Hackaday Links Column Banner

Hackaday Links: July 17, 2022

Webb’s first deep-field image. Source: NASA

The folks at NASA are taking a well-deserved victory lap this week after the splashy reveal of the first scientific images from the James Webb Space Telescope. As we expected, the first public release included a lot of comparisons to images obtained from Hubble, as the general public understandably sees Webb as the successor to the venerable space telescope, now in its third decade of service. So for a “let’s see what this baby can do” image, they turned Webb loose on a tiny patch of sky in the southern hemisphere containing galactic cluster SMACS 0723, and sent back images and spectroscopic data from galaxies up to 13 billion light years away. There are plenty of analyses of Webb’s deep field and the other images in the first release, but we particularly liked the takes by both Anton Petrov and Dr. Becky. They both talk about the cooler scientific aspects of these images, and how Webb is much more than just a $10 billion desktop image generator.

Continue reading “Hackaday Links: July 17, 2022”

Dig Into The Apple Device Design Guide

Millions of people worldwide have just added new Apple gadgets to their lives thanks to the annual end of December consumerism event. Those who are also Hackaday readers are likely devising cool projects incorporating their new toys. This is a good time to remind everybody that Apple publishes information useful for such endeavors: the Accessory Design Guidelines for Apple Devices (PDF).

This comes to our attention because [Pablo] referenced it to modify an air vent magnet mount. The metal parts of a magnetic mount interferes with wireless charging. [Pablo] looked in Apple’s design guide and found exactly where he needed to cut the metal plate in order to avoid blocking the wireless charging coil of his iPhone 8 Plus. What could have been a tedious reverse-engineering project was greatly simplified by Reading The… Fine… Manual.

Apple has earned its reputation for hacker unfriendliness with nonstandard fasteners and liberal use of glue. And that’s even before we start talking about their digital barriers. But if your project doesn’t involve voiding the warranty, their design guide eliminates tedious dimension measuring so you can focus on the fun parts.

Dimensioned drawing of Apple iPad Pro

This guide is packed full of dimensioned drawings. A cursory review shows that they look pretty good and aren’t terrible at all. Button, connector, camera, and other external locations make this an indispensable tool for anyone planning to mill or print an interface for any of Apple’s hardware.

So let’s see those projects! Maybe a better M&M sorter. Perhaps a time-lapse machine. Or cure your car’s Tesla envy and put a well-integrated iPad into the dashboard.