Show HN: Foldelight – the iPhone Duo folding effect the MacBook was owed | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Foldelight – the iPhone Duo folding effect the MacBook was owed

lufzle.dev

19 pointsriffonio17 comments

I know the effect makes more sense on the iPhone Duo because of the dual screen, but I wanted something similar on the MacBook: the lid looks like a portal to the real screen. The only app I found that does this charges for it, so it felt like a good thing to ask Astra to build, and I made it OSS. Visual improvements or feature ideas are welcome.

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I don't understand the appeal for this and why people want to bring this to devices where it doesn't make sense. For the Duo it makes sense since you're moving between two panes of glass and they want to show the effect that youre just transitioning to a bigger pane of glass, same content but expanded. Here i dont get it

OP probably enjoyed the project and likes how it looks. Why does there have to be an "appeal" other than that?

I don't know either... But it is the first time I've ever seen the parallax effect adding value to a homepage. Great job in that regard!

Thank you! I feel that I iterated that more than I should have, but I wanted to look really smooth.

Because the person found it fun is a valid reason. It’s kinda cool!

I’m pretty sure Apple will do this in macOS 28, and there are some details to improve (guessing from the animation, haven’t installed it). But, people can and should do things just for fun.

Like virtual glass, water droplets, etc., the effect is mainly just to be flashy and show off. Any usability rationalization is after-the-fact.

Yeah, I literally said in my comment that I'm aware it doesn't make much sense :) I agree with you! I just saw it on the Duo and fancied seeing it on my Mac. But if you try it, or watch the animation closely, you'll see I made some changes to the effect. For the Mac, my idea was that the lid is just a kind of window into a fourth-dimensional space where the actual screen lives. When you open the lid, you're moving it closer to this "ethereal" screen until the two attach.

The animation doesn't work for me with Firefox on Android. The laptop is totally missing and instead it just shows a static image of a logon screen. I was very confused until I tried it in Chrome.

Yeah, I had my suspicion whether it would work universally. It uses WebGPU, fallbacks to WebGL2, and if that fails too it should fallback to a fixed image. Thanks for the heads up, I'll check it out over the weekend!

I didn't download it, but if the animation is exactly like it is on the site, then that is not accurate. I wish I had the design chops to explain what the issue is, but all I can say is on the iphone it looks like the phone moves around the screen, while here it looks like the screen has some sort of 'standing up' effect. Like it kinds skews or something.

That's true! On the Mac there's only one glass pane (the other half is the chassis/keyboard), so my idea was that the lid is just a kind of window into a fourth-dimensional space where the actual screen lives. When you open the lid, you're moving it closer to this "ethereal" screen until the two attach. As you close it, the screen stays fixed in that "virtual" space, so the angled glass distorts the light.

I'm aware it may not make sense physics-wise, eh. :)

I like this, very silly :)

> Built with GPT-6 Astra. AGPL-3.0.

The AI-generated code has no copyright (which is only assigned to human works) and so, presumably, this is largely public domain?

I understand there are grey areas in what you say, but I'm not a lawyer.

"Built with GPT-6 Astra" it may mean you asked "look at the iPhone Duo page and build me the folding effect but for the MacBook", or that you ideated how it should look, what tuning options should have, discuss performance optimizations, and so on.

I do make the distinction between those two, and for the latter, which was my case, I do think there's claimable copyright.

However, I'm not interested in claiming anything regardless I would have the right or not. What I do intend, is that if somebody else builds upon this work, they do it within the OSS space as well.

If that can be legally enforced or not, well I won't stress about it.

Did not install the app but it looks cool. But I was wondering, how does the app can hijack macOS login screen like in the demo? is it even possible?

Hard to make the effect work on a laptop because the final position of the physical screen is not known.

It's a very pretty effect.

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