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Apple Reveals 'Scale to Fit' Setting to Prevent a Mac App's Menu Bar Items From Being Hidden Under Notch

reyesmac said:
There has to be some psychological reason why Apple does weird things sometimes. I can see how adding a big notch is something that can be reduced later and called an improvement. If they can do so on an iPad they can most certainly do so on a screen that is turning more and more into an iPad without a battery. The notch is huge on purpose so they can either improve it over time or add more components like something to measure your gestures if you are wearing Apple Glasses in front of it. Why have a touch screen on a Mac when you can have a sensor that will allow you to manipulate objects on screen by doing gestures in front of the screen? How hard is it to grab an icon and move it? You just pinch your fingers and move your hand to another location and drop it. No touch screen needed. Not something we actually need but Apple always has to come up with something they alone can patent so it would not surprise me if they went this way. It has the added bonus of essentially being a key logger since it would be constantly pointed down towards the keyboard. I'm sure they'll get plenty of backing to implement such a feature so I don't think its too far fetched.
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Quite possibly. But especially with a mobile Macbook, which is not always statically positioned, motion and gesture sensors are particularly problematic. So that you don't misunderstand me: I don't want a macOS notch, and would never have bought my new M1 iMac if its 1080p camera and activity LED had also been broken into the monitor.
 
timerickson said:
The video shows the entire screen shrinking at the same aspect ratio, bizarre. I would have expected the menubar to simply slide down the same number of pixels as the notch is tall, making it the same total aspect ratio as previous MBPs

This is going to be annoying for pixel critical work that designers (and artists, etc) do, as it's no longer a perfect 2x multiple PPI (for the default scale resolution, at least). Scaling the entire screen down a bit means you're no longer integer scaling the display.
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Indeed. This is worse than useless. And I don't say that hyperbolically. I mean it literally. This option is worse than useless, because not only is it useless, it makes Apple think they've solved the problem when they haven't.
 
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Why is the menu bar even still there? Why not have a single hamburger button instead? Or have it appear when you move your cursor into that region?
 
bsolar said:
It's irrelevant whether it's "distinctive" or not: what is relevant is that Dell's engineers had to make big compromises on the camera's quality to fit it in such a thin bezels. Furthermore, the very same engineers resorted to larger bezels for models where they wanted to offer a higher quality camera.

So Dell's engineers, exactly like Apple's engineers, need to find the best compromise depending on what kind of camera and which form factor they want to deliver. For both, the answer is not always "compromise quality and make it fit on a very thin bezel".
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The notch is a terrible compromise. And the fanboys now defend the notch because of the camera with the same vigor they've defended the ****** webcam until recently. Hilarious.
 
DarkHelmet said:
The Notch is an abomination. I'd rather have no integrated camera at all. If I need to do a video call I always use my iPad anyway. For any kind of serious video work an external camera should be used. The very last thing I want on a laptop is a big, distracting blotch at the top of the screen. I'll keep using my 2015 MBP as long as I possibly can. And I shall pray that they don't put a freakin' notch on the new iMacs.
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the day we can opt-in to have no camera and a fully no bezels all display laptop from Apple i’ll be extremely happy
 
Oops, scaling window down to shrink size of the display is like a middle finger from Apple designers to users. I hope they will provide also another solution.

I think there could be a global option in MacOS to provide let say old menu bar mode or classic menu bar mode - call it how you want. Where there would be notch flashed into the black bezel and menu bar move down to 16:10 space as in normal display desktop without notch.

Beside that, Apple designers should solve the problem in cases when too many menu items or status icons overlap each other. They could simply provide the standard "..." symbol and move other icons and also menu items to vertical popup menu.

Or with overflowing menu items with notch presented it could use carousel mode with ">>".

Example of menu: File Edit Windows >>

And back: << Edit Window Help

That feels to me like most simplistic, elegant, understandable and good design solution. People understand symbols ">>" and "<<" from other places. In the same time not allowing menu items on the right side of the notch would reduce visible break by notch. No need for crawling with mouse pointer behind the notch if you want to point to the right or left menu option.


Just all these solution would need Apple designers to own the notch and the thing that it's and obstacle in menu bar and not to act as it's not there and it's not an obstacle. Just honesty, people appreciate.
 
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downpour said:
Instead of the notch, they should have given these Macs a slightly thicker bezel at top and slightly taller display, and we could have had all the benefits of the new design with none of the downsides. Everyone would have been happy.
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Precisely! Notch is a Kludge. Disadvantages and the problems outweigh the benefit(s).
 
El Szomorito said:
The notch is a terrible compromise. And the fanboys now defend the notch because of the camera with the same vigor they've defended the ****** webcam until recently. Hilarious.
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That's not what you were arguing. You were arguing that Dell's engineers would have done better... except they did not: they either have a highly criticized low-quality camera in a thin bezel, or a good quality camera in a large bezel.
 
veena3 said:
Beside that, Apple designers should solve the problem in cases when too many menu options or status icons overlap each other. They could simply provide the standard "..." symbol and move other icons and also options to vertical popup menu.
Click to expand...

This is the most doable solution. I would be satisfied by it.
 
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reyesmac said:
There has to be some psychological reason why Apple does weird things sometimes. I can see how adding a big notch is something that can be reduced later and called an improvement. If they can do so on an iPad they can most certainly do so on a screen that is turning more and more into an iPad without a battery. The notch is huge on purpose so they can either improve it over time or add more components like something to measure your gestures if you are wearing Apple Glasses in front of it. Why have a touch screen on a Mac when you can have a sensor that will allow you to manipulate objects on screen by doing gestures in front of the screen? How hard is it to grab an icon and move it? You just pinch your fingers and move your hand to another location and drop it. No touch screen needed. Not something we actually need but Apple always has to come up with something they alone can patent so it would not surprise me if they went this way. It has the added bonus of essentially being a key logger since it would be constantly pointed down towards the keyboard. I'm sure they'll get plenty of backing to implement such a feature so I don't think its too far fetched.
Click to expand...

I believe notch is not a result of a desire to have "more screen real estate" like they claim. I believe it's rather about these desires: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-notch-is-great.2317744/page-11?post=30494544#post-30494544
 
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takes out the bezel to create more screen space then adds the notch -> proceeds to add virtual bezels to keep things working properly and lose the gained screen space. Can't innovate..eih?

ellsworth said:
No matter what... people will complain.
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Have you ever heard someone say please add a notch to my screen?
 
Another consideration, this may affect 14 inch users more than 16, due to less screen length.
 
macpot said:
Just go to System Preferences > Display, click Scaled > More Space and voila... not so hard if you try it.
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Not the same thing. Not the same thing at all. What you suggest does not scoot the Menu Bar down and out of the way of the Notch. It simply increases the resolution of the display, making things smaller.
 
This is a work around and not a solution. A solution would be no Notch. A solution would be reducing the ABSURD amount of space between Menu bar items.
 
MacBH928 said:
takes out the bezel to create more screen space then adds the notch -> proceeds to add virtual bezels to keep things working properly and lose the gained screen space. Can't innovate..eih?



Have you ever heard someone say please add a notch to my screen?
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I would LOVE to hear your take and your reasoning to WHY, in your opinion, Apple added this Notch to their new Macbook Pros. I'm all ears.
 
bsolar said:
That's not what you were arguing. You were arguing that Dell's engineers would have done better... except they did not: they either have a highly criticized low-quality camera in a thin bezel, or a good quality camera in a large bezel.
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Dell's choice is infinitely better.. they did better. Apple only made a ****** camera in a large bezel. Or a good camera in a Hitler mustache. Which causes me emotional distress, it's not a safe notebook. It should be canceled.
 
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All this notch business is a mistake. They should turn the whole topline of the screen into a touchbar or speakers or microphones or something, but don’t be putting notches in the screen real-estate. I’m in shock that someone advocated the notch into existence.
 
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