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Good Design: A Review of the Apple Face Mask

No eyeglass fogging and a great seal, with minimal materials

By Rain Noe - October 5, 2020

Judging by the review below, Apple's designers deserve credit for something the general public will never get to buy. The face mask they devised for their employees is a textbook example of truly thorough design attention, from the packaging and portioning to the expert wielding of materials.

First off, each mask is good for five periods of eight hours each, with manual re-washing required in between. This removes the need for the user to calculate when to switch masks; for the average office drone, one mask will last for one workweek, with a daily washing conducted at the end of each day. In other words, you open a new mask on Monday morning, remember to wash it at the end of each day, and you're done with it by Friday end-of-day.

Each package contains five masks, essentially comprising a five-week supply.

With face masks, there are two ways to go with the ear straps: Two straps that must be pulled over the head, as with a traditional N95 face mask, or two that can be pulled sideways around the ears. As a hat and eyeglass wearer that has used both styles, I can say the latter style is superior; using the former style, I must remove my eyeglasses and hat each time I don or doff the mask, which becomes a persistent if minor hassle.

As simple as the mask looks, Apple's designers have come up with a three-point way to ensure a good around-the-head fit. Two plastic doohickeys on each ear loop allow the user to draw the loop closed behind each ear:

A third doohickey then connects the loops at the back of the user's head.

For a good fit, the designers have figured out how to get three planes of flat material to intersect in such a way that their borders conform to the contours of the human face. A bendable nose strip up top provides a good seal and prevents eyeglass fogging.

Although the video review below is branded as an "unboxing"--an activity I typically find ridiculous and unedifying--this is in fact a review of the mask, with the presenter comparing it to two other styles of face mask. Don't be scared off by the 15-minute run-time of the video--you really only need to scan through the first five minutes for the pertinent information.

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Comments

Mike Euzent

4 years ago

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I don't believe this design is original to Apple. Google "Origami 3D Face Mask" you'll find lots of results. We downloaded a pattern for this at the start of covid and have been making them ever since with some subtle tweaks.

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Sean Horita

4 years ago

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How do these otherwise disposable materials allow for washing and re-use? Do the Kf94 masks claim the same re-use?

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barney rubble

4 years ago

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Apple added some nice touches, but this style of mask has been around for ages in Korea - search for Kf94 masks

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- Charles Moore
  
  barney rubble
  
  4 years ago
  
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  agree 100%. 3M Aura is related to the Korean masks too. This article gives way too much credit to Apple for design aspects that they didn't come up with.
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