5 ms·

I up-voted your comment, you ask reasonable question and I will try to answer it honestly. It is a use case. There are different levels of design craft. The m

by nbzso 5y ago

I up-voted your comment, you ask reasonable question and I will try to answer it honestly. It is a use case. There are different levels of design craft. The more you, as a designer, train your mind and eyes, the more you see invisible things for regular people. I can spend days in clearing the white space between glyph/kerning of typography and this notch will distract my eyes constantly. Call it OCD or professional deformation, the notch will drive me crazy.:) When designing you want every visual distraction to be absent from your screen, for example I use 50% gray for wallpaper to have middle gray reference etc. You cannot compare iPhone UX with Design process UX. When you use your phone, you have a legitimate reason for compromise. When you use Pro labeled hardware you expect all Pro use cases and Pro UX to be respected. Don't get me wrong, I like the overall design (even the redesign of the shape of the keys), and there is no doubt that this are top-notch monsters. But for my use-case this is no go.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
> When you use Pro labeled hardware you expect all Pro use cases and Pro UX to be respected. This can't possibly be the case, though. There are infinite Pro use cases and trying to respect them all would result in a confused and inferior product. I'm not saying that your reasons for disliking the notch are wrong, or that they should have the notch. But they're working within certain constraints -- there's just no way to fit a decent webcam into a laptop screen without making space. As someone who's recently been trying to help his fiancee pick out a laptop, where said fiancee's primary criterion is that the laptop webcam shouldn't suck, I empathize with the decision.
- nbzso 5y ago
  I disagree, respectfully. The main target audience of MacBook Pro started with designers, writers and musicians (just looking on the shelf towards my old Titanium PowerBook G4). There are not so much professional use cases which will agree on removing screen estate and adding visual distraction. Screen estate is the main difference in professional UX. One of the reasons that I mentioned the Framework laptop is that a small company can get super-close to professional audience when searching pro solutions with common sense. The Mighty Apple with trillions in bank cannot come-up with something "innovative" and chooses the "trade off" approach?
  - ctvo 5y ago
    > There are not so much professional use cases which will agree on removing screen estate and adding visual distraction. Screen estate is the main difference in professional UX. You seem to have a misunderstanding of the new screen? Apple is reducing the bezel around the screen to provide you more screen space. How do you handle front-facing utilities like a webcam when you use up all available space? Their solution is to surround that area with a small boundary (the dreaded notch). You can see that the Framework Laptop you cite has a large bezel around it to provide that top bar. You have less screen area here. From the screenshots, it looks like programs running in full screen mode are pushed down to leave that top area, to give you your distraction free experience: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/
    - nbzso 5y ago
      Yes, I clearly see in the first frame a wallpaper with black background that hides the notch.:) So they give me a real estate by removing the bezel and remove the vertical display space to hide the notch. Nice solution, but as I sad, not for my use-case.
      - foldr 5y ago
        Why does it not work for your use case? When the areas either side of the notch are unused (as in full screen mode) you just have a regular 16:10 screen with a top bezel. If previous MacBook screens worked for you then this one will too.
  - mrtranscendence 5y ago
    > The Mighty Apple with trillions in bank cannot come-up with something "innovative" and chooses the "trade off" approach? Do you think having money means Apple never has to make tradeoffs? There are always tradeoffs. It's just not possible to make a good webcam that exists in the tiny space at the top of an ultra-thin screen with ultra-thin bezels. Most manufacturers just make terrible webcams, including the Framework that you've brought up as a good alternative (which has much thicker bezels besides). That's one way to go. Another way is to make space for the webcam. Apple can't magically throw money at every conceivable problem until it disappears. You don't have to buy one of the new MacBooks. I suspect that most designers aren't going to have as much of a problem with it as you're suggesting, though. Outside of full screen most folks won't notice it after a while, and when you go to full screen Apple adds a black bezel anyway.
ctvo 5y ago
Idea: Write a utility to add in a software bezel for folks like this. We can call it distraction free mode. We'll take the extra space back and replace it with a black bezel. The webcam and front facing utilities are now within that space. You can toggle it on and off. > I can spend days in clearing the white space between glyph/kerning of typography and this notch will distract my eyes constantly. Call it OCD or professional deformation, the notch will drive me crazy.:) As an aside, most designers I know use external monitors. Do you find yourself doing this type of work on your laptop display?
- nbzso 5y ago
  > As an aside, most designers I know use external monitors. Do you find yourself doing this type of work on your laptop display? Guilty as charged (Two Eizos), but I work outside the office regularly, or in the weekends when "inspiration" strikes. What is the point of Pro laptop when I cannot perform my work at a maximum UX comfort. Another use-case is that I develop my photos on the go, so on, so on.:) I am still partially in the Apple Ecosystem (mainly due to C1) so by the looks of it I will have to transition to something different. > Idea: Write a utility to add in a software bezel for folks like this. We can call it distraction free mode. We'll take the extra space back and replace it with a black bezel. The webcam and front facing utilities are now within that space. You can toggle it on and off. My first reaction was this idea also. I am sure that as we speak someone is firing up Xcode and it will be available if Apple approves it:)
- VectorLock 5y ago
  >Idea: Write a utility to add in a software bezel for folks like this. I'd be surprised if this isn't an OS level option.
  - ctvo 5y ago
    How I would bet anything I own that there isn't, and won't ever be one, knowing Apple. This would admit there's a problem and some users may not like the new innovation allowing for more screen space.
  - luke2m 5y ago
tshaddox 5y ago
If it's about deliberately training your mind and eyes in order to use tools efficiently as a professional designer, then surely one could apply that training to focus on relevant parts of the screen and not the notch. Sure, if all else is equal between a laptop with a notch and one without, choose the one without the notch, but it's odd for the presence of a notch to be a dealbreaker for a computer that one otherwise would have chosen.

by nbzso 5y ago

mrtranscendence 5y ago

> When you use Pro labeled hardware you expect all Pro use cases and Pro UX to be respected. This can't possibly be the case, though. There are infinite Pro use cases and trying to respect them all would result in a confused and inferior product. I'm not saying that your reasons for disliking the notch are wrong, or that they should have the notch. But they're working within certain constraints -- there's just no way to fit a decent webcam into a laptop screen without making space. As someone who's recently been trying to help his fiancee pick out a laptop, where said fiancee's primary criterion is that the laptop webcam shouldn't suck, I empathize with the decision.

nbzso 5y ago
I disagree, respectfully. The main target audience of MacBook Pro started with designers, writers and musicians (just looking on the shelf towards my old Titanium PowerBook G4). There are not so much professional use cases which will agree on removing screen estate and adding visual distraction. Screen estate is the main difference in professional UX. One of the reasons that I mentioned the Framework laptop is that a small company can get super-close to professional audience when searching pro solutions with common sense. The Mighty Apple with trillions in bank cannot come-up with something "innovative" and chooses the "trade off" approach?
- ctvo 5y ago
  > There are not so much professional use cases which will agree on removing screen estate and adding visual distraction. Screen estate is the main difference in professional UX. You seem to have a misunderstanding of the new screen? Apple is reducing the bezel around the screen to provide you more screen space. How do you handle front-facing utilities like a webcam when you use up all available space? Their solution is to surround that area with a small boundary (the dreaded notch). You can see that the Framework Laptop you cite has a large bezel around it to provide that top bar. You have less screen area here. From the screenshots, it looks like programs running in full screen mode are pushed down to leave that top area, to give you your distraction free experience: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/
  - nbzso 5y ago
    Yes, I clearly see in the first frame a wallpaper with black background that hides the notch.:) So they give me a real estate by removing the bezel and remove the vertical display space to hide the notch. Nice solution, but as I sad, not for my use-case.
    - foldr 5y ago
      Why does it not work for your use case? When the areas either side of the notch are unused (as in full screen mode) you just have a regular 16:10 screen with a top bezel. If previous MacBook screens worked for you then this one will too.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  > The Mighty Apple with trillions in bank cannot come-up with something "innovative" and chooses the "trade off" approach? Do you think having money means Apple never has to make tradeoffs? There are always tradeoffs. It's just not possible to make a good webcam that exists in the tiny space at the top of an ultra-thin screen with ultra-thin bezels. Most manufacturers just make terrible webcams, including the Framework that you've brought up as a good alternative (which has much thicker bezels besides). That's one way to go. Another way is to make space for the webcam. Apple can't magically throw money at every conceivable problem until it disappears. You don't have to buy one of the new MacBooks. I suspect that most designers aren't going to have as much of a problem with it as you're suggesting, though. Outside of full screen most folks won't notice it after a while, and when you go to full screen Apple adds a black bezel anyway.

ctvo 5y ago

Idea: Write a utility to add in a software bezel for folks like this. We can call it distraction free mode. We'll take the extra space back and replace it with a black bezel. The webcam and front facing utilities are now within that space. You can toggle it on and off. > I can spend days in clearing the white space between glyph/kerning of typography and this notch will distract my eyes constantly. Call it OCD or professional deformation, the notch will drive me crazy.:) As an aside, most designers I know use external monitors. Do you find yourself doing this type of work on your laptop display?

nbzso 5y ago
> As an aside, most designers I know use external monitors. Do you find yourself doing this type of work on your laptop display? Guilty as charged (Two Eizos), but I work outside the office regularly, or in the weekends when "inspiration" strikes. What is the point of Pro laptop when I cannot perform my work at a maximum UX comfort. Another use-case is that I develop my photos on the go, so on, so on.:) I am still partially in the Apple Ecosystem (mainly due to C1) so by the looks of it I will have to transition to something different. > Idea: Write a utility to add in a software bezel for folks like this. We can call it distraction free mode. We'll take the extra space back and replace it with a black bezel. The webcam and front facing utilities are now within that space. You can toggle it on and off. My first reaction was this idea also. I am sure that as we speak someone is firing up Xcode and it will be available if Apple approves it:)
VectorLock 5y ago
>Idea: Write a utility to add in a software bezel for folks like this. I'd be surprised if this isn't an OS level option.
- ctvo 5y ago
  How I would bet anything I own that there isn't, and won't ever be one, knowing Apple. This would admit there's a problem and some users may not like the new innovation allowing for more screen space.
- luke2m 5y ago

tshaddox 5y ago

If it's about deliberately training your mind and eyes in order to use tools efficiently as a professional designer, then surely one could apply that training to focus on relevant parts of the screen and not the notch. Sure, if all else is equal between a laptop with a notch and one without, choose the one without the notch, but it's odd for the presence of a notch to be a dealbreaker for a computer that one otherwise would have chosen.