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Comment by kjkjadksj | Hacker News Reader

Then why hasn’t it happened for other macbooks? The corners of my 2012 are noticeably deformed from impacts and the screen is fine

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> Then why hasn’t it happened for other macbooks?

It most certainly has, but might not have been publicised. I remember some noise about iPhones screens failing in more or less exactly the same way ~10 years ago. These things are bound to happen regularly, but we don’t hear about it. Ion-exchange strengthened glass is resistant to microcracks, but even so fracture happens.

> The corners of my 2012 are noticeably deformed from impacts and the screen is fine

Glass is an interesting material. It can bend and deform in the right conditions, and shatter in others. Your experience would show that the screen is actually well designed (my 2015 MBP had also a deformed corner after having fallen open from a table; I was actually pleasantly surprised that the hinge survived).

Deformed corner here too! it was sitting precariously on a pile of papers on top of a set of plastic drawers on top of a standup desk which was half raised (where the printer lives, was silly I know). My daughter came in and bumped the table and my open MacBook fell directly on the corner of the screen. It has a dent there now but no other damage

Is the screen more slammable (for lack of a better word)? My HP has these two rubber stoppers that prevent the Screen from slamming the keyboard.

Macs have always had that, but the newer ones have this issue where the screen hits the keyboard. Never happened with the older fatter models from a decade ago.

I have one of the last 16” intel macs and god I wish it was built like the 17” ones. Cleaning the screen terrifies me because the thing is so fragile. Not to mention how my previous screen had the coating get messed up from using glasses cleaner on it once.

My MacBook ten years ago quickly developed a very obvious, when off, imprint of the key shapes on its screen.

Maybe it depended on use but I had this 2012 mbp that would be shoved into a backpack with heavy textbooks for 7 years before graduating to a lighter packing in the backpack. Never had issues, but the 2020 intel macbook air I bought that just sat on my desk during covid did develop those imprints within a few weeks it felt like.

Well as I recall 10 years ago we would use keyboard covers , and those caused imprints, but the keyboard alone never did. I cant imagine you could even use a keyboard cover today. Kind of just worse design all around on these laptops.

My HP also has a piece of cloth to put on the keyboard before closing the lid. I always suspended by pressing the power button and disabled suspend by closing the lid, so it is natural for me to use that extra protection.

The fracture pattern depends on the direction of impact. It's easily verifiable under a microscope. From the thread it sounds like Apple did indeed verify them with a microscope. However people are not always rational, especially when money is involved.

If you go through and read a few it becomes plain that there's a few themes emerging. Clean everything, lid closure.

I find it a bit laughable that they can "verify it under a microscope". The glass is present under tension, and a weak point releasing that tension could very well cause local divoting at the origin of the crack as the pressure is released towards that point and microsharding occurs.

The thread has 50 pages and 2000 votes, so I'd guess even if that is a factor, it wouldn't account for all of them.

Maybe. Apple sold 30 million Macs last year. 2000 complaints would be 0.0067% of those.

I don't think that means much. There were 1500 complaints about the original 12" Macbook's butterfly keyboard in the OG thread[1]. That keyboard went on to be recalled.

[1] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7063425

...were? I just clicked it, both out of curiosity and spite (I had one of those damn keyboards), now there are more.

Your counterexample means even less, since my numbers are based on measuring something useful.

Besides which: what kind of case do you think you're making by pointing out that actual design/manufacture problems with Apple products show up in Apple forums?

How else would it be?

Years ago, the screen of my 2012 rMBP had broken seemingly out of nowhere one time after I opened the lid. I knew someone who was carrying a couple pieces of paper stapled together inside the lid of their 2016-era MBP, and when they opened it, the staple had broken the glass. Just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Glass breaks, it happens.

Hell, the newer iPads flex a bit and we don’t have screens break constantly.

Screen glass breakage is very dependent on the shape and vector of the stress. Flexing is generally not that bad, nor are light impacts or scrapes on the front, but a remarkably tiny pressure on edge will cause a crack.

Exactly. The surface treatment of these glasses make their faces very resistant to fracture, but the layer in the middle inside is much less tough. An impact on the side is really bad for this type of glass pane.

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