Apple's Dimensional Drawings

(developer.apple.com)

117 points | by herbertl 5 hours ago

8 comments

  • JeremyHerrman 1 hour ago
    Seems like this URL has only been live (at least first archived [0]) around May 2026, originally with only 13 products. Great to see them add more since then, now close to 90.

    0: https://web.archive.org/web/20260512182718/https://developer...

  • thechao 2 hours ago
    I wish overhead (cut away to passenger layout) and side scale drawings of all cars existed. That way you could directly compare the vehicles. You'd think such information would be needed (in the U.S.) by the NTSB; and, thus, be freely available.
  • barbacoa 2 hours ago
    What's ironic is that Apple does all their mechanical CAD work for their products in Siemens NX running in Windows VMs.
    • leohonexus 2 hours ago
      I understand the need for it to be in Siemens NX, but do they really run it in Windows VMs? As far as I know NX isn't certified to run in VMs without Nvidia GPU passthrough (aka Macs). It seems more sensible to maintain a fleet of Windows desktops specifically for CAD and industrial control.
      • zarzavat 1 hour ago
        More sensible, yes... but less ideologically pure.
      • steve1977 1 hour ago
        It could be VDIs, i.e. VMs running on another system, potentially x86 with GPU
    • brcmthrowaway 2 hours ago
      This is insane. Is there no great first party CAD solution on Mac?
      • starky 8 minutes ago
        Professional 3D CAD software is pretty much Windows only. Especially with a company like Apple where you have complex models with many designers working on it you aren't going to risk using anything other than the likes of NX, Catia, Creo, or SolidWorks (though I shudder at how frustrating SolidWorks would be in that use case).
      • nikitaga 47 minutes ago
        Tons of industrial software is Windows only, whether it's design, operations, or configuration & control apps for industrial hardware.

        MacOS versions are more commonly found in the low end of the market, e.g. Fusion 360.

      • left-struck 30 minutes ago
        Nothing that CAD and engineering students would be familiar with.

        There are some open source options but those aren’t taught at school afaik.

        • culturestate 17 minutes ago
          Not that it's necessarily suited for Apple's use case, but Autodesk's Fusion runs natively on Mac.
      • steve1977 1 hour ago
        I guess not for this use case. There are many industrial use cases for which there are no macOS versions. In fact, Siemens NX was once available on macOS AFAIK, but isn't anymore.
  • Dig1t 22 minutes ago
    What font is used in the technical drawing part? It's very cool.
  • MBCook 3 hours ago
    I had no idea they published this to the general public.
    • darknavi 3 hours ago
      A huge ecosystem of third party accessories, cases, skins, etc.

      The openness is easily worth it.

      • eloisius 2 hours ago
        I always imagined shops in China got out the calipers and made measurements from scratch every time a new iPhone was released. Never knew Apple made it this easy to manufacture Minion iPhone cases
        • userbinator 30 minutes ago
          They probably still do, if they have the device, because you definitely want to make sure before creating the not-cheap-even-in-China tooling.

          As others have mentioned, these are more useful for when they don't, i.e. before the actual release.

        • Maxion 17 minutes ago
          The big manufactureres pay or just simple acquire the leaks.
        • SoftTalker 1 hour ago
          Commoditize your complements. Wide choice and availability of accessories benefits hardware sales.
      • MBCook 2 hours ago
        That’s obviously the people who are really using it, but I assumed you had to pay Apple to get it.

        So either you made your own measurements or if you were doing Made For iPhone and they would give it to you as part of that program which surely you must have to pay for.

        • gertlex 1 hour ago
          I assume there's NDAs in place with some vendors pre-release, since my understanding is some accessory vendors get the needed info before new models are released, so they can spin up their lines and have accessories ready to go when the new model hits the market.

          (but I could be wrong; NDAs w/China? no idea what the time between announced/released/shipped is typically; I last bought Apple product in 2009...)

          • tonyedgecombe 30 minutes ago
            I've heard that they are busy bribing people in Apple's manufacturers for dimensions before products are released.
        • p0ckets 1 hour ago
          Commoditize Your Complement - Apple wants accessories to be cheap.

          You might want to pay for the Made For iPhone certification for some things, but I doubt most cases have it.

    • plorg 27 minutes ago
      It's nice but lots of companies do this if their equipment is meant to be used with other equipment from third parties. Frankly I'm surprised they only provide it in 2D PDFs.
    • enoch2090 3 hours ago
      For accessory manufacturers?
    • nujabe 48 minutes ago
      Wouldn’t surprise me if EU forced them to.
    • nish__ 3 hours ago
      It's so we can make cases.
  • djfergus 1 hour ago
    Curious why the Macbook Neo is the only Macbook included?
  • mrcwinn 3 hours ago
    Even the drawing of the Vision Pro feels heavy.
  • sysguest 2 hours ago
    idk maybe apple can release fbx or blender files?

    I mean these seem nice for print-decorations...

    • LiamPowell 1 hour ago
      No decent engineering firm is going to want to work with FBX or Blender files. In fact they probably wouldn't even know what to do with them. Even proper model formats such as STEP files don't give you the details that are on a drawing that you actually need to do anything useful with these.
      • spockz 12 minutes ago
        I’ve only dabbled with cad for 3d modelling in Onshape. It seems that there all kinds of ways to add measurements in the render files. Not sure about blender.
    • ggm 7 minutes ago
      Roll your own?