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I really think the MBP notch is not long for this world. The moment I saw it announced and found out it didn't do facial recognition I knew Apple itself was he

I really think the MBP notch is not long for this world. The moment I saw it announced and found out it didn't do facial recognition I knew Apple itself was hesitating on it. Even the perfect SDK for building out applications cannot solve the issue when you need to fullscreen a window or application. It really does feel like an absurd design choice. I still don't like how it looks like on my iPhone and I would hate the notch on a laptop.

acdha 5y ago
The key thing to remember is that the screen is larger than it used to be, making this tradeoff understandable: when you use compatibility mode — which is the default — a full screen app will start below the notch, giving it an uninterrupted space which is still taller than the previous version's screen. https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/app-architecture/fullscreen-mode/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... Anyone who needs every last bit of width for their menus can set the NSPrefersDisplaySafeAreaCompatibilityMode flag in their plist, as well. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/information_property_list/nsprefersdisplaysafeareacompatibilitymode/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/in...
- culopatin 5y ago
  How much bigger is it? I’m trying to buy my first MacBook after using a hackintosh for years. I currently use a 14in laptop and it’s a perfect size, and I love working outside so the high brightness sounds perfect for me. But is this worth $500? I want 16gb so it’s not a 1k difference vs the 8gb air, making the $2k look less bad, but is the screen real estate that different?
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    It is 74px of additional vertical space. This change moves the permanent menu bar out of application space into a new menu bar space. you are getting somewhere around 50-60px additional in application space. It also improved the user experience for full screen mode. Previously in full screen, the menu bar is hidden. If you move the mouse to near that area, the menu bar appears and jumps down. It’s janky and sometimes you can trigger that by accident just trying to click on something near the top of the app. for full screen now, the menu bar location is fixed and outside of the app space. It can be visible or hidden by a black bar, but it doesn’t jump around and it’s harder to accidentally trigger it.
    - olyjohn 5y ago
      Yeah I was just thinking the other day how much I wish I had an extra 60px of space. I was also thinking how happy I am to have saved 1mm of thickness on my phone by getting rid of the headphone jack. And, oh man, I wish my iPhone SE also had a notch. All that screen real estate between the rounded corners and the notch would make my experience so much better. Really jelly of the iPhones that have that.
      - acdha 5y ago
        Think about it this way: you get a better camera and all it cost you was gaining screen real estate.
- Tsarbomb 5y ago
  The way I see it, it doesn't matter how much bigger the screen is since ages ago MacOS switched to the default behaviour of full screening an app when hitting the green maximize window control. That default behaviour in combo with the notch feels like a total design misalignment and markedly not Apple. Edit: I do see what you mean by their design guidelines, but their solution is to fullscreen by not actually using the fullscreen. Again I'm happy with this compromise on the iPhone where the device is physically small but on a full professional device you are essentially telling me that there is an area of a high quality display I cannot use how I want.
  - acdha 5y ago
    Again, the question I would ask you to consider: you previously had a smaller screen with a larger bezel. Your fullscreen “safe area” app will have more pixels displayed than it did before but instead of a solid bezel you'll have a strip of pure black with a black camera notch in the middle. Everything which supports the notch (i.e. the system menu, apps which choose the custom display path to display things on either side) can use that extra space to display whatever makes sense (e.g. on many pro apps there'd be no reason not to extend side panels since they're going to be less than half the display width anyway). In all cases, you have more pixels visible than you did before — it's just a question of how much more — and the primary drawback is that you have an almost imperceptible difference between the black of the camera assembly and the black of a micro-LED display with very high dynamic range. This just doesn't seem like a huge problem to me.
    - Tsarbomb 5y ago
      > you previously had a smaller screen with a larger bezel Just on that topic though, why do I have to compromise to have something close to 3:2 aspect ration on MBP when there are other laptops that do 3:2 with decent webcams and face recognition. Or no facial recognition and super thin bezels. I'm willing to forgo face recognition for thin bezels. I guess what I was really hoping for was for a 14" version of the XPS15 with an M1 and a close to 3:2 aspect ratio. It feels like we got really close to something great but then compromised at the 5 yard line.
dawnerd 5y ago
It’s definitely here to stay. Next up is adding more sensors to it such as Face ID. It just makes sense as they continue to merge iOS and macOS together.
- cududa 5y ago
  FaceID on Mac makes no sense. First, the sensor is too thick. But the main one - iPhone wakes when the accelerometer detects movement. So to wake the mac you either need to press a key or touch the trackpad. At that point, why not just use the touchid button?
  - dawnerd 5y ago
    Then explain it on the iPad Pro. The sensor being thick might not be a problem in a year or two anyways.
  - titusjohnson 5y ago
    FaceID on a workstation enables concepts like Continuous Authorization, proactively lock the workstation if user does not have the correct face. FaceID can also unlock the device by the time you finish opening the laptop and placing it on your desk for the day. If you're not concerned with being forced to unlock your device by looking at it, FaceID is really quite nice.

acdha 5y ago

The key thing to remember is that the screen is larger than it used to be, making this tradeoff understandable: when you use compatibility mode — which is the default — a full screen app will start below the notch, giving it an uninterrupted space which is still taller than the previous version's screen. https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/app-architecture/fullscreen-mode/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... Anyone who needs every last bit of width for their menus can set the NSPrefersDisplaySafeAreaCompatibilityMode flag in their plist, as well. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/information_property_list/nsprefersdisplaysafeareacompatibilitymode/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/in...

culopatin 5y ago
How much bigger is it? I’m trying to buy my first MacBook after using a hackintosh for years. I currently use a 14in laptop and it’s a perfect size, and I love working outside so the high brightness sounds perfect for me. But is this worth $500? I want 16gb so it’s not a 1k difference vs the 8gb air, making the $2k look less bad, but is the screen real estate that different?
- Tagbert 5y ago
  It is 74px of additional vertical space. This change moves the permanent menu bar out of application space into a new menu bar space. you are getting somewhere around 50-60px additional in application space. It also improved the user experience for full screen mode. Previously in full screen, the menu bar is hidden. If you move the mouse to near that area, the menu bar appears and jumps down. It’s janky and sometimes you can trigger that by accident just trying to click on something near the top of the app. for full screen now, the menu bar location is fixed and outside of the app space. It can be visible or hidden by a black bar, but it doesn’t jump around and it’s harder to accidentally trigger it.
  - olyjohn 5y ago
    Yeah I was just thinking the other day how much I wish I had an extra 60px of space. I was also thinking how happy I am to have saved 1mm of thickness on my phone by getting rid of the headphone jack. And, oh man, I wish my iPhone SE also had a notch. All that screen real estate between the rounded corners and the notch would make my experience so much better. Really jelly of the iPhones that have that.
    - acdha 5y ago
      Think about it this way: you get a better camera and all it cost you was gaining screen real estate.
Tsarbomb 5y ago
The way I see it, it doesn't matter how much bigger the screen is since ages ago MacOS switched to the default behaviour of full screening an app when hitting the green maximize window control. That default behaviour in combo with the notch feels like a total design misalignment and markedly not Apple. Edit: I do see what you mean by their design guidelines, but their solution is to fullscreen by not actually using the fullscreen. Again I'm happy with this compromise on the iPhone where the device is physically small but on a full professional device you are essentially telling me that there is an area of a high quality display I cannot use how I want.
- acdha 5y ago
  Again, the question I would ask you to consider: you previously had a smaller screen with a larger bezel. Your fullscreen “safe area” app will have more pixels displayed than it did before but instead of a solid bezel you'll have a strip of pure black with a black camera notch in the middle. Everything which supports the notch (i.e. the system menu, apps which choose the custom display path to display things on either side) can use that extra space to display whatever makes sense (e.g. on many pro apps there'd be no reason not to extend side panels since they're going to be less than half the display width anyway). In all cases, you have more pixels visible than you did before — it's just a question of how much more — and the primary drawback is that you have an almost imperceptible difference between the black of the camera assembly and the black of a micro-LED display with very high dynamic range. This just doesn't seem like a huge problem to me.
  - Tsarbomb 5y ago
    > you previously had a smaller screen with a larger bezel Just on that topic though, why do I have to compromise to have something close to 3:2 aspect ration on MBP when there are other laptops that do 3:2 with decent webcams and face recognition. Or no facial recognition and super thin bezels. I'm willing to forgo face recognition for thin bezels. I guess what I was really hoping for was for a 14" version of the XPS15 with an M1 and a close to 3:2 aspect ratio. It feels like we got really close to something great but then compromised at the 5 yard line.

dawnerd 5y ago

It’s definitely here to stay. Next up is adding more sensors to it such as Face ID. It just makes sense as they continue to merge iOS and macOS together.

cududa 5y ago
FaceID on Mac makes no sense. First, the sensor is too thick. But the main one - iPhone wakes when the accelerometer detects movement. So to wake the mac you either need to press a key or touch the trackpad. At that point, why not just use the touchid button?
- dawnerd 5y ago
  Then explain it on the iPad Pro. The sensor being thick might not be a problem in a year or two anyways.
- titusjohnson 5y ago
  FaceID on a workstation enables concepts like Continuous Authorization, proactively lock the workstation if user does not have the correct face. FaceID can also unlock the device by the time you finish opening the laptop and placing it on your desk for the day. If you're not concerned with being forced to unlock your device by looking at it, FaceID is really quite nice.