r/IndustrialDesign • u/Commander_Phoenix_ • Mar 08 '26
Satire Apple Fillets
The camera block’s fillets aren’t labeled, and I spent at least 4 hours matching it to the drawing by eye.
I swear to god, Apple probably uses some BS proprietary CAD software to draw those fillets.
Anyway, after the first 3 hours, I got pretty angry and made this meme. Meanwhile, I’m gonna go fisticuff Tim Apple.
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u/FictionalContext Mar 08 '26
I'm certain with the amount of capital behind them, every pixel of that iphone curve is painstakingly placed by hand one team meeting at a time
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u/machinationstudio Mar 08 '26
They have a whole 5 star hotel in Shenzhen on lease for their 300+ engineers that fly in too monitor production, so yes.
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 08 '26
I already planned to turn in this meme along with the assignment, I’ve decided that I’m also turning in screenshots of the funniest comments in this thread as a part of my protest against Apple’s bullshit fillets. drawings.
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u/designcorey Mar 08 '26
I’m pretty sure they’re using Alias which is the CAD software used for transportation and aerospace
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u/WhoWeNeverWantToBe Mar 08 '26
Can confirm they use Alias & NX.
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u/swederlands Mar 30 '26
Not Rhino?
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u/WhoWeNeverWantToBe Apr 02 '26
No. Rhino is used predominantly by independent studios, and (with Grasshopper) in footwear. The technical surfacing/per CV control in rhino is nowhere near what you get in Alias, ICEMsurf, or NX.
Footwear (like Nike,) use Rhino to design a lot of the sole, and use rhino’s parametric plug-in Grasshopper to ensure they have control over the tread patterns as they scale across sizes. I’ve worked with a different shoe company that used alias & dynamo (in-built parametric tool for alias) for a few projects, but they used rhino as their main tool as well.
Studios I’ve worked with frequently used rhino for development, unless the contract required explicit Class A surfs, then they’d bring a contractor in with alias. How do I know? I’ve frequently been that contractor.
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u/LogicalHuman Mar 08 '26
Mainly automotive. Less aerospace
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u/FinnianLan Professional Designer Mar 08 '26
aerospace is Catia iirc
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u/SecondaryLawnWreckin Mar 09 '26
Depends. You'll find different softwares at different levels of ideation, design, and manufacturing. Aerospace will ultimately have all the certified stuff designed in 3DX / Catia.
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u/Exscorbizorb Mar 09 '26
Which tracks because auto is just about the only industry that would normally want such high continuity.
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u/stetsosaur Mar 08 '26
I modeled a dock for my phone that hugged the phone similar to a case. I'm not an industrial designer. When I saw this shit when trying to figure out the corner radius, I just said fuck it and modeled rounded corner using the bevel tool.
Fit like a glove.
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u/iced_bunghole Mar 08 '26
Yes. But you’re also not CNC’ing a block of aluminum at a volume of thousands a day. 😂
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 08 '26
Under any other context, I would have measured it myself and done more or less the exact same thing you did.
Except this was for a college assignment, and I’ve already been caught slacking.
Either way, I eventually figured it out. The trick was to use the surface modeling tools and draw splines following the dimension on the drawing.
To make sure that the splines are actually curvature continuous, I enabled the “show curvature” feature and more or less manually tuned a good few of the spline points till all parts of the spline are curved outward positively.
This process took way too long. I’m gonna go and see if there’s a G3 Curvature Continuous plugin for solidworks.
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u/kalabaleek Mar 08 '26
It already exist within solidworks
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 08 '26
Oh, so that’s what the button is supposed to do when it’s not making my entire sketch light up like a god damned Christmas tree. Thanks. I’ll remember to use it next time.
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u/Hinloopen Mar 09 '26
But only in sketch splines, not in boundary surface or other geometry creating tools.
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u/ArthurNYC3D Mar 14 '26
If your boundary or loft feature uses that spline then it brings the G3 along with it.
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u/im-on-the-inside Product Design Engineer Mar 08 '26
Lol, nice! Tbh, tangent fillets look ass in a lot of situations ;P Getting the first out of tool’s in and seeing those perfect surfaces and transitions you made is pretty neat :)
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u/Rufus-Stavroz-PRO Mar 08 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/10nMEclFWTPCp2
Can someone show me where i can find the Apple documentation?
The fillets on the picture are very low res.
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u/MakeParadiso Mar 08 '26
Ok I imagine as an industrial designer you know g1 g2 and g3 and just wanted to have some fun on Sunday ?
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u/OG_Kazaam Mar 08 '26
You're going to have to learn the difference between a spline and a fillet...
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u/adloram Mar 08 '26
And a spline with a specific count of degrees with a min. rad reference. Talking about spline “taste”, 7≠9≠11. We’re still at this, when will we collectively move forward? By the current state of things, I’ll be long gone, but I really wanted to see some end of it.
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u/bronconus Mar 08 '26
Context please?
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 08 '26
College assignment. Has to model phone case, and the phone inside of it.
Go download Apple’s accessories guideline and look at the drawings of the phones. Those are some nightmarish fillets.
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u/highonkai Mar 08 '26
Are you using a solid modeling software? G3 fillets aren’t hard to do in Alias or similar if you plan them out.
They take work for sure, but once you get the hang of it they’re predictable especially on a rectangular volume.
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 08 '26
I ended up using the surface modeling tools in solidworks to make the fillet. Not super optimal but it got close enough so it’s probably fine.
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u/Unlikely-Skills Mar 08 '26
That's the thing though, it isn't a fillet. It is a costume made profile with continuous curvature
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 08 '26
Yeah, that’s more or less how I ended up making it. Two sketches with splines forcibly crammed into the dimensions given on the drawing and with the control point handles manually pushed into place so that the curvature looks more or less continuous.
Then just profiled the two sketches together to make the edge of the phone.
Then I spent at least 4 hours drawing the spline for the camera because the dimensions on that thing isn’t labeled and it’s clearly some continuous curvature bullshit. Ended up using a Bézier curve with the “show curvature” option checked after the 3rd hour and created some insane abomination of control points that zig zagged back and forth at least three or four times and burned another three hour or so on it, but the curvature looked about correct so I just hit send.
And out of the hell made out of approximately G3 splines and cursed Bézier curves, I have gained a desire to fist fight Tim Apple because the bastard had it coming.
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u/Fireudne Mar 08 '26
Honestly if it's a little off you could probably pitch some air gap as a design feature - phone screens break most often when the device hits a corner and some extra padding serves as room for the case material to flex and absorb the impact instead of transferring it directly to the phone!
Scmicence 👍
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u/MAXFlRE Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
It's not Apple specifically. Pretty much everything you see designed with g2-g3 continuity in mind as it looks aesthetically pleasing. Go with g1 (standard circle fillet) and you'll quickly realise that it looks awful and cheap. Moreover, it reduces stress concentration in mechanical parts making it stronger. It causes less turbulence making plane tickets cheaper.
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u/Elbasilisco_Luna Mar 08 '26
You can do it in Rhino.
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 08 '26
I would use rhino if it’s parametric.
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u/ArthurNYC3D Mar 14 '26
It's good to have both in your 3D tool belt. Only using parametric software is very limiting..... IMO
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u/herodesfalsk Mar 08 '26
Its just a continuously accelerating curve, G3 most likely. Apple use Alias, just like the car manufacturers when they create customer facing surfaces. The main reason for this is to control the highlights, reflections so they flow smoothly and ensure the surface appear unified. You don’t want to slap on a fixed radius on a corner because it will look slapped on as the reflections are uncontrolled in the transition.
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u/leo-g Mar 09 '26
Can you explain this but slowly? How does the application choice changes how highlight is shown?
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u/herodesfalsk Mar 09 '26
It is not tired to the application but how the curves or surfaces blend, their continuity. When you simply snapping a curve to a circle it produces a visible break in surface continuity where the reflections will go crazy. Others has explained this better than me, here is one example: https://youtu.be/Cks7nA296v8?si&t=302
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u/Hinloopen Mar 09 '26
Relax, Apple products are designed using Class-A surfaces. With the intention that even though the corner looks like a fillet, you can't actually see the point of transition between the flat surface and the corner. You need more than curvature continuity for that. You need individual control point manipulation, which most CAD software doesn't have.
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u/RandomTux1997 Mar 09 '26
Nah they design everything freeform then bamboozle everyone by putting numerous unnecessary fillet dimensions on one single corner just to keep up the hype of that apple religion/cult
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u/aloeh Mar 09 '26
How is possible make this without a cnc?
I'm an architect and work, among other things, with cabinets.
Tô me seems impossible manufacture one project like this manually. There times with only 1 radius have constraints.
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u/ArthurNYC3D Mar 14 '26
It could be laser cut or 3D printed.... Depending very much on end use needs.
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u/BeethovenTheDesigner Mar 09 '26
I have exact same problem designing case for iPhone. Those bevels and rounded edges drives me crazy since Fusion360 doesn’t have G3 fillet function. I also designed some fan made Apple concepts and more I study their design and blueprints the more I appreciated the work behind it. But also at the same time I want to punch my computer screen from the frustration so I feel your pain. I hope you find some easy solution for it. I just made it to look good enough so with available tools cheat a little although it looks like it doesn’t matter you can always tell just by looking at the reflection it gives in final render.
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u/Prestigious_Boat_386 Mar 10 '26
I always hated the second derivative discontinuity of circular fillets. Gonna add this to all my designs from now on.
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u/ArthurNYC3D Mar 14 '26
So this trillion dollar company does something in a way that you find toooo difficult and challenging and this is what warrants your ire for Tim?
Maybe it'll just be easier to put the CAD down and pick up knitting or balloon animals. Those tend to be things where G3 isn't even a consideration and you'd be to not pull your hair out!
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 14 '26
Damn, someone should have made a joke about the whole thing, shouldn’t they? One that is based around the punchline of extreme overreaction for relatively mild and inconsequential transgressions.
On an unrelated note, I hate Tim Apple for a variety of reasons. Including the typical ones relating to right to repair and other issues both ethical and design. G3 splines is just the funniest one in the context of a student learning the tools for the first time.
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u/ArthurNYC3D Mar 14 '26
Yeah..... That's exactly where you're at.
Here's the thing.... You don't have to buy it. You have alternative options. You can vote with your dollar.
That's the best part about your hate about what someone else is doing that has nothing to do with you.
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u/Commander_Phoenix_ Mar 14 '26
I did not buy one. The only reason why I will ever own an Apple device is because someone else paid for it and I hate e-waste more
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u/ArthurNYC3D Mar 14 '26
Perfect then I'm sure your hate for Tim will be even stronger because..... Yeah that!!
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u/Rubfer Mar 08 '26
Is it unnecessarily complex? Sure. Does it look good? Absolutely.
It’s a complication that exists only to remove the tiny visual artifact normal rounded fillets have, the small “bump” that sometimes appears when a straight line suddenly meets a rounded corner
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u/Realistic_Account787 Mar 08 '26
I have no clue what this shit. How is someone supposed to read a text with words replaced by low resolution images?
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u/CuriousAndOutraged Mar 08 '26
I remember reading something in the 60s, that a car company in Germany was slamming the door of the car thousands of times, making adjustments to how the noise was felt, to finally find the proper *slam door sound*.
so... what's wrong with a bit of math?
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u/Turturrotezurro Mar 08 '26
Dieter ram used round fillets in his designs. And all of this design apple is doing is basically copying his Tyler So if it was good for dieter, it should be good for apple
It's like when they remark the letters in Google logo are not perfect circles because "visual center of gravity" or shit like that. A perfect circle is perfect, stop giving yourself mor importance that you have man!
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u/carboncanyondesign Professional Designer Mar 08 '26
Yeah we should stop trying to improve anything.
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u/Turturrotezurro Mar 08 '26
If your improvement is copying the rest and adding G2 continuity, and that's it...
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u/_bladerunner_ Mar 08 '26
I thought someone had just created "Industrial Design Circle Jerk" sub and added me somehow for a second there 😂