I can finally put some words on this. Tangentially (no pun intended) in CSS, the poor rendering you get out of an ambitiously border-radius'ed button has been driving me mad for years; time to get down the rabbit hole to see how to replicate that look on the web.
Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
21–30 of 94 posts
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple has beautiful squircle curves the rest of us can't have unless we want expensive CAD tools and extra JS files, but they also have plenty of sharp transitions. Look at their cables, that have no strain relief, being a bad influence on every other cable for a decade. It's basically just Bauhaus design but with a few nice soft features, it's gonna be a bit uncomfortable, it's gonna be expensive, it might compromis…
What are you talking about, every Apple USB and Lightning cable I've ever had has had strain relief on both ends. There's the main plug in a plastic housing, and then there's an extra-thick rubber part about a centimeter long which is the strain relief wrapped around the cable, and then the rest of the cable itself. Clearly visible in any product photograph close-up.
My apple cables are consistently the first to wear out. I must be using them wrong.
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#23The curvature combs are confusing to me.
Is this equivalent to saying that Apple’s rounded corners have a continuous second derivative while naïve rounded corners only have a continuous first derivative but a discontinuous second derivative? Or am I misunderstanding this?
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#24The curvature combs are confusing to me. Is this equivalent to saying that Apple’s rounded corners have a continuous second derivative while naïve rounded corners only have a continuous first derivative but a discontinuous second derivative? Or am I misunderstanding this?
Isn't this sort of thing common in the automotive industry?
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are you talking about, every Apple USB and Lightning cable I've ever had has had strain relief on both ends. There's the main plug in a plastic housing, and then there's an extra-thick rubber part about a centimeter long which is the strain relief wrapped around the cable, and then the rest of the cable itself. Clearly visible in any product photograph close-up.
My apple cables are consistently the first to wear out. I must be using them wrong.
It's always weird to read things like that because I definitely mistreat my cables, and I've had lots die, but my Apple ones hold up very well. I have just one Lighthing cable that recently broke and that one was from 2013 IIRC so I guess that's ok. Everything else seems to hold up about as well as expensive Anker cables, if not better, including Macbook chargers going back to 2005 or so. I'm in the EU though, maybe the cables I get are different in some way?
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#26The curvature combs are confusing to me. Is this equivalent to saying that Apple’s rounded corners have a continuous second derivative while naïve rounded corners only have a continuous first derivative but a discontinuous second derivative? Or am I misunderstanding this?
Isn't this sort of thing common in the automotive industry?
[deleted]
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
My apple cables are consistently the first to wear out. I must be using them wrong.
It's always weird to read things like that because I definitely mistreat my cables, and I've had lots die, but my Apple ones hold up very well. I have just one Lighthing cable that recently broke and that one was from 2013 IIRC so I guess that's ok. Everything else seems to hold up about as well as expensive Anker cables, if not better, including Macbook chargers going back to 2005 or so. I'm in the EU though, maybe…
All my Apple cables have fallen apart, granted it took them 3-5 years, but still.
Never had so many issues with any other brand.
And it’s something I see with everybody I know. I’m in central Europe.
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#28I can finally put some words on this. Tangentially (no pun intended) in CSS, the poor rendering you get out of an ambitiously border-radius'ed button has been driving me mad for years; time to get down the rabbit hole to see how to replicate that look on the web.
This looks like a good place to start…
App: https://squircley.app/ Code: https://dev.to/georgedoescode/codepen-soften-up-your-designs...
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#29The curvature is not unique to apple though. This is widely used in car manufacturing for example. Turns out not having a hard transition between no curvature (straight surface) and some kind of radius (so a curvature of 1/r) looks like shit on very reflective surfaces, because a perfect flat mirror suddenly transitions into a stretched or squashed one. So you can go and make those transitions flawless by making sure…
For anyone interested, a history of the "squircle": https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2019/04/02/history-of-the-ter...
Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)
#30I can finally put some words on this. Tangentially (no pun intended) in CSS, the poor rendering you get out of an ambitiously border-radius'ed button has been driving me mad for years; time to get down the rabbit hole to see how to replicate that look on the web.
I had the exact same thought: How to do this in CSS?
Please follow-up on this thread with any discoveries or learnings, would be interesting and cool to learn how to replicate the nice soft curve for web assets. Depending on how many different semi-reasonable approaches exist, this subject and analysis would also make for a compelling and blog article.
Edit: Thank you Charles - wow you're so quick to have unearthed and replied with squircle resources in the time it took for me to compose the three sentences above.
p.s. CharlesW: thanks for your helpful and informative comments in general, I consistently look forward to reading your comments whenever I see one. Cheers and happy holidays!