to consider that you're going out of your way to enable harmful posture.
On one of my old MacBook Pros, I managed to do this naturally through friction from my wrist moving back and forth on the keyboard for years; good idea to get ahead of it.
The Apple Watch Ultra also has an aggressively sharp screen edge. It's kept me from upgrading from my current watch (Model 8). But maybe I would get use to it?
The side that faces your wrist is rounded - only the face is sharp. I haven't noticed any issues with the edge wearing the thing.
I was worried about scratches because I abuse the shit out of anything I wear, and sure enough, there are scratches in the titanium bezel, but they look good in a way that scratches on my (non-pro) steel Apple Watch did not.
It was oddly satisfying taking a file to my MacBook when a drop lifted a nasty burr on the edge.
Very minor "you can just do things" collides with the "infallible object" presence that Apple wants for its products - almost feels "wrong", but it's a nice norm to break.
I would remove material from the outside edges of the front, not the center near the trackpad. The blue edges of my M2 air have already become silver and the palm rests have become more silver and glossy like glass from wear. I'm probably going to do something like this.
Finally, now I know I'm not the only one! These sharp edges constantly cut into my wrists to the point I was thinking of doing the same, or glueing some kind of kind soft padding to the edges. Great someone did it. I wonder how far can you cut them?
Nitpicky, but he’s rounding the edges, not the corners.
And yes, why are they so sharp?
I seem to recall my wife having the plastic MacBook that came out circa 2006 and the edges on that thing were legitimately painful.
I always marvel at how sharp the points are on the notch of the lid on my current MacBook. Very very pointy.
> why are they so sharp?
they intentionally ship them sharp so you can file them down to your desired fillet
the design is very human
The past few generations I found I was not pleased with their performance, so now I take them weekly to the macbook sharpener at the saturday market.
It's great how apple makes everything so customizable
It's by design.
There are definitely corners by the trackpad, at the gap for opening the lid.
They are quite stabby and I hate them.
https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/aca51a7051edc493b19cfd93da...
The most material is removed at the corners of the lid-lifting notch. Those are IMO the most offensive pointy part on the body.
> Very very pointy.
I have intrusive thoughts of trying to cut my finger over it, but so far the attempts were unsuccesful.
why? Because Apple hates you and wants you to suffer.
Alternatively, because they care about aesthetics more than utility and comfort.
I don't think apple computers are meant for people who do use computers. I used to have marks on my wrists (I no longer have an apple computer now).
Tell that to the people responsible for the trackpads of any other computer maker.
Apple computers are made for those who purchases a computer. They are engineered to look great on a demo shelf.
«During the first Jobsian era at Apple, I used to joke that Steve Jobs cared deeply about Apple customers from the moment they first considered purchasing an Apple computer right up until the time their check cleared the bank.» (Bruce Tognazzini)
It worked. Most people under 30 don't know Apple existed before the iPod / iPhone. ie: Before Jobs.
Physical objects should be rounded, virtual windows should be square. I will die on this hill.
Tim Cook here, we've heard you loud and clear, the next Macbook will have a perfectly circular screen with square windows.
Jony Ive here. I’ll come back and help make your new keyboard perfectly flat and seamless- touchpad based, and we’ll remove all ports. Bluetooth devices only.
Alan Dye here. I'm coming back to Apple, and the next versions of the operating systems will not even have visible controls or icons. You just have to click on the beautiful, clear windows and hope you're interacting with the right UI elements.
Steve Ballmer here, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!
DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS. DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS. WHOOOOOOOOOO!!!
also, where is the new version of Visual Basic, Ballmer? Your sweaty chants can only distract me for so long…. Wait….. ITS BEEN TWENTY YEARS!?!?
Steve Jobs here, this user is wrong and you are both fired for not realizing this
Mini Cooper redux.
Also, real windows and displays should have square corners, too. I refuse to buy a new phone until manufacturers stop cutting corners.
Eizo made a square 1920 x 1920 monitor which was quite nice: https://www.eizo.com/products/flexscan/ev2730q/
I had a blackberry passport and it had a lot going for it(best keyboard ever on a phone) but one thing I really liked for reasons I don't understand is it had a square screen and took square photos.
Square sensors ought to be more common because they maximize the field of view for a given lens. Well, apart from circular sensors.
LG sells a DualUp monitor that is 2560x2880, same size as two 2560x1440 displays stacked on top of each other: https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-28mq780-b-dualup-monitor
Yep, though what I would want is the width and height swapped. You can rotate the monitor, but then the subpixel layout isn’t good for text.
Try exfoliating your wrists with square virtual windows
> windows should be square
found the Windows 8 enthusiast! haha, I kid. (I myself use a tiling window manager , i3, with completely square windows without any gaps or rounding)
My custom XFWM theme has square corners on windows without focus and large-radius rounded corners on the one window with focus.
The square corners are part of a 2 pixel wide border (one black, one white) because who needs to waste space on handling things we aren't manipulating? But the title bar is high-contrast, because you'll go looking for it when you want to switch windows.
The round corners go with a fairly thick border in a customizable color, usually something very bright in the yellow, orange or cyan ranges. When you sit down, you should immediately know what is active.
Haha, Windows had square windows long before 8.
If I could run the Windows 2000 UI on a modern OS I would but any recent clone/theme/etc feels too uncanny valley.
I like rounding the corners on i3. It is a bit wasteful but the base WM is so efficient with my pixels that I have some to spare.
Not having i3 is truly the worst part about Macs.
(Yes, please tell me about some buggy half-compatible tiling window manager for my Mac.)
For real. Doesn't help that the three/four finger swipe between full screen windows/workspaces has a mandatory animation that you can't disable (you can turn on "reduce motion", but it simply changes the scrolling animation into an equally time-wasting fading animation).
You were being sarcastic, but aerospace is100% worth setting up
Surely MacOS has some nice virtual machine that you could run Linux in?
Virtual machines aren't the solution for day-to-day computing though. You're missing out on the graphics acceleration, being able to plug things in that just work, and so on.
If you're running your UI on a Linux VM....why not just used Linux?
UTM.
Nope. Virtual windows are rectangular because the screen is also rectangular while being small enough to see the edges within our field of view.
They don't have to be any particular shape or size. The property of being virtual overrides everything else when free of these self-imposed constraints.
Even if you lose the GUI and go back to text, the ideal terminal is a plane of infinite columns of arbitrary cell size that dynamically fills your field of view.
I'd further argue that the only reason VR/AR isn't more widely adopted is the lack of orthographic vs perspective modality per application (and uncomfortable headsets). In VR/AR, you don't want a window manager or even windows at all. What you want is a field manager (as in FOV "fields" of varying opacity that can be composited by the user). Shape and size is just an arbitrary region blended in with the environment.
For the sake of ergonomics, you'd more often prefer to project an interface onto a surface if you had the choice. When you don't, you probably want the projection to be orthographic, but for the edges to be fuzzy if not invisible. You'd generally want to be able to layer these interfaces as well instead of having opaque rectangles always in your way.
I don't think GP was advocating for actually square windows. Rather that the corners should be right angles.
This makes perfect sense considering that most LCD displays, and practically all computer displays, don't have rounded corners. This trend of rounding displays and GUI elements is purely an aesthetic choice. I also find this obnoxious since the only thing it does is rob me of a few pixels which are often useful.
But considering Apple users have accepted living without a large block of pixels dead center at the top of the screen, which they've been sold as a "feature", the rounded corners are likely even less of an issue.
I'm not sure that an infinite plane of pixels makes sense even in XR. I want to see a clear edge of where digital content begins and ends, and a rectangle is the simplest and most optimal shape for that. So I would rather have physical display-like floating rectangles, than floating text in arbitrary locations, or rounded off corners for the sake of aesthetics. I'm not opposed to a very slight rounding off of edges on certain elements, but the trend Apple is pushing is supremely ridiculous.
Maybe I'm autistic, but I loooove the sharp edges near the opening. They've become almost a nervous tick of playing with them with my fingers.
I've got no idea why, but the sharp feeling is amazing.
I am autistic and I also enjoy the sharp edges, I rub my wrists up and down them sometimes and generally play with them, I find it very satisfying. I also suspect the laptop might not be as easy to carry around when open if edges were rounded?
this can't be how i find out...
same, i really love it and i hove my hands typing so they've never caused pain anyway
I'm conflicted -- the author's rounded Mac looks more comfortable to use, but aesthetically it looks worse. He turned the track pad notch into an amorphous shape that looks like a mistake.
I actually agree with this too — playing with the sharp edge is kind of satisfying. Like having something in your teeth that you're working on.
I don't think there's anything inherently autistic about that. We just finally have these technologies sufficiently mature that materials and design are no longer strictly dictated by their function.
These objects are becoming more like clothing and less like unyielding industrial machines. It's to the point that I'd be genuinely disgusted to handle any used laptop regardless of how "clean" it is.
Spoken like a true autist… perhaps with a side of obsession and compulsion syndrome
> materials and design are no longer strictly dictated by their function.
Ok… but I don't like to injure my wrists…
Not all heroes wear capes. This is excellent and can't wait to get aluminium mac next to try it – don't think Space Black is a good way to go.
Author's another post on "The Seasons are Wrong" [0] is excellent too and I fully support both approaches.
[0] https://kentwalters.com/posts/seasons/
The seasons idea is interesting -- to me, both proposals feel wrong. I think it's because the weather changes that I perceive seem to lag behind the changes to daylight length by a few weeks.
I would propose boundaries that align partly with how I perceive the weather, and partly with how we plan our year (by months): Summer starts June 1st, Fall starts September 1st, Winter starts December 1st, and Spring starts March 1st.
I second this proposal. Three weeks shift can feel about right.
But we lost a lot of nice symmetries that way, which is unfortunate
Oh, I have never heard of seasons starting mid-month. My mind is blown!
In Australia it's just split up by months, with each season being 3 months long:
March 1 - Autumn starts June 1 - Winter starts Sept 1 - Spring starts Dec 1 - Summer starts
Of cause, those in far northern Australia, only really have Dry and Wet seasons. I have no idea when those are.
Part of the reason for this is that climate lags behind sunlight a bit, so the end of the authors "summer" would be warmer than the beginning.
But most countries other than the USA use meteorological definitions of the seasons starting on the 1st of December, March, June, and September.
There's a significant lag between the longer days and the resulting higher temperatures though, which does make the seasons make more sense temperature-wise.
The author seems to not realize the season are about temperature not about sunlight. If you align the season to northern hemisphere temperatures, where the first week of August is usually the hottest, they make sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season
> A season is a division of the year[1] based on changes in weather…
You can anodize aluminium black relatively easily, similar to this
https://youtu.be/y8HEZ-x4-_w?t=402
Getting the shade right could be tricky though.
Depending on how I'm using the computer, I may definitely have deep marks after working laying down, but if I sit in a wood chair for a while it's the same thing- and my forearm is much tougher than behind my knee.
I suppose I would prefer it nice and rounded and soft on my wrist - but I don't feel like it's quite as extreme as this thread would have you believe lol
There's a more thorough version of this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSaJAAqSAMw and the end-result doesn't look as tacky
if you want to do this, there is a better technique than shown in this video.
get a single-cut fine file, maybe with a little more weight than the one in the video. single cut file has diagonal slots and allows firm and continuous contact with the piece. most files are double cut, have two sets of slots and look like bumpy diamonds. they remove more material but tend to bounce.
use long even strokes with firm pressure, only during the fore stroke. watch out for roll-off, where you unconsciously change the angle or pressure of the file as you're at the end of the stroke.
you can make a pretty even-looking chamfer that way.
Doing this to a work computer seem a bit questionable from the ethical standpoint.
Totally fine to do whatever you want to your personal belongings though.
My work computer is missing two keys and has been since they signed it out to me.
I'm betting they don't notice if I file down the corners. Hell they probably wouldn't notice if I just cut the corners off with a fret saw. But God forbid I try to install an ad blocker or use Firefox.
I promise you they’re claiming taxes on the depreciation of that machine every year. If anything they’ll be upset you didn’t tell them sooner so they could have claimed more.
If you're a US employee being paid market wages, the cost of the Macbook is rather trivial compared to how much you cost the company, and how much it costs them for you to be not working. But some lower-level managers and employees don't seem to understand this.
“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF THE PRICE FOR THE PARTS AND LABOR TO REPLACE A SINGLE, GENUINE, APPLE-BRAND, 2021, MACBOOK PRO KEYCAP?!?! CALL THE ACCOUNTANTS, WE WONT BE PAYING TAXES FOR A FEW YEARS!!!”
As I'm typing on mine right now, I wonder why they made these so sharp. It hasn't cut me yet, but they are decidedly uncomfortable.
>I wonder why they made these so sharp
So the seam looks neat when the macbook is closed, eg. https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/MacBo...
Form over function
Probably because it looks nice and crisp
I thought this was going to be on a softwarefix for the appalling inconsistency that are macOS Tahoe window corners. What I found deeply disturbed me, though I must agree, the edges are a bit more sharp then I'd like and a slight curvature could probably prevent them showing wear and tear [0]. Good on op for doing something they like, even if it's really out there and I could see more "pillowy" hardware becoming a thing now, after a few years of sharp edged devices.
Since I mentioned Tahoe, it bears repeating, my spotlight is still broken.
[0] https://ljpuk.net/2025/05/23/how-does-the-space-black-macboo...
Somebody should offer a service to chuck up Macbooks in a CNC mill and hit them with a chamfer tool
I'm not brave enough to try this on my own, but I applaud the effort. I'm pretty sure I'm developing lasting calluses on the underside of my wrists from all the constant rubbing against the sharp edge of my MBP.
As a bonus the machine looks like crap so it’s far less likely to get stolen.
I think it looks nice.
Though you're right that machines whose exteriors are customized and unusual are less likely to get stolen.
> This was on my work computer.
Bold move to do this on your work Macbook. I'd be too worried of getting chased down with a bill when returning the laptop eventually.
‘I’ve done a lot of work and it wore down’
I just came into Mac world for work and struggle to understand the choices Apple makes:
- Sharp edges eat into my forearms.
- Glossy screen makes it hard to see when it's light out.
- The keys have a real hard stop when you press on them which tires out my hands.
- An arrogant desire to obsolete ports.
I don't understand the appeal of the machine, it feels like style over function everywhere.
Brilliant. Love the tech-disrespect and the “right to repair”!
The sharp and high edges leave a mark in my skin. The older MacBook Air design was lower, so resting your palms wouldn’t give me this
Maybe it's because I type like one would play the piano (with hands curved, fingers well below the palms), but I've never ran into an issue like this with a laptop before, wrists always clear the edges by a couple inches.
All the same, hell yeah.
A hero post. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to shave using the edge of iPhone Air 20 or whatever they are coming up with. iPhone Stiletto.
I too find the sharp corners incredibly uncomfortable for my weak sensitive baby wrists but I chose to overcome this by wearing a wrist band. Two very different approaches
Did the same for my Macbook Pro 15 unibody circa 2010. It was a great QoL improvement.
Yea, that's ugly. I'm sure it could've been done more gracefully with 15 minutes more effort. But judging from the general wear and tear on this poor Mac I guess they don't even consider the resale value.
I can't even imagine prioritizing resale value here over one's own comfort. The purpose of a tool is to be used, not to serve as an asset class.
Sure, but comfort != abuse :D Apart from the filing, I can't think of ways to make such a recent Mac look like this. Did it suffer a plane crash? Acid attack? Thermite fire?
I appreciate the customization, but would probably make an effort to make it not look like (another) accident.
I think he is not worried about the resale value.
> This was on my work computer. I expect to similarly modify future work computers, and I would be happy to help you modify yours if you need a little encouragement.
I don’t understand the actual decision but I appreciate the gusto with which it was made.
The main reason to consider resale value is 1-2 years later you may want to upgrade and selling it to another person typically yields you more money than trading it in with Apple. Doing something like this may decrease how much you could sell it for later.
If you’re not planning on doing that then it’s not really a factor for you.
Seriously, I have several mac laptops dating back to 2004 and they all have less wear than that.
At one point due to the way I was using my just above my wrist my skin basically calloused from the edge of the macbook. Now at least the lid is not that sharp but it used to be I recall and I always worried about kids getting hit by it in case of an accident.
Another thing that multiple generation of MacBook Airs used to do is constantly be running (sometimes quite painful) amounts of electricity through your wrists if they accidentally touched the metal.
Not sure if the Apple Silicon devices have the same issue - but it was consistent through at least 3 different generations.
I remember, at university we had rows of metal chairs and one single person with a macbook could occasionally electrocute multiple people.
Sharp edges and an axehead-like profile wear down the bottom of the laptop sleeve in my office-commuter hand luggage. Solved by putting my old MacBook Air in a neoprene pocket case before putting the whole thing, now with the double-thickness :-( p into my sachel.
I'm very tempted to try this although I worry that the rubber "seal" around the edges of the screen will no longer have anything to butt up against, meaning there's glass-on-metal contact when it's closed?
Ok I did it, but to a lesser extent to OP, so it definitely doesn't affect the seal. Even a small radius makes a big difference to comfort!
If only they'd round the edges/corners of the body instead of the screen and the UI
>it is uncomfortable on my wrists
Are your wrists supposed to be coming into contact with that? I suspect many of us have bad posture and do rest our wrists like that, but if your concern is wrist comfort, you probably want to consider that you're going out of your way to enable harmful posture.
It’s not just the edge but the corners where the finger accommodation is for opening the lid.
There’s a sharp corner there is unnecessary.
I dropped my MBA on concrete and the edges got dinged up and sharp.
A bit of 220 grit sandpaper and all the sharp edges are smooth and it actually looks pretty cool. I was grimacing at first but now I like the feel.
Too many MBAs, not enough concrete.
On one of my old MacBook Pros, I managed to do this naturally through friction from my wrist moving back and forth on the keyboard for years; good idea to get ahead of it.
The Apple Watch Ultra also has an aggressively sharp screen edge. It's kept me from upgrading from my current watch (Model 8). But maybe I would get use to it?
The side that faces your wrist is rounded - only the face is sharp. I haven't noticed any issues with the edge wearing the thing.
I was worried about scratches because I abuse the shit out of anything I wear, and sure enough, there are scratches in the titanium bezel, but they look good in a way that scratches on my (non-pro) steel Apple Watch did not.
It was oddly satisfying taking a file to my MacBook when a drop lifted a nasty burr on the edge.
Very minor "you can just do things" collides with the "infallible object" presence that Apple wants for its products - almost feels "wrong", but it's a nice norm to break.
(and I'm not a "Cult of Mac" guy)
you can just do things: https://ebay.us/m/vWMAUU
Is it me or is that aluminum already developing some stress cracking?
I don't want to do the whole front edge but this has definitely inspired me to take a file to these notch corners
The sharp points by the track-pad are bad design. Ive made some terrible decisions when he wanted to show off.
You don't dock your MacBook for long sesh?
Apple users always convincing themselves they are still using the best premium most thought after designs of all time.
I dealt with sharp edges issue by investing in an Andar leather case. Works just as well.
https://www.andar.com/products/the-helm
Wish I had the courage to do this too.
I just put a plastic case on my MacBook…
If instead you sharpen the corners it's a security mechanism.
anything but admitting the design is bad and frivolous
I would remove material from the outside edges of the front, not the center near the trackpad. The blue edges of my M2 air have already become silver and the palm rests have become more silver and glossy like glass from wear. I'm probably going to do something like this.
I hate those sharp edges. I've contemplated taking a router with a carbide roundover to mine many times.
Finally, now I know I'm not the only one! These sharp edges constantly cut into my wrists to the point I was thinking of doing the same, or glueing some kind of kind soft padding to the edges. Great someone did it. I wonder how far can you cut them?
This seems like a reasonable choice, but man you really need to do this with a CNC mill. The craftsmanship is not there.
I hate this But I also understand Still I hate this
yay
> Don't be scared. Fuck around a bit.
Bet this person never heard about FAFO
He hasn’t found out yet.
> Don't be scared. Fuck around a bit.
Preach.
One of the many first world problems of this century. /s
Meanwhile a very important object called "Artemis II" is about to splash-down on Earth in 35 mins.