Whatever bribe
Most major laptop manufacturers offer tall laptops with camera and without a notch these days.
Actually, the notch is growing on me. A little odd and ugly, but not the end of the world. Have lived with black bands on TVs before.
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New macOS 'Compatibility Mode' Options Let Developers Decide How Fullscreen Apps Handle the Notch
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Most major laptop manufacturers offer tall laptops with camera and without a notch these days.
Actually, the notch is growing on me. A little odd and ugly, but not the end of the world. Have lived with black bands on TVs before.
Yeah they may use a larger sensor to increase pixel size to help with crappy light performance.
As a species, we've lived with polio, televisions that didn't have remote controls, and cooking fires fuelled by animal dung. Doesn't mean it's the way we want things to go...
I don’t get the hate! The area is extra space. It is literally more space when you aren’t in full screen mode since it moves the menu bar OUT of the way.
Some folks, including those giving silly smiley/downvote reactions (like transpo1, w7ay, N69AP...) are too ignorant to dig it. They would rather go for more bezel and less screen estate. Don't waste your time explaining, they still gonna reply "but notch!" - this great Macbook obviously isn't made for them.
I don’t think it is very attractive, but it is practical and if I were in the market for a new MBP I certainly wouldn’t be put off by the notch, especially since I can turn it off if I find it annoying.
The 16" MBP Pro is about the same size as my 15" 2013 MBP. That is a win. Giving up an inch or so of menu to gain about ¼" of vertical screen size. Or in other words. Giving up 1 sq. in. of menu to gain 3.5 sq. in. of usable screen space is fine with me and I suspect that is true for most people.
Maybe it will be a bit awkward with a long menu. I'll know in a couple of weeks. But most of us will get used to it. If you can't I've got a 2013 MBP to sell (not really true, I'm trading it in.)
Would have been nice if Apple had put the option in to not have the notch show as apparently they have in full screen mode, but the developers can.
On my desktop I don't care much one way or the other about bezel size. But on a portable it helps. Smaller case, easier to deal with in airplanes.
Maybe it will be a bit awkward with a long menu. I'll know in a couple of weeks. But most of us will get used to it. If you can't I've got a 2013 MBP to sell (not really true, I'm trading it in.)
Would have been nice if Apple had put the option in to not have the notch show as apparently they have in full screen mode, but the developers can.
On my desktop I don't care much one way or the other about bezel size. But on a portable it helps. Smaller case, easier to deal with in airplanes.
I've looked around a bit and haven't found documentation from Apple asserting that there are solid protections against the camera being on while the LED is off. I've seen many people asserting it, so I believe it's true, but I'd like to hear that from Apple. Do you have a link?
It's not Anti Apple. I love apple products but these ugly designs are making it very difficult.
It is pretty good that we're getting more screen real estate outside of the menu bar.
However, I consider the menu bar to be a separate entity. It has its own purpose, quite distinct from the application window and desktop area. That entity seems to have lost a lot of real estate.
I did a quick check of one of my applications, BBEdit. I see that on my screen the menus extend almost to the center of the screen. On the other side, I see my icons extend almost to the center of the screen. Given my resolution, I don't think the notch would fit in the remaining space.
I'm coming from a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro. I wonder how that would work itself out on a new 14" laptop.
At the end of the day, I suspect I would be delighted owning the 16" and the notch would not be an issue. But, you are being unfair to completely disregard the compromise being made in the menu bar and the negative reaction some people have to that.
Apple claims the LED cannot be circumvented here, although it doesn't detail the technical mechanisms implemented to prevent circumvention.
The original issue was detailed in this paper and was about a webcam from 2008. Chapter 8 details possible designs to secure the camera, including securing the firmware with a cryptographic signature:
John Gruber from Daring Fireball claims to have received confirmation from a former Apple engineer about the camera security features being implemented in camera models after the one hacked in the paper (emphasis mine):
That the "mechanisms in place to verify the image" is a cryptographic signature is AFAIK an assumption, but IMHO a fairly reasonable one.
Just answer me one question I haven’t seen addressed anywhere. What if I have an app that has enough menu bar items to go past the notch, I assume they just skip the notch area, or do I have to enable compatibility mode? I get it now that fullscreen would solve this, as the menu bar would then be uninterrupted, but I’m hoping that’s not the only option.
Thanks. That's fabulous and current. It is a bit light on content and Apple does tend to drop the ball. But, it leaves me with sufficient confidence.
Gruber is highly respected, but I don't follow him. I did read his post though, and it made some good points, but adds nothing to my confidence regarding camera security.
When it's important, I don't take the word of someone who talks for a living, unless they are an official representative of the actual authority. I like to listen to someone who knows, rather than someone who knows someone who knows. In this case he's quoting an anonymous engineer who used to work at Apple.
Thinking the same. If it can be permanently hidden, it's back in the game.
You don't see it though, as it's a straight line and not distracting. It doesn't draw your eyes in.
My 2014 machine has never looked more beautiful than these last two days.
My 2014 machine has never looked more beautiful than these last two days.
You see though how the article concludes ("If your work environment requires you to cover the camera on your Mac notebook ..."). This means that there are situations in which, no matter what the LED indicator does or does not, it is a good idea or necessary to cover your camera.
Since the time of the study that detailed the camera LED vulnerability, this subject appears silenced. I believe that there are indeed stronger measures in place to prevent such an exploit, but on the other hand I believe too that it is still possible to circumvent these measures; however, the task would be so complex, with high probability to fail, that there is no real practical interest. This is just my feeling without proof for the former (absolute security) or the latter (possibility to disable the LED).
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Let's see if I can help you understand the issue better.
Some might object to the aesthetics of the notch, but others have practicality objections. On a laptop, the notch takes a significant percentage of the menubar space. On a desktop display, the notch would take a much smaller percentage; it might be almost unnoticeable as one interacts with the menubar.
Google for MacBook webcam hacked and use your time to make a tuna sandwich for yourself while you read instead of defending this ignorance.
If you have a source for some way to turn on the MacBook camera without also turning on the indicator LED, by all means, share it.
Uh, if someone has the ability to compromise the webcam, who cares if the LCD is “on” or off? If an attacker can execute arbitrary code, they could conceivably just dim the display to 0% brightness. Think a little. There are unpublished zero-day exploits used and released for bounty constantly. You can choose to believe in the vague illusion of total security and try and mock people who take additional protections (doing no harm to you), or you can see that security is only as strong as the last patch and the awareness of those vulnerable to it.
So that’s a no, then, on you having any source for someone being able to hack your MacBook webcam and turn it on without the warning LED lighting up and alerting you it’s on?
Because it’s wired that way? And no amount of “hacking” can physically disconnect the power to the warning LED if the camera’s on?
Which is what I said from the very beginning: if the camera is on, the LED is on. There’s no way around it, so if a hacker turns your camera on, you’ll know it the instant you look at your computer, making taping over your webcam both silly and pointless.
Edit: okay, wow, I just realized you are confusing the LCD (screen) with the LED (the bright light that turns on whenever a Mac’s camera is active). I wondered why you were randomly talking about some hacker dimming your screen.
To be extra clear, I’m not talking about the screen, I’m talking about the bright green LED indicator that is hard-wired to activate whenever the camera is on.
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