4 ms·

It's not that simple. People will accidentally set the switch to off and won't understand why their mic doesn't work anymore. At this point there is a good chan

It's not that simple. People will accidentally set the switch to off and won't understand why their mic doesn't work anymore. At this point there is a good chance they will call support. This also happend with the hardware wifi kill switches we used to have on notebooks.

alexis_fr 7y ago
Since we’re integrated between OS and hardware on Apple platforms, they could implement a “Turn on your microphone” dialog. I think this support excuse is too commonly used, when there is obvious value in the result. He’s not a minority, even my grandparents shared the photo of Mark Zuckerberg saying “If this guy hides his camera, so should you”...
- skocznymroczny 7y ago
  You already have dialogs on macOS like "app X wants to use the microphone, allow?"
Milner08 7y ago
God the number of times people complained about their laptops being broken only to find out they'd turned WiFi off. Either through a separate kill switch or through a function key. It was a pain the arse.
- ekzy 7y ago
  I recently installed linux on a MSI laptop that has a webcam function key switch. For some reason (could have been me), it was off and I just assumed that the camera wasn't working with linux, or that there was a hardware issue. I almost sent it back. I never owned a laptop with that kind of switch before, so I wasn't looking for this, and the keyboard icon [1] looked like some kind of screen contrast button to me... [1] https://imgur.com/a/2Oe2k4e https://imgur.com/a/2Oe2k4e
  - freedomben 7y ago
    Oh man, this happened to me many years ago as well with wifi. The keyboard had a wifi toggle (which in linux translated into rfkill) as a mod to an Fn key. Took me hours to realize that was a thing. I was literally debugging the kernel trying to figure out why the driver was spitting out "rfkill enabled" when "it shouldn't" only to realize a simple hold of Fn + F9 (or whatever it was) fixed the problem right up :facepalm:
greggman3 7y ago
It is that simple. The computer can prompt "MUTE" just like TVs do
ken 7y ago
That's a little different. Wifi is an invisible feature, and it can become disabled through no action of yours. Cameras are physical, so you can make it really obvious when it's enabled and when it's not. You just look for the physical obstruction. Apple's first iSight camera, for example, had a cool leaf shutter that you opened or closed by twisting it. I know lots of people who have had trouble getting their wifi to work. I don't know anyone who put a piece of tape across their camera and then couldn't figure out why their camera didn't work.

alexis_fr 7y ago

Since we’re integrated between OS and hardware on Apple platforms, they could implement a “Turn on your microphone” dialog. I think this support excuse is too commonly used, when there is obvious value in the result. He’s not a minority, even my grandparents shared the photo of Mark Zuckerberg saying “If this guy hides his camera, so should you”...

skocznymroczny 7y ago
You already have dialogs on macOS like "app X wants to use the microphone, allow?"

Milner08 7y ago

God the number of times people complained about their laptops being broken only to find out they'd turned WiFi off. Either through a separate kill switch or through a function key. It was a pain the arse.

ekzy 7y ago
I recently installed linux on a MSI laptop that has a webcam function key switch. For some reason (could have been me), it was off and I just assumed that the camera wasn't working with linux, or that there was a hardware issue. I almost sent it back. I never owned a laptop with that kind of switch before, so I wasn't looking for this, and the keyboard icon [1] looked like some kind of screen contrast button to me... [1] https://imgur.com/a/2Oe2k4e https://imgur.com/a/2Oe2k4e
- freedomben 7y ago
  Oh man, this happened to me many years ago as well with wifi. The keyboard had a wifi toggle (which in linux translated into rfkill) as a mod to an Fn key. Took me hours to realize that was a thing. I was literally debugging the kernel trying to figure out why the driver was spitting out "rfkill enabled" when "it shouldn't" only to realize a simple hold of Fn + F9 (or whatever it was) fixed the problem right up :facepalm:

greggman3 7y ago

It is that simple. The computer can prompt "MUTE" just like TVs do

ken 7y ago

That's a little different. Wifi is an invisible feature, and it can become disabled through no action of yours. Cameras are physical, so you can make it really obvious when it's enabled and when it's not. You just look for the physical obstruction. Apple's first iSight camera, for example, had a cool leaf shutter that you opened or closed by twisting it. I know lots of people who have had trouble getting their wifi to work. I don't know anyone who put a piece of tape across their camera and then couldn't figure out why their camera didn't work.