Comment by flohofwoe

The way I see it, we can think of the screen below the notch as actual display area and consider the area next to notch as bonus display dedicated for menubar. The bonus area goes dark when in fullscreen app. So, the app area is consistent in both modes.

This way you don't have to feel like there's wasted space.

Is there a chance anything that us paid attention to grows in size.

Would anyone be willing to go to an older laptop without it?

Assuming not, what are the options? External displays?

I find I usually look at the content on the screen not the webcam or the notch, but it could be different for others

IIRC, Apple used to have the ambient light sensor under the left speaker grille. If you happened to rest your hand there, it would make your screen suddenly start dimming.

When using the laptop in a dark environment, it was also prone to a feedback loop where the screen dimming would result in less light hitting the sensor, leading to further screen dimming, or runaway brightening. Putting the sensor facing outward from the plane of the screen minimizes that feedback.

How can you not notice that? Hate it or not it is incredibly easy to notice.

Same here. I actually had to look up whether my model had it since I'm not in front of it.

I do use external screens a lot tho (in addition to the built in one).

I think you need to think through that four camera concept a bit more.

It would significantly increase the screen bezels because instead of just one notch you now have to bring in all four edges to accomodate the cameras.

> Also four cameras could be used for cool 3d effects and AI to keep your eyes looking at the center of the screen.

Nvidia has been doing the eyes with a single generic camera for over a year now: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/jan-2023-nvidia-br...

Wait a second, I think you’re onto something here…

All designs involve compromise. That doesn’t mean that those designs are bad, just that they are taking into account factors which are in opposition. Factors such as size, capacity, function, and legibility are examples of the kinds of oppositional factors that designs often need to take into account.

The MacBook notch is a clever design that increases the size of the screen without increasing the size of the overall case. There are some, relatively minor, downsides.

1. Some applications have an unusual number of menu items. The system takes this into account and renders those menu items to the right of the notch. In many cases, those are the less often used menu items “Window” and “Help” so the impact is lower.

2. When there are large numbers of app icons in the menubar, they may not all fit and some are truncated. This has always been a problem with that feature and many people have solved this by using utilities such as Bartender that hide extra app icons and move them to secondary panels.

3. There is an additional visual element on the screen. Many people quickly learn to ignore the notch and soon forget that it is there. For those who are bothered by it, there are a couple of simple ways to reduce the visibility of it. One method is to change the resolution of the screen so that all content appears below the notch. The downside of that solution is that there is less screen area. Another method is to use a utility to turn the menubar black. This makes the notch blend into the menubar so that it is much less visible.

Unless you've actually conducted a survey, you don't know how many people feel like you do. I get that you hate it, but I personally haven't noticed the notch in day to day use ever -- I've been using an M1 in light mode since it came out.

I don't see anyone saying the notch on a laptop is a "good" thing that they bought the laptop to get, just people who bought a laptop for other reasons justifying why an imperfect screen shape wasn't enough to make them regret the purchase. They're not being "milked" in any way I can see.

Compare phones, where manufacturers have actually created a narrative that camera cutouts are a desirable feature. Maybe people who bought new phones because they like the cutout design are getting milked twice.

OK. I'm the customer here, and I'm looking at it with my own POV. I think it's neat that I have extra pixels to hold the menu bar so that the rest of the screen can be dedicated to the apps I'm running.

no it's just a fact. before the notch, the parts of the screen either side of it were not screen, but now they are. the complaints about the notch literally boil down to "it's not enough extra screen".

It's more the classic glass half empty vs half full response. Although given the small size of the notch, it's more like 10% empty vs 90% full.

Because there is more than just a camera. There is the camera, two sensors, and some mounting hardware. It all adds up to some space. The specific size doesn’t really matter especially if you use Bartender to properly manage the app icons.

See the camera module here: https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/img_0383-jpeg.22053...

I agree that it certainly seems wider than necessary.

Full screen app + tell it to shrink (afaik only available if it doesn't natively declare support for the notch).

And it achieves it by scaling the whole screen ever so slightly, ruining pixel offsets everywhere and making everything fuzzy, seemingly so it doesn't ever present a non-standard display ratio despite the notch being very non-standard already, and despite full screen apps already working on external monitors that can have any ratio.

It's not an option anywhere else. Nor would I want that fuzzy mess anyway. It's such an insane design.

> PS: also looking around, there seem to be plenty of laptops with thin display bezel and no notch, if others can do it, why not Apple?

Because those laptops have worse webcams.

You don't have to agree with the tradeoff Apple made, in fact I don't, but I think the reasoning is pretty clear.

Most of those other laptops have asymmetric bezels, which Apple was probably trying to avoid. They wanted thin bezels on all edges.

The extra room in the notch is likely there in case they want to change webcam parts to something larger, add Face ID, etc so they don’t also have to change the display panel and can continue to use existing stock.

Apple seems to like to try to avoid changing parts/tooling wherever possible and will go as far as to awkwardly keep using a chassis until stock of that part has been exhausted if necessary (see the 13” M1 Touch Bar MBP).

There’s like four different things in the notch. Not just a camera. Plus some recessed screw holes to mount it.

The notch feels weird, but when I try to redesign it without sacrificing features, I can’t come up with a better option. …Not that I’m a brilliant designer by any means.

They absolutely did though. The notched MacBooks are 15.5:10 instead of 16:10.

You do lose a centimeter off the top of the screen, but luckily they added a centimeter to the screen (compared to the previous model) when they built it. So it's pretty strictly a win.

The area of the screen below the notch is 16:10 resolution. The bar at the top is "extra".

Would it? I wouldn't consider the bezel/notch area part of the screen, since I assume an app in fullscreen mode doesn't extend into that area anyways because how would they deal with UI elements that fall into the top center?

I mean maybe it's a bit of mental gymnastics, of course it's technically screen space taken away, but I am guessing the top bezel also becomes thinner so it seems like a great use of space to me, feels like it would allow me to justify always having the menu bar visible without feeling like it being there is wasting my space (because nothing else can be there). And having the menu bar always visible + avoiding this animation is something I would love.

I understand its Apple's current policy, but you did contradict yourself by saying never gonna happen and it's only here until we can put sensors inside the screen.

And I doubt users LOVE the notch. They tolerate the notch at best, and if you gave them a non-notch device, they'd instantly see the would hate the notch.