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If you close your Mac notebook with a camera cover installed, you might damage your display because the clearance between the display and keyboard is designed t
by soulofmischief 6y ago
If you close your Mac notebook with a camera cover installed, you might damage your display because the clearance between the display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances.
Doesn't this sound like an engineering oversight and not a user error? Why are camera covers not just part of the design? My phone camera physically retracts when not in use.
- jereees 6y agoYour phone camera sounds like an engineering oversight.
- rosywoozlechan 6y agoAs a former one plus 7 pro owner, I agree with this sentiment.
- soulofmischief 6y agoWhat makes you feel that way? I enjoy the peace of mind and lack of a notch on my screen. It's designed and advertised as a feature, not an oversight.
- Twirrim 6y agoThere's a lot more moving parts to go wrong.
- soulofmischief 6y agoIt's a bit unfair to say that a single moving part is "a lot more moving parts". I can almost guarantee you that my phone will outlive its usefulness before the camera stops working based on current market trends. Regardless, it's a feature I wanted and the engineering team catered to this desire, so I don't see how this is an oversight. Engineering is about trade-offs.
- swebs 6y agoI'd rather take that risk than have some dumbass notch blocking the screen.
- Twirrim 6y agoI'd rather not have something so needless as an edge to edge screen, and thus not worry about the notch at all. I really don't see the value proposition of an edge-to-edge screen being that significant.
- soulofmischief 6y agoThat's fine if the value proposition is not right for you, and that's why we have such a breadth of phones available today. One person's aesthetic preferences are not always the only way to do things. I think the only thing we should all be able to agree upon is that rounded screen edges make it extremely difficult to design a good phone case which protects from all angles.
- Twirrim 6y ago> and that's why we have such a breadth of phones available today We really don't. Apple came up with the notch, everyone copies it and obsesses about edge-to-edge display, managing to implement it to very varying degrees of success. > I think the only thing we should all be able to agree upon is that rounded screen edges make it extremely difficult to design a good phone case which protects from all angles. I forget which phone I had with a display that went to the vertical edges, which were curved slightly. Damn thing was almost impossible to hold without it thinking I was trying to actually touch the screen on the edge. The best case I could find stopped that from happening, with a slight trade-off that I couldn't touch anything right on the edge of the screen (very rarely ever needed that)
- soulofmischief 6y agoWe have dozens of flagship models, and hundreds of models in use today. The notch is a pretty stupid design decision and I'm not obsessing over it. I have this phone now because I went through four Google Pixels this year just trying to get one that wasn't defected out of the box. My current phone was a cheap sub-$400 flagship model with support from Paranoid Android meaning it has a much extended lifespan. It's not because I obsessed over an edge to edge display. I didn't know about the touch-sensitive issue bc I've never purchased a phone with rounded screen edges. That sounds very frustrating.
- sixothree 6y agoI am convinced they were ordered at some point to include cameras. They definitely drive up the cost of laptops, especially earlier on when webcams were more expensive. There were so few practical uses in the early days and so few people actually use them today that I am surprised few laptop manufacturers don't allow for security.
- dividedbyzero 6y agoFew people use them? I really doubt that, especially with so many people working from home these days.
- sixothree 6y agoI do calls with client teams multiple times per week. Developers, ops, project managers, etc. I would peg the number at 5%. I say 5% because on one recent call with 20 people there was one person using a camera. Additional of all the people I know - friends, family, parents, children, etc., only one of those people use the camera on their laptop. Some use facetime on their phone. But even for the mac users, it's a complete rarity.
- soulofmischief 6y agoI think cameras are generally expected in non-budget laptops just as they are in phones.
- astrange 6y agoUnfortunately, they're not even as good as phone front cameras because laptop screens are so thin. So people who do a lot of video chatting typically set up an external webcam or even a real camera in video mode.
- soulofmischief 6y agoDo you have statistics on this? And do they take into account the dichotomy of mostly-mobile and mostly-stationary users?
- chrisjc 6y ago> because the clearance between the display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances. Sounds like engineering excellence to me. But I agree with you that there should perhaps be some kind of physical block/switch built in.
- soulofmischief 6y agoMy Acer Chromebook 15, a budget laptop, enjoys similarly tight tolerances. I think engineering excellence would be to incorporate a camera cover and physical microphone switch while maintaining these tolerances.
- Helloworldboy 6y agoOr why play into the mindless paranoia?
- DanBC 6y ago> Why are camera covers not just part of the design? I guess Apple are going to say that they'd rather focus on the security of the OS and computer to prevent unauthorised software from being able to access the camera than on a mostly cosmetic doodad.
- soulofmischief 6y agoA simple built-in camera cover is not a cosmetic doodad. And physical covers cannot be remotely hacked, unlike the active camera light which has been overridden multiple times. If we're talking about focusing on security, then the choice should be clear.
- valuearb 6y agoMac camera lights can’t be hacked. And tell you exactly when it’s in use.
- soulofmischief 6y agoCan you back this claim with references?
- valuearb 6y agoDozens on this thread alone.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pfranz 6y agoThe other comment says there are dozens in this thread...I haven't seen anything specific mentioned. But, I remember reading something a year or two ago[1] that's not solidly sourced (it'd be great if Apple posted something on their website like they did about microphones [2]) > All cameras after that one were different: The hardware team tied the LED to a hardware signal from the sensor: If the (I believe) vertical sync was active, the LED would light up. There is NO firmware control to disable/enable the LED. The actual firmware is indeed flashable, but the part is not a generic part and there are mechanisms in place to verify the image being flashed. […] [1] https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/on_covering_webcams https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/on_covering_webcams [2] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/security/secbbd20b00b/1/web/1 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/security/secbbd20b00b/...
- vortex_ape 6y ago> Why are camera covers not just part of the design? I feel more and more companies should do this! My ThinkPad T480 has one built-in and I really like the peace of mind.
- valuearb 6y agoBecause people forget to slide the camera cover.
- soulofmischief 6y agoThat's circular logic. People forget simply because camera covers are not common enough, so it's not a valid argument for why they shouldn't be more common.
- valuearb 6y agoPeople forget because you have to train yourself to remember, and outside of intelligence agency personnel, no one is doing that. Camera covers are just another example of security for show. Having a camera cover on a pc without a hard wired camera indicator like Macs have means you will never know how many of those times you were filmed after forgetting to slide your camera cover over.
- soulofmischief 6y agoPeople forget because you have to train yourself to remember, and outside of intelligence agency personnel, no one is doing that I'm sorry, do you mean to say that only intelligence agency personnel are capable of remembering a simple habit such as sliding a camera cover? Not too long ago we were all using flip phones, many with extendable antennas, and no one was having trouble remembering to flip open their phone and extend the antenna before using it. And as the sister comment said, no one suggested removing the LED indicator.
- valuearb 6y agoClosing the camera isn’t required to use it, only to disable it. Flip phones required opening to use them (and closing to fit in your pocket). And yes, 90% of people aren’t going to remember to close the camera cover every time. The LED indicator is all you need as long as its hardwired like Apples is.
- zumu 6y agoMore design oversight than engineering oversight.
- maigret 6y agoDesign covers user experience, and user experience includes people feeling safe and trusting their product. I think this goes rather as different prioritising. So it is a matter of product management, not design. Not that I agree with this camera choice, but Apple has been pretty successful with their strategy so far of simplifying to the extreme - removing ports and options, so I don't see them changing course much.
- aaanotherhnfolk 6y agoReminds me of the whole "you're holding it wrong" antenna event. Where Apple's design failed and they tried to blame it on the users. The desired user experience is peace of mind from a physical barrier; no amount of LED bulb hidden behind the flush surface is going to solve for that. It's also like the keyboard keys. User experience has taken a back seat to Apple's product design goals as they pertain to their bottom line. Products users love are expensive to build and maintain, so Apple won't make them. When you can't grow profits selling more devices, you start to cut corners on the ones you _are_ selling.