I also filed the corners off my MacBook
brt.fyi291 points by maxbrt 2 days ago
291 points by maxbrt 2 days ago
Nitpick: those are (sharp) edges, not corners. Maybe the next generation of MacBooks will also actually have exactly 90° non-rounded corners? I guess that's the next logical step...
Also, TIL that Bosch also makes files. I was under the impression that they only made powertools (or electronic measuring devices, or other things with a battery or power cord).
You mentioned Bosch and I can't think of anywhere or anyone else who'd be interested in this little bit of trivia, so a random comment on a thread about filing the edges off a laptop seems like a fitting place to share it.
Bosch dates their appliances using a thing called the Fertigungsdatum Number. The first two digits represent the year of manufacture, the second two are for the month. Except the year doesn't align with the actual year, you first have to add 20. Why 20? Well, Bosch first started using their internal dating system back in 1920 and appliances from that year started with the code "00". I had an oven that had a date of "7808", which means it was manufactured in August 1998 (it lasted almost 30 years before we finally had to replace it last month).
In 2020 the system wound back around and started with "00" again.
And the majority owner of Bosch is the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Robert Bosch foundation), which uses its dividends to fund projects in social sciences, public health and education.
What a tragedy Robert Bosch Stiftung isn't receiving the dividends into his personal accounts, as this means he's not incentivized to keep innovating or to reduce prices.
I think you should look at their catalog. Their dishwashers have some wacky innovations like zeolite dryers. Their windshield wipers are very high quality and easy to install. These are just two examples.
At least you didn't go full 2026 anti capitalism rant that Bosch shouldn't exist to donate revenue in the first place :)
"Fertigungsdatum Number" is just the german word for "production date Number".
So essentially the epoch system we see in use for timestamps as well, including overflow behavior edge case.
They make many many many more things than just powertools. They have ebike motors, home appliances, industrial machinery, chips (they have a very good division for MEMS as far as I can tell, they make high quality IMU's, they are super popular for airbag usage), protocols (the CAN bus is BOSCH IP and you pay 1 cent royalty I think for each MCU's with CAN on them), automotive components.
I'm waiting for a Bosch dishwasher to be delivered today. Supposedly it's one of the best.
I thought the same too and I think it's horrible. It can neither be too loaded or too empty, the door doesn't stay cracked open after it dries so I have to prop it slightly open and the placement on tines on the drawers are poor and often too small. It'll probably last forever so I'll have no reason to replace it. In my last home my cheap Kitchenaid was great, I suppose I could swap them. I suppose the floor light is nice.
> the door doesn't stay cracked open
Whoever installed your device didn't properly adjust tension springs that keep the door open. You can do it by yourself with user's manual (that can be downloaded.)
On the flip side, I've been using them for years with no issues. I jam pack them full of filthy dishes and they come out perfectly clean every time. I use high quality detergent, rinse aid, keep the filter clean, and regularly run dishwasher cleaner through it. I wouldn't have any other brand.
I hope you have a good experience with it. I had a Bosch dishwasher in my old house for some time until a failure, and it was so absurdly quiet that the little light it projects on the floor when running was truly valuable. It cleaned well and was all around pretty great until it gave up the ghost. Unfortunately when I went shopping last year for new appliances I found out that Bosch now requires you to use their app and connect your dishwasher to WiFi to do very basic things like use Eco Mode. One assertion I will stand by to my grave is that a dishwasher has no fucking business being connected to the Internet.
I opted instead for GE Cafe / Profile appliance everywhere, which are fully usable without the app. None of my appliances have ever or will ever be connected to any network. The GE Cafe dishwasher also has a built in grinder/disposal unit which helps it deal with heavily soiled dishes much better as well as a bonus, and a fully stainless tub.
Best of luck with your new dishwasher, the Bosch units are legitimately very quiet and powerful for cleaning (I believe they're still the quietest by at least 2db on the market, and every 3db is a doubling of sound power and intensity since its a logarithmic scale).
>every 3db is a doubling of sound power and intensity since its a logarithmic scale
This is true, but the ear measures sound pressure, not sound intensity. Sound pressure requires a 6dB increase to double. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_root-power,_and_field_q...
And human perception of loudness is also non-linear. The increase necessary for a perceived doubling in loudness is frequency dependent, but at most frequencies it's higher than 6dB. At 1 KHz you need roughly 10dB increase for a perceived doubling. See:
Our kitchen remodel included a Bosch dishwasher - it’s silent and always clean. Glad we made the splurge! Enjoy!
With something like 400,000 employees and 400 locations, Bosch has fingers in all kinds of markets.
They invented the O2 sensor that lead to electronic fuel injected engines being awesome, and they still produce huge numbers of OE automotive engine management systems.
They've got their self-branded tools, but when you buy a Dremel widget or a Diablo saw blade, you're also buying Bosch.
I used to get home aquarium equipment that was made by Bosch. I've owned a (rather high-end, for the time) aftermarket car stereo that was a product of Bosch. The Bosch dishwasher I had was a skookum choocher despite being relatively inexpensive and near the bottom of their line.
They make industrial automation hardware and sell plant engineering services. They build and run factories that manufacture semiconductors.
I'm only scratching the surface here.
Chances are excellent that you've got stuff related to Bosch all around you, wherever you go.
I am not familiar with "skookum choocher". Is that a technical term? Based on the context it must be a good thing.
It's jargon.
A choocher is a thing that chooches; it's a machine that accomplishes things. Like a steam locomotive, chooching along and doing real work as it goes.
Skookum is a term borrowed from Chinook that means things like strong, brave, or excellent. When an object is skookum, it is resoundingly well-made, robust, or reliable. Some things are more skookum than others, while some aren't skookum at all.
A skookum choocher is a well-made machine that does a great job of doing stuff.
Their main bread and butter is components for cars and ebikes, their (power) tools / DIY stuff is like 22% of their business. Or so I learned just now.
as an aside, I have a shimano e-bike and a bosch one, and the bosch one is leagues superior.
Which feels weird when you consider the pedigree of shimano, but it makes sense when you think what kind of internals an ebike motor would need.. I guess.
Shimano is famously a company that people in about four seemingly random/unrelated fields/hobbies think of as a specialist brand in that hobby (e.g. fishing).
(They are or at least were originally a bearings company, specialising in things that need to spin with very low friction, and all their seemingly unrelated businesses started from that)
I don't know about the other industries, but within old cycling circles they're also just seen as the group that was first to make good counterfeit goods that were actually high enough quality to use, and their entrance to the market was aided by the fact that existing players, campagnolo and schwinn mostly, were producing junk from junk proprietary alloys in order to compete with 'overseas' components at truly exorbitant costs.
that was 40-50 years ago, so who cares, but Shimano is truly interesting for cultivating so many different opinions.
I have two Bosch powered e-bikes (gazelle Modeo and Turn GSD) and one DJI Avinox (Amflow PL carbon)
A few years between each bike and very different bikes. But Avinox feels like it has come from nowhere to be on par or superior to Bosch. The charging plug egonicis is 100x better too.
Bosch also makes the appliances that a lot of people know that aren't branded Bosch.
That has become common now in all industry - for example, in India, Bosch refrigerators uses compressors manufactured by Godrej (an indian company). So their indian fridges aren't exactly "German engineering", unlike their washing machine and dishwashers that are made in-house. LieBherr, another famous Swiss German brand, on the other hand has their own factory to make the refrigerators in-house in India, but their service in many cities is outsourced to one run by Bosch + Siemens (plus one more group I can't remember).
Actually it's a little bit more complicated: the appliances are made by a company called BSH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSH_Hausger%C3%A4te) which was originally (since 1967!) a joint venture between Siemens and Bosch, but Siemens withdrew from it in 2014, and since then it's a fully owned subsidiary of Bosch (but still uses the Siemens brand as well as some other brands such as Gaggenau, Neff, Thermador etc.).
Bosch owned Junkers since before WW2, at least heating appliances, I think airplanes where independent. They started rebranding Junkers to Bosch Thermotechnik ~20 years ago. I think they never sold heating appliances in UK under Junkers brand.
Someone in marketing must have put the kybosh (or maybe it's kybosch) on Junkers as a UK brand. For a couple of reasons, really.
Good idea since depending how you pronounce junkers in English it could sound like an undependable appliance.
Another big reason is probably the infamous Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber which also saw use during the Battle of Britain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87). Or any of the other military Junkers aircraft built during WW2, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers#Aircraft
Maybe… but less likely since few people remember plus we don’t have an issue with Mitsubishi and they built planes that gave us pain as well. What I’m saying is if Mitsubishi had been Mitshit instead they’d likely also feel pressure to change their name due to its sound rather than WWII infamy.
Approximately no one on the US home front had to fear harm coming to them from a Mitsubishi product. This stands in rather stark contrast to the experience on the British home front:
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/second-world-war/blitz/blitz-...
Oh, Bosch makes all kinds of things.
Bosch's logo is something like a sparkplug (the thing used in internal combustion engines). To this day, the 'mobility' division is the biggest one. See https://www.bosch.com/stories/creation-of-the-bosch-logo/
Decades ago I actually had an offer to work for them as a research student working on optimising internal combustion engines.
not a spark plug. They call it "armature in a circle", but that's somewhat generic.
Bosch used to do the first magnetos / dynamos in the early 1900s motorbikes / cars. The principle is similar to this day - one rotating magnetic field within one static. You can do all kinds of shenanigans and combinations of permanent magnets / coils where it's either the electric current generating a magnetic field or the magnetic field generating an electric current. Depending whether You want the movement to generate electricity or the electricity to generate movement.
In the first magnetos (the thing that uses the engine rotation in order to generate a current that then makes a spark in the spark plug) they used permanently magnetized exterior plating and a rotating winding. That's sort of what You see in the logo - two coil windings rotating in their housing.
I find below article to be a cool explanation of that device, while actually showing shape Bosch uses in that logo.
https://www.da7c.co.uk/technical_torque_articles/magneto_ign...
But yeah, it's magneto ignition device, pre-sparkplug.
Bosch is one of those companies that makes a lot of different things. I own powertools, kitchen appliances and car parts from them.
My very first mobile was a Bosch. I had no idea they even made phones. I wanted a Nokia though, but I was able to get that later.
And car engine control software.
Bosch developed the "experimental" ECU software that VW used in the Dieselgate vehicles.
Ah right, thanks for the hint. I try to be more precise in more wording, but English isn't my first language so comments like these are really useful.
I assumed it was a reference to early Apple user interfaces.
I believe their corners are already/still rounded, though.
If we have to be precise, however, perhaps blades would be a more appropriate term to refer to their products' edges.
That would have been a good reference, shame I didn't think of it. Blades definitely is the better term.
This reminds me, the backplate of the Mac is also sharp as heck. I actually cut myself once when I was replacing a motherboard on an older Intel Mac. You don't really expect it to be this sharp when you lift it up.
It’s not nitpicking, I kept looking at the corners trying to see what was changed, back and forth for few seconds before I realized it was the edges!
Great article and happy to see that I'm not alone. I don't get why on such a well thought-out and built device as this, the corners are so sharp.
From how I use the trackpad, the bottom of my thumb always feels sore-ish after a day's work and it took me a while to trace this to the sharp cornern of my macbook.
>I don't get why on such a well thought-out and built device as this, the corners are so sharp.
Because macs have 3 big markets
1) graphic designers/ photo editors
2) web developers
3) people who value looks above other considerations
Number 3 buy more macs, so square corners it is
I am in neither of these and nor is any of the many people I know with macbooks. I honestly do not understand why any average person would buy anything else than a macbook today.
The first reason is price. Macs are expensive, you may argue that it is worth it but it is still a lot of money. The Macbook Neo change the deal somewhat, really good value, but even with that, it is not the cheapest laptop by far.
The second reason is compatibility. Apple does a pretty good job with x86 emulation, but it still a problem for many Windows games, Linux support is not the best either.
And then, there may be plenty of specific reasons, maybe you are missing some connectivity, maybe you don't like Apple, maybe you want a Nvidia GPU, etc...
I have to disagree with you on the price. The cheap price was one of the reasons I ended up going with it. It's an M4 Air with 24GB of Memory. I got it for around 950 Euros, and at the time I could not find anything close to it that combined the same amount of processing power, memory, battery and overall built at that price.
The compatibility yes I fully agree. This is sort of a trial for me to see how well it works with Linux VMs and a comparable setup, but if I cannot get it to work as well then I will switch back. So far it is working well though
It sounds like a pretty good deal, so I assume you got it before prices went crazy, like mid-2025.
At that time, you could get a decent entry-level Windows laptop for around 700 euros that can do pretty much everything you want a laptop for if you are not a power user. More than that and for most people, it is "expensive". At 950 euros, you are paying for options, and it turns out that the package offered by that M4 Air is what you want, but it is likely that a gamer would want a different package for these 950 euros. Personally, I went for a 1000 euro ThinkPad because it was a better fit for my needs at that budget. In particular, I wanted more than the 256 GB of storage you most likely had (1 TB).
That’s more computer than most people need though. The barrier to entry is still far above a barebones PC with Windows or Linux
you can get a laptop shaped device for a hundred euros. A real laptop will still cost several hundred, and it won't be as good, but it's cheaper.
Macs don’t compete with the low end laptops. Even the Neo competes more in the middle of the laptop market. When you compare the specs and real-world performance of a MacBook, Mac Mini, or Mac Studio to other equivalent models the price might be slightly higher but not out of line. Compatibility, lack of upgradeability and the OS choices come into play, but an honest comparison between systems otherwise puts Macs just on the slightly expensive portion of the market.
Cost, limited OS/etc support, ignore/avoid their walled garden, not using any other apple devices, lac of reparability (historically)
Many many reasons to avoid Apple products. I still laugh at their 2012-14 era macbooks with a SATA cable that made 3 right angle turns and was easily the most replaced part at the college help desk I supported. How did they solve that? M.2 then soldered drives.
The Neo changes the price debate and their high RAM devices are coveted by devs I work with. But there are many reasons to avoid Apple if you aren't already in that ecosystem. You'd have to pay me to use an iPhone or daily drive a mac.
At least now window snapping is built in instead of a $5 add on for a feature 90% of Linux supports (and 100% of Windows since XP). Non Mac editing tools are very competitive. Unless you prefer Mac/Apple ecosystem or are using Mac specific apps there are other options I'd prefer.
I use my home laptop once a month at most, a macbook would be an expensive paperweight. I use an old Thinkpad.
This thread is full of people who are scared of changing the look of their macbooks. Jewellery? Or fear of standing out?
Resell value takes a nosedive on modified macbooks...
There is a large culture in the Mac community that anything that modifies your device, may have a impact on your expensive warranty when you need something fixed. Apple has taught their customer base well.
This translates into Macbooks that have been modified often having less resell value. See how many time people with the thermal mods need to point out warranty, battery, and the ability to remove it.
Laptops in general, be it macbooks, windows device, ... are already difficult devices to sell (in my experience) because they are very personal. So anything that steps outside that norm, makes it even harder to sell.
If your planning on keeping your device until eol, modify away. But a surprising large amount of people buy these devices with the idea of reselling after a year or two (as they hold value better then win devices), so they can then use that money on a upgraded version.
> Apple has taught their customer base well.
Apple has taught their costumers that Apple products are a style choice, a lifestyle product. It makes them boring. Their utility is secondary to their look and the added cost elevates that to a pain point.
Taking metalworking tools to a very expensive machine with very limited spare parts availability seems rather extreme.
>> Or fear of standing out?
Absolute irony coming from someone who uses a Thinkpad. ;-)
My reason for switching from a M1 MacBook to a ThinkPad: I can install Linux without worrying about compatibility issues. Also, being able to have 64GB RAM, 1TB SSD without having to sell a kidney to afford it is nice.
Why would you buy a macbook if you use windows or linux.
Bad experiences with heat, fan noise, and poor battery life on Windows laptops.
> I honestly do not understand why any average person would buy anything else than a macbook today.
Personally, it's because I hate MacOS with a fiery passion. The UX is just awful.
Disappearing scrollbars are a bug, not a feature, on a desktop OS. They make sense on a phone/table where screen real estate is a premium, but on anything 14 inches or more, it's just not necessary.
I hate the dock bar. I don't want multiple windows from a single app coalesced to a single icon. If I have two PyCharm windows open, I should have two entries so I can click between them in a single click.
I hate that I can't disable scroll wheel acceleration. I have my scroll speed set to 1 click of the wheel being ~3 lines of text. 4 clicks should always be 12 lines, regardless of it's a quick flick or a casual scroll. MacOS insists on making it so a slow click of the wheel scrolls half a line, but a quick flick of 4 clicks or so goes 3 pages.
It's utterly stupid that Home/End bring my cursor to the begin/end of the current document, rather than the beginning/end of the current line.
I could go on and on about the things I despise about it. But as a general rule, if there's something that Linux and Windows do the same way, but MacOS does it differently, I'll hate it. It feels often like MacOS wants to be different for the sake of being different rather than actually being better.
I'm guessing the "many people [you] know" are category 2. Many people are in category 3, because most of the world is category 3.
Of course everyone cares about looks. But the original poster says 'above other considerations'. For example I'd take an ugly noiseless laptop over a slick one with fans. Also, very often, looks go hand in hand with build quality.
> I am in neither of these and nor is any of the many people I know with macbooks. I honestly do not understand why any average person would buy anything else than a macbook today.
Because a used Thinkpad running Linux is the people's champ. It costs $200 instead of $2000. Parts are plentiful and virtually anything can be replaced with a small Phillips head screwdriver. The screen doesn't break if you look at it wrong. You can drop it down a flight of stairs and it'll keep chugging. Linux support has been great for north of a decade. It's the pinnacle of productive e-cycling.
Apple Silicon's value prop is undeniable but their laptops are otherwise "meh". Judging by all the internet whinging you'd think that every laptop besides a MacBook has a Game Boy screen and a trackball but the truth is that many non-Apple laptops are perfectly usable. I have both and actually spend more time on my Thinkpad.
One reason is because MacOs sucks
can you go into more detail? what am I missing, I am assuming by not switching back to linux?
For me it's customization. I really like to customize my OS experience to my liking (both for efficiency and looks). In MacOS you cannot even change the location of the window buttons (minimize, maximize, close) or the order. I know it sounds nitpicky but it shows how little freedom it gives you
The unix subtrate of macos is fine for daily usage. It’s the administration side that suffers. Package management, service management,…
What frustrates me is that there seems to be no in between with Apple. Some of the components very much do feel like they are designed with function over form in mind. Both software and hardware.
For instance, there was a great article here in the past weeks (can't find it right now sadly) that highlighted how the file name preview works in Finder. It does it in a very intuitive way and without covering any of the other files listed. You wouldn't notice it visually, but it sure is useful. A lot of the hardware also feels really polished as a tool, like the trackpad (although I admit it's probably not as difficult to make this look good).
And then you have these edges again and it feels like it was done by a completely different design team without any communication to the rest.
Those prejudices are I think 20 or at least 15 years obsolete. All kinds of people use Macs today.
I love the animation on the background of your website. And I totally understand what you mean about using a tool, if it's too delicate to do the job, then it's not doing its job. Imagine buying a hammer and trying to keep it clear of scuffs, it's obviously going to impede your work.
Yeah I think the grief OP was getting over that statement in some of the other comments is unwarranted, I understand completely what they mean about tools. You have people who buy expensive guitars and barely play them for fear of scuffing them for example, depriving themselves and the tool of the thing it's actually for. I'll never understand that mentality.
I don't like to be precious about my tools either, scratches and so on are evidence it's being used for what it's made for!
Hmm, I sort of get this but I also think people fetish treating tools badly and then complain when they break.
I have a micrometer. It's delicate and lives in a velvet lined case.
I could treat it like a hammer but I know that once the surfaces get damaged it will be less useful.
It's no less of a tool just because you take extra care of it. I don't treat it well because I want to hand it down to my grand kids, I treat it well because it's delicate I want to keep it working.
Likewise, I don't baby my laptop but also don't throw it around, drop it or use it as a step to reach high shelves.
I don't sweat dings but I do use a proper fitted case when I transport it because I don't want them either.
I bought a 1973 Fender Jazzmaster that was immaculate and should have been my forever guitar. I was so afraid of "ruining the value" that I sold it. I couldn't play it, I was so paranoid. It got into my head. Instead, I ended up buying a '65 AVRI Jazzmaster body and put on an EGC aluminum neck and a Tuffset bridge. The price was about 2/3 of the vintage one, but I have no qualms about playing this one. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You remind me of Nigel Tufnel of the Spinal Tap rockumentary fame and his guitar collection. The clip on Youtube is a must watch if you're not seen it.
my 14 year old recently got into guitars and has been teaching himself how to play. I went to my sister's house while they were out of town for an errand and her husband plays in a band. There was some guitar on a stand in her living room my son would not let anyone get within 5 feet of. It must have been important hah.
...and don't even get me started on people who buy a Rolex Submariner - the quintessential tool watch (and luxury symbol, by all means - but it wasn't always so) and then ask whether they should take any special precautions after accidentally showering with it...
Sigh.
I'm probably missing something here but if I have to worry about getting an expensive watch that calls it "Submariner" wet of all things, at the very least, it's badly named.
I think the bigger point is that people think they “afford” a luxury item as soon as they barely afford to buy it and forget that owning also has a cost. They are too afraid to use the damn thing out of fear that they damage it somehow. Their luxury item loses all meaning and use beyond showing ownership of an expensive thing.
Like those fancy luxury cars some people buy but are too expensive to drive, maintain, insure, or repair. One scratch wipes out their savings so the car sits in the garage.
Can't argue there. The first time I visited the US, I bought expensive calligraphy paper. I brought it back home to India and saved it for when I would be "Good enough" and practiced on cheap copier stock.
Fast forward a few years, I gingerly took out the pad and pulled out a sheet. I didn't do it right and tore the sheet down the middle and had to take fresh one. Then I dropped my pen while writing (since I was so "careful" with the paper) and had ink droplets fall onto the sheet. Finally, when I put pen to the paper, I found that it had absorbed moisture from the air and the the ink bled into the paper ruining everything.
Yeah, I don’t understand buying a car to sit around. It’s a car, if you aren’t driving it, you aren’t getting the full experience.
I daily drive what some think are just for special trips.
Haha, we need to talk. (Current garage: Land Cruisers BJ42 and HZJ78, SI 80" Land Rover (full grille, thank you very much), 1972 RRC, a 1966 MGB V8 (retrofit, not original).)
Oh, and a Passat for the missus. The kids call the Passat 'The muggle car'.
I really could do with a couple cars less (mostly to make room for a Toyota Century, I have wanted one for years), but I love all of them for different reasons, so...
close04 pretty much nailed it with his comment below. There is nothing wrong with the Submariner - quite the contrary, it is an iconic design and exceedingly well made.
The 'problem' is that as it migrated (much like, say, Leica cameras and optics) from being tools for professionals into status symbols, a lot of its owners went from basically banging it about, relishing each and every battle scar obtained to (sigh) worrying about resale value.
Thanks for the encouragement, glad you like the background :-) Yeah I phrased it a bit badly initially. But what I meant was pretty much what you stated!
> Yeah I phrased it a bit badly initially. But what I meant was pretty much what you stated!
This is part of the fun of reading other peoples writing - thanks for sharing your work!
I was wondering why I don't get that animation. Turns out I turned on reduced motion in Windows 11, to get snappier UI and they actually set some accessibility tag correctly for the animation!
It’s true in general, but not always.
Some tools do not work if you don’t treat them with utmost care (like an optical system that might need a clean room to work, or that gets damaged by a small bump, or whatever)
yes I want a post about that background, its pretty awesome how it gradually and seemingly randomly builds itself.
At the bottom of the post there's a link to an explainer post about the background: https://brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/
That contains mostly placeholder stuff from Wikipedia and does not go much into detail, I didn't get around to finishing it yet. I'll try to write it up in more detail
Yeah the sharp edges have bothered me since they started with the unibody. Luckily I'm completely off Mac these days. But really the last mac I enjoyed using was my powerbook. It had really nice plastic gaskets for the edges, a keyboard with really good travel and cupped keys, it was wonderful.
I got a plastic MacBook eventually which I filed down too because the edges were really sharp there. And plastic is easy to file. Also replaced the screen with a matte version, on the plastic MacBook that was also easy because the screens were readily available and there was no glass overlay.
Then I had a unibody MBP 15" matte. Less sharp and with off factory matte display. Not great keyboard though.
The current MBP I find abhorrent. Even after they switched from the horrible butterfly mistake the travel is still way too shallow. I just can't work with that anymore. These days I just don't buy laptops anymore. Only desk PCs.
I didn't have the heart to make something like this on my M2 Air so I did a new edge to 3D-print and attach to the edge. Works really well and have lasted more than 3 years to this date. https://makerworld.com/models/1356464
That's kinda clever, and possibly something to consider for users who prefer an alternative to filing.
It's always entertaining for me to realize that there are people who find very annoying things that I don't even notice.
Like that dead pixel on your screen, or video tearing when you scroll, or game running at 20 fps
Kind of, for example I play games with motion blur activated, but my son switches it off.
Motion blur is great when done right, but most games do it wrong, so it gets a bad rap.
The two sins are:
1. Blurring things that shouldn't be blurred.
2. Blurring too much.
Racing games are notoriously guilty of #1. If you're in a third person view, your car should basically never have any motion blur. Likewise, a car driving the same speed as you right next to you shouldn't get blurred. You should only see blur in the road and scenery that is close to you. Instead, the devs will just apply a post-processed radial blur that blurs the entire scene, which just turns the entire screen into a blurry mess.
The width of the blur should at most be the delta between frames, and ideally, just half that, really. But a lot of devs seem to have this idea of "Motion blur is a neat effect! We should emphasize it!" and the blur will cover an area covered by multiple video frames.
A motion blur that is more subtle can actually look amazing. It doesn't look blurry, and instead, just makes animations look more fluid.
Motion blur is why movies can be 24 fps and look fine, but a game at 24 fps typically looks incredibly choppy.
Motion blur bothers me so much. Much more using a monitor with the backlight frame strobe.
This is my number one complaint about the M-series MBP line. Especially true of the cutout in the middle that has points so sharp they can cut you if you accidentally scrape it with your hand.
Is this unique to the M-series?
My 2015 MBP has this exact same issue.
I'm guessing they meant they had more complaints about the non-M models. Though I also misread the way you did too.
Related: Filing the corners off my MacBooks (1406 points, 3mos ago, 678 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47724352
Yeah but this guy did it carefully. That one looks like he took a powerfile to it.
Used just 3 things - 1 debur tool, a 600 grit sandpaper & another 2000 grit sandpaper while still reading this thread. Totally worth it, and instant improvement in my quality of life. And it took me less than 5 minutes. Thank you!
I think I'd also go with the debur tool next time, glad it worked well for you!
I've been using Macs for decades and never had these issues personally. It seems like some people do literally rest their hands / arms on desk / notebook body while typing.
The "sharp edge syndrome" here to me seems to be a good thing then as it acts as a reminder for proper ergonomics / posture.
First Google AI search result on the topic:
"Never rest your wrists on your MacBook while typing. Instead, let your palms rest gently on the laptop body only when you pause. Hover your hands as you type. This prevents you from bending your wrists and protects the nerves in your carpal tunnel."
That also pretty much exactly mirrors the way we learned typing / posture at school in Austria.
> Hover your hands as you type.
I've been using computer keyboards for 30 years and have never done that.
Still no wrist problems.
I don't typically type on laptop keyboards though, and I use a very firm wrist pad, and sit at a height that makes my wrists nearly perfectly straight.
I've always wondered if this was the secret motivation behind it. I hated this bit of design when I switched from a smooth edged Thinkpad ~15 years ago. But I changed my typing posture for the better and it became a non-issue.
I get the point there and it does make sense, however I think there are certain limits to where it applies. I use it on the go a lot, crammed in small seats in the train for example. In those cases, it's just not always possible to have proper ergonomics and IMO this should be kept in mind when designing a laptop.
Agreed. The sharp edges are like a Victorian teacher whipping you for slouching
They could have put sensors on the body and made it alert you in MacOS, but you know, it is what it is
Never knew that there are more people like me who get irked at such things. But yeah, I do not have the heart to do this to my laptop, so I end up using my laptop on a solid surface xD
Maybe I drank the cool-aid, but I like the corners on my Mac, and it took a lot of empathy from me to accept “the other” authors filing job, but this looks beautiful.
Thanks to both authors for sharing the work!
Wow never realized people cared about this. I think it looks better with sharp edges and haven't had any problems with ergonomics.
This has to be a "you are holding it wrong" situation. I use my macbook on the desk, on my lap, on my chest laying on my back, and have never once gotten to thinking parts of it should be filed down.
Sharp edges/corners are an interesting design choice for a product in which you interact with your bare skin.
Google Pixel 7/8 have sharp edges on their camera bump on the back.
I’ve literally calluses on my wrists from those edges.
That looks so much better than that other post!
For godsakes. Buy a 3000-6000 grit sandpaper, put it on an orbital sander and touch it on the edges delicately. Check, redo until edges are ok. Problem solved.
I would just like to say that with this page open I have ~15% utilization on my GPU. XD
I use a low-power sff pc with a i5-9500T for everyday tasks and it uses 50% cpu and 100% gpu ! The background is nice indeed but it makes the website sluggish.
Trying to even open the page in Chrome on my phone freezes the tab with rapid flickering and makes every other tab I switch to or open completely blank until I restart the browser... That effect sure is something.
I checked, too, after your comment. It's ~50% on an M2 (with 10 GPU cores) according to iStat Menus.
I know I know :D I have not done any optimization yet. Maybe I should also add some toggle to disable it or reduce the number of particles
One thing I'd love to see is a polished MacBook. I'll probably have to buy a dead one for experimentation.
I like pushing my fingers at those sharp edges and then feel the short lasting indent with my other finger. We are not the same :)
I've read online that some people use the corners near the indent for opening the lid for "pain stimming", so you are definitely not alone with that :D
There's a spelling mistake in the first paragraph. The expression is "lo and behold", and not "low and behold". Lo is an old English interjection for expressing surprise.
Also somewhere they used "along" where it should be "a long". Always nice to see that a person wrote it.
Amusingly, I've come to appreciate grammar and spelling mistakes in blog posts, as they hint the text wasn't written with AI
Yeah, next generation of SOTA models will probably come with a misspelling mode, marketed as "inspired by artisanal human misspellings".
The meeting between my magnetic Apple Watch strap and the edge of the MacBook did the same for me, involuntarily. Apparently the magnets in these straps are quite abrasive.
I know, not the main purpose of it but what's the reduced weight in grams?
So I've weighed it with my cheap kitchen scale, that says it weighs 1222g now. Sadly I did not weigh it before. I did look online and saw 1240g for the same model/specs.
Take of that what you will, but I can't imagine that I filed off that much. I'm assuming my kitchen scale is just not well calibrated
In 2019 I put my MacBook Pro in my bag and sliced my fingers open on the edging around the exhaust
Good to see a recognition that power tools are powerful. Too many amateur videos of people experimenting without nearly enough control and messing up projects
Brave to do this on a blue color MacBook - curious how the filed area will look compared to the rest of the body after some time.
I used a dark blue sharpie to cover up some scratches; works fine and I touch it up every few months.
Curious why it matters how it looks, it is supposed to be a computer, not a fashion accessory
On a similar note, people are way too precious about their dead-tree books. Feel free to chuck them in bags, make notes in the margins, fold pages, underline, and strike through text in them. It's yours. Make it yours! Your scribblings don't detract from what's in there – they elevate it to something unique.
(This is particularly true if it's a book that's still in print, or was in large enough print runs it's easy to buy another second-hand copy when the one you have falls apart. It's still somewhat true even when that's not the case.)
i'm someone who takes a lot of care about their books, i especially don't like when the back is wrinkly/broken on paperbacks because of opening them all the way. after all that makes them break down faster in general, over time. and it looks worse in a shelf.
anyways, everyone handles their items differently, which is fine - a friend once borrowed a book from me which was in pristine condition after multiple years of me owning and reading it. when he returned it, the back was completely wrinkled, pages had dog-ears, he had bent the cover all the way around to be able to hold it better etc.
that kind of made me sad because it felt like something i took a lot of care to keep it in good condition was "destroyed" in a matter of weeks. of course i wasn't mad towards my friend because i realized that people handle books differently.
that being said. if someone borrows you something, try to keep it in more or less the same state as when it was given to you. accidents happen, of course. i on the other hand have learned to either not borrow books i care about, or make a point about me taking care of them when reading.
sometimes it's also not as easy as "just buy another copy". some books i care about because i bought them on a vacation, or someone gifted them to me. so the exact item has a sentimental value an additional copy will not be able to replicate. but again, i just learned to create two categories of books in my mind, those i borrow, and those i don't.
after all it's 2026, just download an eBook from Anna's Archive (if they borrow the physical copy from me there's no monetary transaction towards the author as well, so i really don't feel bad about it in these specific situations).
My parents (both teachers) always told me to respect books, and it means keeping them in good shape, among other things. It is almost a religious idea: books represent knowledge, something that is important and must be preserved.
To be honest, it is not like we were maniacs about that, books are meant to be read, and accidents happen, but damaging a book if you could avoid it just felt wrong.
And I am also thinking about libraries that have books that are hundreds of years old or more. The reason we still have them is that people cared.
It is not entirely rational, but it is one of these things, like playing with food, a moral consideration more than a practical one.
I'm like this for everything _except_ paper books. I grew up sharing books a lot, books I finished would go to younger kids in my extended family or my mom's students, and I got a bunch of books like that as well. So we took a lot of care keeping books in good condition. I don't buy many paper books anymore, and ones I do buy tend to be new and stay with me, but folding pages or breaking the spines still feels wrong to me
I was riding my motorcycle in heavy rains and had a book in my work bag which, as I later found out, doesn't resist water at all, and the book got soaked. Half the pages puffed up, and I hated myself for it at first, but after a while I realized I like it even better since it feels like the book has been through something with me and I will always remember that incident whenever I think about the book.
Though admittedly, caring about this is even more vapid than caring about my books being pristine.
Does anybody have experience with filing just the 'trackpad corners' on a dark-colored macbook?
I did this with my first (and only Macbook) in 2014. Did it with a pocket file.
I never thought about blogging about it though. Perhaps something to consider.
I couldn't do this. I know some like to customize their tools, but I like my stuff vanilla.
> The moment I am too scared to do something because I might damage the tool, it stops being a tool.
What? You can damage even the most robust and simple tool by using it wrongly or inattentively.
Oh my, I finally found out why I can only last 3 seconds..
The first gen unibody macbooks had seriously sharp edges, enough to grate a block of parmesan cheese. I suspect Sir Johny Ive is behind this madness. The latest apple watch ultras also seem quiet aggressive, so much so that I am having to sport the lame looking normal apple watch.
I've never understood why Apple had and leaves these things in their computers.
Amazon link to a debuting tool. It uses sharp harder metal to cut off sharp metal edges.
I strongly recommend against using a deburring tool on a Macbook. IMO OP has picked their tools with perfect consideration.
These tools are made to remove burrs resulting from machining processes. They are very useful for quick&dirty jobs on bore holes or rough edges where optics don't matter, but they lack the precision for sensitive work.
Anybody who's not very well versed in using a deburring tool is just about guaranteed to produce a terrible result that will only take longer to sand out than approching the task with files and sandpaper from the start.
Agreed. Deburring tools also frequently “catch” and dig in if you’re not careful. Especially on soft aluminum. Use a file if you’re going to do this.
This was posted in another comment: https://bsky.app/profile/s.ly/post/3mlo7ajrqdk2o
Not as bad as I would have thought, but I would still go OP's way if I wanted to do this.
I'm sure Apple would prevent users from doing this if they could.
Next version: edge sharpness detectors. Or body resistance measurements.
It hurts even looking on it through the monitor.
Anywhere you could take this to have it professionally done? I like the idea but would never do it myself.
Can't name any concrete place but maybe try a local Hackerspace? They often help with that for free and you can give a donation
I hate the vents on my work macbook, when I rest it on my lap, the edges dig into my thighs and leave imprints. One time after getting in the flow, I didn't notice how it was cutting into my flesh and ended up with a bruise
looks great! not shade to the other guy, but your job is so much nicer looking
Now try modifying the software that Apple sold you with it.
Yeah that's been a major headache. I ssh into my server/desktop most of the time anyways, so there is no friction there. Then also I was surprised by how well VMs with OrbStack on Mac run. With yabai and skhd I've gotten it pretty closely to where I previously was with i3.
Even still, I'm looking forward to the day where I can run Asahi on this
Three employers in a row insisted on handing me a macbook, and three times in a row I ported Gentoo to it out of pure spite and disdain for third parties trying to control the binaries I use to do my job.
At the time they called this crazy and unproductive, but those obsessions with control of my tools built the foundational skillsets that drove my career.
If you struggle with Yabai I'll reccomend Aerospace, which I think is more performant & reliable.
They don't document the hardware, but it is possible to run unsigned code on the SoC - that's how the Asahi Linux project is able to exist.
Get one of these:
https://www.andar.com/products/the-helm?variant=397924980491...
Pricey, but the lip covers the edge. My current one is 4 years old and lasted a couple of generations of Macbooks.
The Helm is great. I'm not sure it really solves the wrists problem, at least for me since for how I use it the height of the laptop makes a huge difference in ergonomics. The MacBook Pro is already tall, and the Helm makes it taller, creating pressure on the wrists. Meanwhile I don't have this problem on my carry everywhere MacBook Air since it's so thin.
another example: https://bsky.app/profile/s.ly/post/3mlo7ajrqdk2o Jesse Vincent used a deburring tool.
"The moment I am too scared to do something because I might damage the tool, it stops being a tool"
That's just not the definition of the word "tool" at all but okay... whatever
Sorry you did not like that part! All I was trying to express was that even though this thing is nice and shiny, it is a tool in the end so if modifying it would make it serve that purpose better, one should not be scared to do so. I wasn't trying to give a definition, but perhaps I should rephrase that. Thanks!
Calling it a tool is fine.
Some people would like to pretend means of production are holy assets you're supposed to value and trade (INVEST!!! making value is for losers and _these_ workers), when it's just a consummable that should serve a purpose right now.
A computer is a tool and customizing the case is not unheard of.
Thank you for desmystifying the Mac. Users know best.
It made sense to me. If you're to scared to use it without limits, then it is not useful for the scope of its intended purpose.
It implies that it stops being a usable tool. It's still the same item, but it isn't able to be used as such.
A tool is meant to do something, not look pretty.
If your primary concern is something looking pretty, it is no longer primarily a tool.
Probably loose wording as damage can mean break something or make it look less pretty. I think the intent is clear though.
You should never use a mac on your lap if you are male because you can burn your balls. You can end up shooting blanks, these laptops can do heat castraton.
That reminds me, I should have mentioned an even more backwards design which is that of the vent placement on my older Thinkpad X1. It has the air intake vents on the bottom, they relied on the little rubber feets to lift it up for correct airflow. I pretty much could not use it on my lap because of that, it got too hot even during smaller tasks. But to be fair, I've noticed similar placement on several HP/Dell laptops (or notebooks?) that I had at work too.
It can also make you waste a lot of time and not do anything productive with your day which is worse than shooting blanks.
Long ago in retirement, my father adopted the habit of sitting in his easy chair, with a view of the television set, with his laptop in his lap, clicking away at the Internet and whatever he did there. Sometimes the cat would stroll across his keyboard.
But he ran into a real problem: his computer began locking up. No warning, no prior glitches, just a hard lockup, and only a power-cycle could get it going again.
And I took one look at his setup and I said, "Dad, you need to ventilate that thing at the bottom. I bet your CPU is suffering an overheat condition."
And so Dad went out and he purchased a little laptop stand for the laptop, that contained fans in the base, and he set the laptop stand across his lap and put the laptop on the laptop stand. And he didn't even need to actively run the fans, but just the extra height and bottom ventilation did the trick, and his laptop never locked-up again, and he was overjoyed, along with the cat, and Mom as well. And they lived happily ever after.