It is possible many or most of the reported screen cracks are due entirely to thermal changes. The M1 MacBook displays are made of glass. Glass is a poor thermal conductor and rapid changes in temperature will create stress fractures in the glass that will eventually crack. When heated, thin glass begins to crack.
Let's say, for argument's sake, the OP has their desk in front of a window. At night, temperatures go down, and in the morning, sunlight provided enough thermal change fast enough to cause a small crack, which expanded with stress. I'm not saying that is what happened, just that thermal stress can explain a lot.
Voices can already be heard that Apple's product can't even handle sunlight. But it isn't sunlight, it is the delta-T over delta-t the change in temperature over time. Taking a device in thermal equilibrium of an air conditioned environment outside into a hot car will crack the glass with no impact event. Happened to me. I was holding an iPad in my hands in front of me, and I saw the glass crack, and I knew immediately what I did wrong. The change in temperature was too extreme and too fast.
I'm sitting in a car with 150k miles on it, with the original windshield. It has one chip from when I followed a gravel truck too closely once.
Sometimes I even take it to a carwash in the summer with a baking hot windshield. Sometime I turn on the heater in the winter while it's snowing.
Amazingly, engineers have designed a glass product that is as heavy, thick, coated, whatever... To survive common usage for a decade.
> My car windshield defies the laws of physics, so Apple's devices should too!
You do not understand thermal shock. Remove your windshield and bring it inside. Lower your thermostat to 63° and let your windshield equalize at that temperature overnight. When the outside temperature reaches 90° the next day, rush your windshield outside.
Conversely, wait until winter and your windshield is left overnight in 35° temperatures. Boil a large pot of water, and dump the boiling water on your windshield.
It is not at all surprising that for 150K miles, your car's windshield has never experienced thermal shock.
? I explained in my post I take it to car washes on hot days. Cold water conducts way better than your idea of "shock" via air and sun rays.
Your winter water idea shows you might almost understand water conducts better than air. So it's just proof you don't read well. And either way, it's 1000x more extreme than what an laptop screen experiences.
Again, what you are describing will not produce thermal shock. Car wash water isn't "cold water" and is probably less than 10° colder than the ambient temperature, and it is applied relatively slowly, allowing the glass to equalize before it is stressed.
What is required is a sudden change in temperature. For something as thick a car windshield, you'll need a near instantaneous 40° temperature change. If your car windshield was blazing at 150°F and you tossed a bucket full of cold, equalized ice water on it, it's going to shatter.
But you have some good ideas, and I welcome new Apple laptops with quarter inch thick glass displays.
Let's say, for argument's sake, the OP has their desk in front of a window. At night, temperatures go down, and in the morning, sunlight provided enough thermal change fast enough to cause a small crack, which expanded with stress. I'm not saying that is what happened, just that thermal stress can explain a lot.
Voices can already be heard that Apple's product can't even handle sunlight. But it isn't sunlight, it is the delta-T over delta-t the change in temperature over time. Taking a device in thermal equilibrium of an air conditioned environment outside into a hot car will crack the glass with no impact event. Happened to me. I was holding an iPad in my hands in front of me, and I saw the glass crack, and I knew immediately what I did wrong. The change in temperature was too extreme and too fast.