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Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)

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Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)

#63

Post by fmajid »

atoav wrote: post #8

The 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…

Pierre Bézier, he of the eponymous curves, worked for French car maker Renault for decades.

Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)

#64

Post by ryandrake »

CharlesW wrote: post #44
ryandrake wrote: post #33

I guess I have really bad eyes but I can’t tell the difference at all. They both look like rounded corners to me. I don’t think the aesthetic effect is that pronounced. I’d like to see the author do a blind taste test and be able to identify this magical “curvature comb” without seeing the brands.

Out of curiosity, are you really not able to tell which is which in this unlabeled image? https://imgur.com/a/xhCZgds

On those I can see that one has a larger corner radius than the other but that's it.

Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)

#65

Post by Gigachad »

pja wrote: post #20
crazygringo wrote: post #19

Earlier 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.

Yes & it doesn’t work very well. Or at least it didn‘t, Apple has been notorious for sacrificing good strain relief on their cables in pursuit of aesthetics for years. Possibly things have improved now that Ive has left, but there was a period a few years ago when everyone I knew with a Macbook had wrapped the power cable in electrical tape because the cable housing had failed just above the (useless) strain relief s…

I think it was less the strain relief and more the rubber they used. It would go gummy and fall apart after a few years. I absolutely remember around 2013 everyones MacBook charger would fail like this.

But they have changed the design a lot since then so I no longer think this is an issue. The brick is now usb c so you can swap the cable without needing an expensive brick, and the MagSafe cables they now include are braided instead of rubber.

Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)

#66

Post by kitsunesoba »

metadat wrote: post #30
superzamp wrote: post #21

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.

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 a…

It's not CSS, but for cases where it makes sense to export assets (e.g. SVGs or PNGs) Sketch has squircles as an option for corner curvature on roundrects, calling it "smooth corners" (v.s. "round corners"). As far as I can see Figma does not offer this, but I am not well versed in Figma so the option may just be hiding in some obscure panel.

Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)

#68

Post by kitsunesoba »

muro wrote: post #3
muro wrote: post #2

I wish they would put in at least some basic effort into smoothing that sharp edge where wrists often rest when using the MacBook, rather than just the curvature of the corner. Any cheap laptop is nicer to my wrists than a MacBook.

Also: if they could create a gap between the screen and the keys, so the screen is not always smudged after closing the MacBook. Aka, if you use your MacBook as a laptop, the screen will be dirty even if you are careful to never mistakenly touch it.

I haven't had a much trouble with this on my MacBooks, but based on observation (relatively small sample size, so take with grain of salt) this is exacerbated by tightly packing them in e.g. a bag with books/tablets/etc or stacking things on them. As long as I've avoided those situations I don't get key tracks.

Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)

#69

Post by seltzered_ »

crazygringo wrote: post #19
eternityforest wrote: post #4

Earlier 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.

Every Apple Lightning cable I own has a tear around the cable housing just outside of the strain relief.

There's guides on how to workaround it using things like Sugru or tape, but still frustrating.

Re: Curvature consistency in Apple hardware and software products (2017)

#70

Post by harywilke »

kelsolaar wrote: post #52
phkahler wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called C2 continuity.

The Continuity of Splines: https://youtu.be/jvPPXbo87ds

I came here to post exactly this excellent video on splines by Freya Holmér. This discontinuity of reflections effect is directly mentioned at 29 minutes in chapter 4 on geometric continuity.
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