You simply dont' understand this at all or business at all if you think this is a poor idea in the long term. It is literally the opposite. it is a poor idea in the short term. It affects people today and going forward maybe a month. In the long term it is a non issue. Developers will adapt.
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Videos Show Menu Bar Behavior in Apps Not Updated for MacBook Pro Notch
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How many people are affected by "I run an app with many menus, and I also need to see many status items, and I cannot even for a few weeks temporarily remove some of those status items"?
And by people, I don't mean YouTubers.
Honestly not many. How many of those people can't function without this exact laptop? Even fewer. In the next few weeks all this will be fixed. Again this is a very short term problem, not long term.
My guess is less than 1% are actually affected by this.
Apple yesterday = "It just works". Yep.
Apple today = If we still had the motto, we'd be mocked endlessly, so we had to get rid of it.
Exactly, so I don't know why you're so hung up on third parties making workarounds. It's not even third-party apps that are affected, only third-party tools that add status items.
Right on, dude. I've been making this same argument.
What I would LOVE to know is that those who downvote this comment, what would they have Apple do? Massive bezels for life?
I should have been more clear. I don't necessarily believe all of this will be fixed by Apple in the next few weeks, but by the app developers. I could be wrong and maybe Apple fixes it. I have yet to see posts where people called software/apps unusable in the current state.
ETA: I see they Apple is going to release a scale to fit option this making this a moot point.
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Yep, and since it looks like the per-app "fit" option will scale the whole screen (not just limit the display height) people will complain about that too and point to it as more "proof" of using more of the top shell as the display was a mistake.
I haven't seen anything unusable either, just a new quirk when a "power user" using pro apps and dozens of status items is on the smallest possible display for some reason instead of some 3+ monitor 4k setup.
a) yes, a bezel is preferable to a notch
b) the bezels would have shrunk even without the notch, and then the screen would continue to stay a rectangle -- the shape that a computer screen has been since the dawn of the GUI and the basis on which all applications and conventions have been written to support. No matter how you want to frame it, the notch takes away from space. In this case it's space in the menu bar. You might not currently be using that space. Cool. Lots of people are. It's apple's responsibility then to design software solutions to fix the hardware problems *they created*. They didn't do that, and these videos show that.
c) it's not my job to solution for Apple. They have billions of dollars and access to talent who can and should do that.
As I posted before if I could send my current non M1 MacBook Air to Apple and they would replace the screen with a bezel less notch based screen I would do it in a second. My guess is the mass majority here would as well.
Not sure how much "the mass[sic] majority [in a place for people with strong opinions for/against a topic]" really translates into from the general population. This thread does not seem particularly active compared with many more controversial topics at a similar age.
Rates of unique people commenting are probably a better gauge than either proportionality or even repeated comments from a few users. The latter is a reflection of the enthusiasm of that base.
Interesting how much the implicit framing affects the conclusion. Seems like a perspective of notch-half-full vs notch-half-empty. Did they add more screen real estate into the space typically reserved for the camera bezel, or did they carve out space for a camera from the display? If you compare with prior models' casing and display this is a screen-space addition, not subtraction. Apple is objectively using more of the form factor for display, not less.
The notch is a complication that doesn't affect most users or apps. Apparently, there are plans to add a "compatibility" flag for apps that love lots of menu bar items so they can get that extra fraction along the top.
What it goes to show is that this a non issue and was a smart design. The masses matter because Apple wants to appeal to the masses. In other words when they designed this the question asked woudl have been will this appeal and sell to the masses? They believed the answer to be yes. Sure no bezels and no notch would have. been better. Packaging the laptop with $1000 cash would have also been better, but let's get back to reality. Large bezels with no notch (like prior models) would have been worse. In the end this was a good decision to add screen Real Estate and put a menu bar up there where 95%+ of the time the notch has no infringement.
"No matter how you want to frame it, the notch takes away from space."
How about I frame it so that we now have more screen estate than without a notch? That's MORE space.
Any design is a compromise. Apple will surely work to figure out how to best fix this over time.
In the meantime, feel free to hate the notch while enjoying the bigger screen
Lots of outrage makes for nice long threads; that's a good thing since Apple might take notice. But, I would prefer feigned outrage.
Apple produces software with bugs. For some people, there are more bugs than they expect from a company like Apple. I think the number of bugs is exactly what I expect from Apple; they don't do great quality assurance. It's hard for me to sustain outrage when reality matches expectation.
I use Windows and Mac at the same time, all day long (using Remote Desktop to display the Windows desktop on the Mac). The level of bug annoyance is not noticeably different.
I hope they solve the bug issue surrounding the notch, but the outrage over the existence of the notch could be chalked up to a marketing/technical mistake by Apple. All they had to do was introduce a system setting that was labeled "Display Bezel". This would have moved the menu bar down and left the camera and such in the (displayed) bezel. Then much of the argument would have disappeared. People who wanted the bezel could have had the bezel. People who were willing to sacrifice menu bar space to have more desktop space could have hidden the bezel. It would have been completely up to the user to decide for themselves whether they would enter the bold new world of notched displays.
Apple produces software with bugs. For some people, there are more bugs than they expect from a company like Apple. I think the number of bugs is exactly what I expect from Apple; they don't do great quality assurance. It's hard for me to sustain outrage when reality matches expectation.
I use Windows and Mac at the same time, all day long (using Remote Desktop to display the Windows desktop on the Mac). The level of bug annoyance is not noticeably different.
I hope they solve the bug issue surrounding the notch, but the outrage over the existence of the notch could be chalked up to a marketing/technical mistake by Apple. All they had to do was introduce a system setting that was labeled "Display Bezel". This would have moved the menu bar down and left the camera and such in the (displayed) bezel. Then much of the argument would have disappeared. People who wanted the bezel could have had the bezel. People who were willing to sacrifice menu bar space to have more desktop space could have hidden the bezel. It would have been completely up to the user to decide for themselves whether they would enter the bold new world of notched displays.
Has that been re-tested with modern very large screens? On my laptop it’s convenient, but mousing all the way to the edge of a 27” screen from down the bottom slows things down enough to reduce the benefit of a mile-high menu bar.
Maybe I missed it being posted, but there’s already an apple solution to this.
MacWorld,
BGR,
MacWorld,
If the MacBook Pro’s notch is in the way, you can hide it
Apple has built in an option to display the menu bar under the notch.BGR,
The MacBook Pro notch has everyone freaking out, but Apple already fixed it
Apple isn't going to move the menu bar based on its screen size and the majority of Mac screens are 24" and smaller, and not ultra-wide.
Still, you can test yourself by trying to click both the safari new tab button and something in the menu bar like the Apple Menu or Battery icon, for example. Safari requires more precision by slowing down before reaching it and window buttons are still easy to overshoot unlike the menu button with its hard stop. Try clicking the new tab button in full screen without overshooting and exposing the menu bar. Now consider it from the point of view of someone with motor control issues.
Have you considered using something like Menu Anywhere to have easier access to the Menu bar on huge screens.
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Menu anywhere looks like a good solution - I was thinking more along the lines of a fast-mouse gesture to flick the cursor to a screen edge (for the menu bar, dock, or hot corners) or a second menubar somewhere.Apple isn't going to move the menu bar based on its screen size and the majority of Mac screens are 24" and smaller, and not ultra-wide.
Still, you can test yourself by trying to click both the safari new tab button and something in the menu bar like the Apple Menu or Battery icon, for example. Safari requires more precision by slowing down before reaching it and window buttons are still easy to overshoot unlike the menu button with its hard stop. Try clicking the new tab button in full screen without overshooting and exposing the menu bar. Now consider it from the point of view of someone with motor control issues.
Have you considered using something like Menu Anywhere to have easier access to the Menu bar on huge screens.
I never used OS 9 (I used system 7, then came back after the transition to OS X). Was that similar to a service, as in the services menu, in the OS X/MacOS sense? I’ve never understood why they go in the application menu.
your menu bar has more space with a notch than without? you sure about that?"No matter how you want to frame it, the notch takes away from space."
How about I frame it so that we now have more screen estate than without a notch? That's MORE space.
Any design is a compromise. Apple will surely work to figure out how to best fix this over time.
In the meantime, feel free to hate the notch while enjoying the bigger screen
The menu bar occupies space that would have otherwise been a bezel so there is more space under it.
Omg. Yes. I’m aware. We’re all aware. We’ve been over that. I’m not concerned about the vertical space. I’m concerned about the horizontal space that is blocked by the notch. The one this video is showing as a problem.
Currently, between the menu bar and status items (Google Drive, Adobe CC, Dropbox, Docker, InVision) I have a full menu bar while running Photoshop on a 13” MBP right now. I run photoshop pretty frequently, because I get paid to! Were I to get a 14” I would have less space in that menu bar. Because of the notch. That takes up a good chunk of the horizontal space in the menu bar.
Apple hasn’t figured out how to handle that yet. And I don’t want to give them $2500 while they figure out how. They created the inelegant problem, they should have an elegant fix.