Apple Says “Don’t Use Palmrest or Keycap Covers” on the Retina MacBook Pro ⇥ katiefloyd.me

Last week, I was one of several people to write about an issue that surfaced on Retina MacBook Pros. Apparently, the anti-reflective coating on the display has been peeling off for a lot of people, giving the appearance of a “stained” display.

Katie Floyd (via Stephen Hackett):

I received an email from Mac Power Users listener Mark pointing me to this Apple Knowledge Base article warning MacBook Pro with Retina Display users not to use palm rest or keycap covers. The concern is that because Retina MacBook Pro is so thin and the tolerances are so tight, anything between the body and the top of the computer could cause it to rub against the screen.

This doesn’t surprise me. Every laptop I’ve ever seen with a keyboard or palm rest cover has had an outline of the keys or the palm rest caked onto the display. If the display has a coating of some kind, it’s not a big stretch to think that it will rub off if a rubbery keyboard cover is pushing against it whenever it’s closed.

But none of the Retina MacBook Pros on the Staingate site’s gallery show either of these accessories.They could have simply been removed before the owners took the photos, or the tolerances could be so tight that the keyboard on some models rests against the display and, over time, slowly erodes the display coating.