[HN Gopher] Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)
___________________________________________________________________
Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)
Author : janniks
Score : 549 points
Date : 2023-03-07 15:28 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (support.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (support.apple.com)
| coldacid wrote:
| How about a disconnect even when it's open?
| harry8 wrote:
| Remember when iSight firewire external laptop cameras had a
| physical iris opaque shutter?
|
| I can't think of a reason not involving TLA conspiracy that has
| everyone so allergic to a physical switch that disables
| microphones and a shutter that the camera cannot see through.
| Cheap, easy, reliable, desirable. Pick any four yet nobody,
| absoutely nobody does it and if they do they drop it almost
| immediately.
|
| Lenovo T series have a physical switch that _moves_ the camera
| in the lid to turn it off, whole camera slides sidways a little
| but doesn 't cover the lens.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| (this is about phones as well as laptops)
|
| Not only HW disconnect of the mic, but the speakers as well. I
| want a switch on the side that does the equivalent of taping over
| the camera. No software can use them when they're off, period.
|
| Take back your privacy.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I had no idea about the iPad microphone disconnect. That's cool
| enough to justify getting a new case. I wish they'd address some
| of their other products. Optionally enable hardware microphone
| disconnect on phones when placing upside down with their lockdown
| mode. No idea how the watch microphone could be disabled.
| worksonmine wrote:
| > No idea how the watch microphone could be disabled.
|
| Not everything has to be a futuristic gesture you know, could
| just have a hardware switch like on the librem phones. Also
| more reliable than the sensors, and that's something I would
| like for a privacy feature. Knowing that it's disconnected and
| can't be tampered with.
| al_be_back wrote:
| a physical switch would be ideal - akin to Ring/Silent feature on
| iPhones
| bambam24 wrote:
| [dead]
| teeok2023 wrote:
| Thanks you
| O__________O wrote:
| Anyone have an explanation of how Apple actually decides what
| merits security and what does not?
|
| (For example, it's my understanding that turning turn off a
| iPhone, it's bluetooth, etc -- does not actually completely turn
| them off. Also appears hardware/OS specs vary from jurisdiction
| to jurisdiction; for example, it is my understanding China limits
| a number of iPhone's hardware/OS specs for domestic iPhones.)
| meatmanek wrote:
| When you bring up the option to turn off your phone, there's a
| toggle to let you turn off "Find my iPhone", with a decent
| description:
|
| "iPhone Findable After Power Off >"
|
| > iPhone Remains Findable After Power Off > Find My helps you
| locate this iPhone when it is lost or stolen, even in power
| reserve mode or after power off. > > The location is visible in
| Find My on your other devices, and to people in Family Sharing
| you share location with. > > You can temporarily turn off Find
| My network and it will resume when this iPhone is powered on
| again. > > OK > Temporarily Turn Off Finding
|
| If you click Temporarily Turn Off Finding, you need to enter
| your passcode. This is to prevent phone thieves from just
| turning off your phone to make it untraceable.
|
| My expectation is that if you Temporarily Turn Off Finding, the
| bluetooth radio is fully off.
| O__________O wrote:
| Understand your point, though doesn't match my experiences
| turning a iPhone off fully charged before sleeping (including
| configuration you mentioned) -- and then leaving it off for
| the night only to find the battery drained significantly in
| the morning upon turning it on. Beyond that, unlike the OP
| article that's subject of this thread, not aware of any Apple
| support article that clearly states off is off if XYZ is
| done. Obvious solution would be a switch that physically
| disconnects the battery, drains capacitors, etc. -- though it
| would likely require redesign of how the system clock pulls
| power, though might be wrong:
|
| - https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/87580/how-does-
| an-...
| Reptur wrote:
| Should just be a hardware switch you can flip. We should be able
| to decide whether the webcam or mic is physically connected.
| edgartaor wrote:
| Exactly. Its like companies are allergic to phisical switches.
| surteen wrote:
| Except HP, Lenovo, Framework, Purism...
| bobleeswagger wrote:
| Me at 14: WTF APPLE IT'S MY MICROPHONE
|
| Me at 30: Cool.
| ouid wrote:
| if only this also disconnected the speakers
| 54bg45b45b wrote:
| So nice of them to give more privacy features when closing the
| laptop.
|
| Here is a fun thing that happens if you keep your laptop on to
| play some music or maybe run a light server with the lid closed.
|
| The backlight of the LCD turns off, but the LCD does not turn
| off.
|
| This causes screen burn in. There is no way to turn the screen
| off when you shut certain model mac laptops.
|
| So on one hand, we have a company offering neat privacy gimmicks
| and on the other, deploying anti-consumer practices at every
| corner of their product.
|
| Privacy is the bait that will trap you into their money sucking
| ecosystem. Manage it yourself or companies will always find a way
| to use it to exploit you. Even when they are not busy actively
| violating your privacy.
| 7v3x3n3sem9vv wrote:
| im gonna disagree with this take. I've seen thousands of
| MacBooks come and go from early 2016 all the way through
| current models and screen burn in is just not something I've
| ever seen. hardware/firmware bugs, bloated batteries, keyboard
| keys rubbed onto the screen, etc sure, but display defects from
| normal usage? not once.
| 54bg45b45b wrote:
| I may not have been clear and you may have misunderstood. If
| you use the laptop as apple intends, there is no issue
| usually. But the problem is what apple intends is very rigid
| and there is no room for edge cases at all.
|
| So, to replicate you only need to ensure the laptop stays on
| while the lid is closed. In my case I was using the laptop as
| a white noise machine for months.
|
| A few weeks in I opened the lid and noticed burn in. I tried
| to find ways to manually turn the LCD off but I could find no
| verifiable way to do this. The only solution I ended up with
| was running that screen saver with the wavy colors.
|
| The LCD screen does NOT turn off when the lid is closed. Only
| the backlight, which will NOT prevent burn in.
|
| I am positive all mac laptops are suicidal.
| kaba0 wrote:
| They are not good at being suicidal given that they have a
| blooming second/third-market and many people happily use
| them for years-on-end.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The microphone/camera disconnect must be a physical switch that
| physically disconnects it. Absolutely not a software switch.
| tantalor wrote:
| ... isn't that what is described here? What is the point of
| this comment.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I misunderstood. Sorry.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I wish Apple would think about MacBook screens when the lid is
| closed. Too many times I've had to wipe clean the display after
| opening because the keys leave shapes on the monitor.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Step 1: Clean your keyboard with some Whoosh!
| (https://www.gearpatrol.com/tech/a38814800/apple-secret-
| clean...)
|
| Step 2: Don't work while eating or use your external keyboard
| pb7 wrote:
| I'm curious, what do you propose here? The keys leave imprints
| because the screen flexes from pressure applied presumably in
| your bag or similar. MacBooks already have some of the most
| rigid screens on the market. This is pure physics at play and
| the imprints come from your oily fingers. What's your
| suggestion?
| t344344 wrote:
| Not OP, but I would share my opinion.
|
| Too many compromises were made to make macbook thin
| (unreliable keyboard, cooling, power delivery, battery,
| ports, non removable SSD...). Apple should make a model that
| is a bit thicker without those compromises!
|
| And my Asus does not have key fingerprints on screen...
| pb7 wrote:
| Does your Asus have a glass screen? Do you carry it in a
| backpack where there is pressure on the screen? Mind you,
| this isn't a well known issue. I've had it happen to me
| once in a decade of owning and frequently traveling with
| these and my backpack was stuffed to the point that it
| might damage the screen.
|
| I disagree about making it thicker. The newest MacBook Pros
| are already extremely thick and heavy. I don't want to be
| carrying around a brick just because some people don't wash
| their hands or clean their keyboards every once in a while.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Does your Asus have a glass screen?
|
| God I'd hope not. For programming, I cannot think of a
| single reason you'd want a glass display over a matte
| one. Maybe if you program in direct sunlight? Even
| still...
|
| I'll go ahead and agree with the other commenter. Part of
| why I no longer buy Apple hardware is because of these
| compromises that they assume I want. Trying to bridge the
| gap between a "creator-class" laptop and a programming
| machine hasn't worked out hardware-wise (see: Touch Bar).
| Paying $500 extra for nano-textured glass that shatters
| the same from a waist-height fall isn't a solution,
| either.
| pb7 wrote:
| I program and I prefer glass displays. It's more uniform,
| easier to clean, colors are more vibrant, and is easier
| on the eyes. I opt to not use an external display because
| most reasonably-priced ones are matte/non-glass and have
| awful color uniformity.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I find the glare and reflectivity of glass displays to be
| more difficult on the eyes and less uniform. Also, since
| I don't do much color-sensitive work, I've never really
| run into calibration issues. If anything, it makes the
| device much harder to use in low-brightness scenarios.
|
| It doesn't bother me since other manufacturers fill this
| gap, but I'd like to see more options regardless.
| t344344 wrote:
| Screen on my Zenbook has touch layer, that makes glass a
| bit thicker I guess. And yes I keep it in stuffed in
| backpack and sometimes drop it. It is a tool, not museum
| exponate!
|
| I had other laptops that left fingerprints. But Macbook
| Air had glass so thin it would randomly pop from
| temperature difference (well known issue)!
|
| Nobody is forcing you to carry brick around. But some
| people like to carry brick and Apple should make a new
| model just for them (MacBrick). Is "wash your hands
| before use" mentioned in macbook manual?
|
| And how do you even clean keyboard on Macbooks? That
| thing falls apart with a bad look, and it costs like $800
| to replace. I can not imagine removing key caps just to
| clean it up!
| pb7 wrote:
| >sometimes drop it. It is a tool, not museum exponate
|
| Yeah, why can't it double as a hammer too?
|
| >And how do you even clean keyboard on Macbooks
|
| The same way you do it on any other laptop.
|
| >That thing falls apart with a bad look
|
| No it doesn't.
|
| >But some people like to carry brick and Apple should
| make a new model just for them
|
| No they shouldn't, go buy your brick from someone else.
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| > No they shouldn't
|
| Allow me to present the sexiest-ever evidence to the
| contrary: The G3 "Wallstreet" Powerbook.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_G3
|
| Apple has made excellent portable dev workstations in the
| past. After the release of the Unibody Macbook Pro
| though, the focus of their hardware and software focues
| far, far away from developers. The new 14"/16" lineup is
| a good return to form, but in the context of how
| developer-unfriendly modern MacOS is it feels pyrrhic.
|
| If you don't relate to someone's opinion, you don't have
| to justify Apple's stance against it.
| pb7 wrote:
| >developer-unfriendly
|
| This is where you lose me. Go to any tech company with
| pockets deep enough to afford whatever hardware its
| employees want and the vast majority will have MacBook
| Pros running macOS.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Sure, and I've seen it. I've also been responsible for
| writing the Mac-specific workarounds, and it's not very
| fun sourcing the correct version of bash from the
| incorrect install location, or fighting Homebrew
| consistency across different arches.
|
| MacOS is simply shit for development. Even garbage
| proprietary Unix like Oracle Linux come with uniform
| packaging and up-to-date coreutils. MacOS had it's chance
| to be a developer platform (Xserve) and it just
| highlighted the most greedy, dysfunctional parts of
| Apple. It needs tough love to improve, because as-is it
| feels like Apple is ignoring the industry.
| kaba0 wrote:
| I do agree with you that pretty linux is the only sane
| developer environment, but it's not exactly rocket
| science to make proper linux available for OSX, while
| still benefiting from the all-around apple ecosystem.
| riffic wrote:
| wash your hands
| fwlr wrote:
| I found this with my first MacBook Air. Ever since, I keep the
| little paper insert that comes with a new MacBook. It stays in
| my laptop case, solves this issue perfectly.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| YMMV, but in my experience this happens mainly when the MacBook
| has been sitting under something else or packed tightly in a
| bag. I never see it if the laptop has been closed with nothing
| applying pressure on the lid.
|
| Not that this isn't a design oversight, but it might be
| mitigable until Apple makes design tweaks to fix it.
| gorbypark wrote:
| It's been a thing for 10+ years, I don't think Apple has any
| interest in design tweaks. I have seen the marks on my new
| MBA M2 after just closing the laptop and carrying it in my
| hand for 2 minutes. I wasn't gripping it tightly or anything,
| just carrying it like a normal human would carry it.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Interesting. I wonder if maybe the smaller models (Air, 13"
| and maybe 14" Pro) are more prone to this? I've had very
| little trouble with it on 15" models from 2015 onward or
| with the 16" M1 Pro.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I have never seen this in my 2015 13in MacBook Air.
| gorbypark wrote:
| I got the marks all the time on my 2016 13" MacBook Pro,
| too. I even had the keyboard (and by extension battery)
| replaced in that machine, and Apple "professionally
| cleaned" the screen. There were still some permanent
| keyboard marks on the screen after the cleaning. It's not
| just oil, but permanent abrasion marks after a while.
| Maxburn wrote:
| I don't think there is anything to tweak. It's probably
| designed to have less than 1mm when closed normally and the
| pressure of being in a book bag will easily flex the aluminum
| that much, if not bend it. As other said leave the original
| packing cloth in it and use a hard shell carrying case that
| won't put pressure on the laptop.
| j45 wrote:
| Maybe Apple wants it this way to ensure their machines are
| handled gingerly and reduce warranty claims
| alin23 wrote:
| I've gone back to using a thin waxed paper _(like the ones you
| find in shoe boxes)_ between the keyboard and the screen when
| closing the lid.
|
| It's a bit annoying, but I'm sick of getting delamination after
| 1 year. I got this M1 Max with the thought that it will be
| relevant for app development for at least 5 years, and I still
| want to be able to work outside in the sun until then.
| j45 wrote:
| Wax paper is a much better idea than some of the keyboard
| covers I've used in the past, they can dig into the lcd in
| other ways but are convenient too
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| They have this feature but closing the lid on a MacBook or even
| putting it to sleep allows Bluetooth devices to stay connected.
| Heck, a MacBook even while in sleep mode will connect to
| Bluetooth devices. As far as I can see, this requires a third-
| party app to fix. Can an application still use the microphone on
| a Bluetooth device that's connected?
| zamfi wrote:
| Not just Bluetooth but Wi-Fi too. It's literally on the network
| while asleep and unplugged. Not 100% of the time, but very
| often.
|
| Drains the battery fast too.
| tagyro wrote:
| This is (most probably) the Power Nap feature that
| periodically checks for email, update calendar events etc.
| You can disable Power Nap from the Settings > Battery.
| zamfi wrote:
| Yep! Apple doesn't seem to provide a way to disable the
| bluetooth behavior, but there are tools like bluesnooze
| that can...
| lxgr wrote:
| > Can an application still use the microphone on a Bluetooth
| device that's connected?
|
| I don't see why not, given that it's also possible to use
| external wired microphones in clamshell mode.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| Check out Sleepwatcher [1]. I have ~/.sleep and ~/.wakeup
| defined to disable and enable bluetooth.
|
| ~/.sleep: /opt/homebrew/bin/blueutil -p 0
|
| ~/.wakeup /opt/homebrew/bin/blueutil -p 1
|
| 1. https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/sleepwatcher
| captainkrtek wrote:
| Found this, https://github.com/odlp/bluesnooze/ looks to solve
| this problem.
| asmor wrote:
| If you need something more selective, BetterTouchTool (which
| you might already have) has a sleep trigger that allows you
| to disconnect specific devices.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Wouldn't this be because BT perhipherals like mice and
| keyboards need to be able to wake the machine up?
|
| Also FindMy relies on BT to work.
|
| An option to disable BT when the lid is closed might be nice,
| but it shouldn't be the default. I think _most_ people do not
| want that.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| I can understand that if I'm just closing the lid but my
| MacBook shouldn't be connecting to BT devices when it's in
| sleep mode. My Windows laptop won't do that when it's in
| sleep mode. This feels counterintuitive to me. There should
| at least be a setting where I can disable that without having
| to install a third-party app, y'know? 'Cause I can understand
| for the need to keep a device connected if I'm just closing
| the lid, but the laptop isn't going into sleep mode.
|
| It's also really funny how fast all my Apple devices "steal"
| a BT connection. Both my mb air and my tablet beat all my
| windows machines at taking over a BT device no matter what I
| try. I should try to race my tablet and the Air to see which
| one wins.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Agreed, why can't the user override the rules for mice/keyboard
| vs microphone/speaker or overall? I never use my MacBook in
| clamshell mode. I would prefer that closing it cancels _ALL_
| Bluetooth connections and prevents reconnect as well.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| The best part is that closing the lid seems to put it into a
| "supershitty Bluetooth" state: I can be listening to
| music/podcast/audiobook from my phone, which is in my pocket,
| close the laptop and suddenly start getting "Connection <long
| pause> Lost" every 20-30 seconds until I go back to my laptop
| and turn off bluetooth.
| mrexroad wrote:
| It also allows thieves to figure out which cars have a laptop
| in the trunk.
| altairprime wrote:
| Yes, I videoconference regularly from a closed-lid MacBook with
| a Bluetooth headset.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| And the MacBook is so "greedy" that it will always connect to
| my Bluetooth devices before anything else can, forcing me to
| take out the MacBook, open the lid, sign in and disable
| Bluetooth.
| tagyro wrote:
| That is actually meant to keep the connection to a Bluetooth
| keyboard/mouse when using the computer in clamshell mode.
| rpledge wrote:
| Apples clamshell mode support is super confusing IMHO. This
| is once thing Windows does better at least by default.
| Perhaps Macs can be configured to what I expect but I
| personally have struggled with getting it to work in a way
| that satisfies me.
| datagram wrote:
| I feel the opposite way. Trying to get Windows laptops to
| keep outputting to an external display with the lid closed
| has always been a hassle for me.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Trying to get Windows laptops to keep outputting to an
| external display with the lid closed has always been a
| hassle for me_
|
| Can't concur with this. My windows laptop is has its lid
| closed and is outputting to a display. Only thing I do is
| uncheck the default behavior of putting the laptop to
| sleep when the lid is closed. This should be enough. Did
| you do this?
| zamnos wrote:
| For those of us without both in our lives, can you be more
| specific on the differences that makes Window's system
| better?
| mrinterweb wrote:
| It would be great if certain types of bluetooth devices could
| remain connected. Physical input devices only would likely be
| a good default. There is little reason, IMO, for speaker
| connections to be active. In clamshell mode, I would expect
| all bluetooth connections to be active, but while suspended,
| please drop nonessential connections. Being able to override
| the default disconnect rules per device would be ideal.
| tagyro wrote:
| > There is little reason, IMO, for speaker connections to
| be active.
|
| A few comments down:
|
| > @asveikau: I think you should be able to play music while
| the lid is closed. That seems like a reasonable use case.
|
| Also, wouldn't having a different behaviour, based on
| specific classes of devices, create more confusion for
| users?
|
| Oh, and, all together now: Bluetooth sucks!
| wyager wrote:
| They don't let me use an HDMI display without external power
| while closed, so why let me use bluetooth without power?
| shortcake27 wrote:
| The opposite is also true. You can't officially use a
| Macbook in clamshell mode (eg, as a headless media server)
| even when connected to power. When you close the lid
| without a connected display, the official MacOS behaviour
| is to put the computer to sleep. You need a third-party
| tool to prevent it from sleeping.
|
| Yet when my Macbook is asleep in my bag with no peripherals
| attached, my headphones will connect and wake the Mac.
|
| The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
| It literally makes no sense.
| wyager wrote:
| I think we're agreeing - my point is that it doesn't make
| sense to allow bluetooth when they won't even allow a
| display (no power, laptop closed). What are you going to
| use the bluetooth for, moving a mouse you can't even see?
| porbelm wrote:
| ...and they could make it so it stays on only of there's an
| external display connected, but then communication could be
| disabled by the person who stole your laptop. So Find My
| would not be able to find and more importantly report a
| location.
| tagyro wrote:
| > ...and they could make it so it stays on only of there's
| an external display connected
|
| Not always, my monitor goes to sleep and turns off. At this
| point, macOS should turn Bluetooth off? How would I wake
| the computer then? I would have to open it.
|
| > Find My would not be able to find and more importantly
| report a location.
|
| That might be another reason why Bluetooth stays on. On a
| laptop, I'd rather have Find My working in clamshell mode
| (given the theft risk).
| Namari wrote:
| I wonder if there are more people like you or more into
| turning it off.
| falcolas wrote:
| +1 for using a MacBook in clamshell mode most of the
| time.
| sethammons wrote:
| I exclusively use it with the lid closed. However, I use
| wired everything. I use external speakers, monitor,
| keyboard, mouse, wacom, and dslr camera for webcam. The
| only thing wireless is my wifi connection.
| shortcake27 wrote:
| > Not always, my monitor goes to sleep and turns off. At
| this point, macOS should turn Bluetooth off? How would I
| wake the computer then? I would have to open it.
|
| So I'm not sure about turning off bluetooth entirely, but
| waking via bluetooth should be turned off when the laptop
| is closed without a display attached. There is no use
| case for waking via bluetooth without a display.
| asveikau wrote:
| I think you should be able to play music while the lid is
| closed. That seems like a reasonable use case.
|
| Set computer up on a table, pair Bluetooth speaker, put on your
| favorite streaming service, close the lid and walk away, the
| music filling the room. Totally reasonable.
| exitb wrote:
| That's a different topic really. There are tools that can
| prevent going to sleep when the lid is closed with no
| peripherals attached. When not used, most users would expect
| for the laptop to go to sleep, even if it's playing something
| at the time.
|
| What this is about is engaging Bluetooth devices while
| asleep, which doesn't make any practical sense.
| asveikau wrote:
| > When not used, most users would expect for the laptop to
| go to sleep
|
| I think part of the problem here is that defining "in use"
| is actually very difficult, and it's literally something
| where two different users (or even the same user at
| different times) could have different expectations for the
| same circumstance as defined in code.
| causi wrote:
| God I love having a laptop with proper S3 standby.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Yeah, even Windows/Linux laptops have started moving away
| from this... if the startup time isn't too bad, I've gotten
| in the habit of just completely shutting down when traveling.
| Nothing worse than a dead battery when you open your laptop
| because of some background BS trying to run.
| causi wrote:
| Laptops will even play tricks on you with full shutdown. I
| had a Thinkpad that, despite being "shut down" kept popping
| up on my desktop as "available for streaming" on Steam.
| vel0city wrote:
| I go both ways on this being a feature and a bug.
|
| On one hand, its kind of nice for my trip from my home
| office into the main office. Opening up my laptop at the
| other location its already properly connected to the WiFi,
| applications are already "warming up" and syncing their
| statuses to the things that changed, bluetooth keyboard and
| mouse can actually wake the device from "sleep", etc. It
| gives a far more seamless experience moving from one place
| to the other.
|
| But I also get the pain of this too. Pulling out my laptop
| on the airplane and seeing it already at like 93% battery
| since I left earlier that morning isn't great.
|
| I remember back in the late 90s and early 2000's the dream
| of having some kind of low power notification screen on the
| lid or edge of the laptop. I always wanted that: being able
| to quickly see some of the info without fully booting up or
| accessing music from the computer while on the go. Of
| course, smartphones became a thing and have mostly
| eliminated needing the laptop to do those tasks.
| eligro91 wrote:
| Happens to me as well. when I'm turning on my wireless
| headphones and trying to match with my phone, the closed
| macbook is connecting to it first. this is annoying and
| requires me either to: 1. pair from scratch 2. go to the
| macbook, open it, turn off bluetooth.
|
| annoying
| a9h74j wrote:
| Sadly or happily for me: one device, one specific pair of
| bluetooth headphones. I've started getting the $15 ones.
| elzbardico wrote:
| The problem here is that people that use external keyboards and
| mice over BT expect to be able to wake their MacBooks connected
| to external displays even with the lid closed.
| andoma wrote:
| Nah, Makes no sense. I can manually disconnect the BT audio
| headset while having keyboard and mouse still working fine
| over BT.
| hackmiester wrote:
| I do not think this is as simple as you believe it is.
| Would the average user not find this really confusing?
|
| You plug your laptop into your dock and close it, and
| suddenly your AirPods stop working, even though the rest of
| the computer works fine?
| andoma wrote:
| I'm totally fine with it keeping BT audio active when
| it's connected to anything else (even the charger I
| guess). The annoying thing, for me at least, is when it
| decides it absolutely has to take over my Bose Headphones
| while closed in my backpack, not playing any audio, and
| I'm out traveling with it and my iPhone.
| [deleted]
| dvirsky wrote:
| This has to be the most annoying thing in MacOS. My laptop,
| soundly sleeping in my backpack, takes over my bluetooth
| headphones all the time.
| dom96 wrote:
| I have gotten used to switching off Bluetooth on my mac
| before closing the lid because of this. Infuriating.
| copperx wrote:
| Mine connects to the goddamn car, overriding my cell phone.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I don't understand why the bluetooth-stealing happens so
| often. I'll literally be in the middle of a podcast on my
| phone, and my iPad in the next room (on which my kids have
| been watching something) will take over my headphones.
| There's no change in state on either device (not
| stopping/starting), and I haven't moved close to the iPad
| (and the iPhone is much closer, in my pocket). I just have to
| turn off bluetooth entirely on the iPad to avoid this.
| kaushikc wrote:
| I suspect the problem could be the bluetooth technology
| itself.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Bluetooth is basically the devil though. My Bose speaker
| cant handle the fact that I always want my Android phone,
| and keeps insisting that I really want my child's IPad.
| TheBozzCL wrote:
| It's a generalized problem in Apple devices.
|
| I use a USB/bluetooth headphone DAC/amp. Most of the time,
| I plug it into my work laptop and listen to videos/music
| while I work. Sometimes, if a video ends or if I pause
| playback, my iPhone (which INSISTS on connecting to the
| amp) will take over and start playing music.
|
| I really wish you could turn off auto-connect to bluetooth
| devices.
| supermdguy wrote:
| I hate that this isn't configurable by default, but
| bluesnooze solved this for me:
| https://github.com/odlp/bluesnooze
| chenghuzi wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| jbj wrote:
| this comments reminds me about owning a mac and installing
| a github repo to allow mouse scrolling direction to not be
| tied to touch pad scrolling
|
| [edit] just following up, it was UnnaturalScrollWheels,
| which have been notarized: https://github.com/ther0n/Unnatu
| ralScrollWheels/releases/tag...
| jdlyga wrote:
| We typically use LinearMouse for this. Allows you to even
| set scrolling direction, scroll speed, acceleration
| profile, etc per mouse.
|
| But yeah, MacOS is a little like Gnome Shell. It requires
| a few basic apps to make it usable, but after that it's
| pretty excellent.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning LinearMouse. I've previously used
| Scroll Reverser so it's nice to hear of other options in
| this space.[0]
|
| [0] https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/
| gligorot wrote:
| Do you have a list of helpful apps?
| jraph wrote:
| Hello 2005 GNU/Linux!
|
| Installing random packages to fix OS stuff that should
| work out of the box was fun for a while :-)
| naikrovek wrote:
| here's the thing, though: "working as intended" and
| "working as you intend" are _very different things._
|
| no operating system ever has arrived on a user's computer
| completely configurable to any given user's preferences.
|
| you're complaining about something that simply isn't
| possible without third party software and time spent by
| the user in question.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> "working as intended" and "working as you intend" are
| very different things._
|
| You're holding it wrong
| 0cVlTeIATBs wrote:
| I was surprised by needing to do this when switch to
| MacOS. So many things _don 't_ "just work" despite all
| that I've heard about it.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Overwhelmingly, it does "just work" as Apple intended.
|
| However, it's often quite opinionated. So Apple's
| intended functionality may or may not jive with _your_
| preferences. This is neither a defense nor criticism of
| Apple, and it 's not a defense or criticism of your
| preferences either.
|
| I will point out that anecdotally, I don't hear too many
| people wanting their mouse's scrolling to work in the
| opposite direction as their trackpad. I think Apple's
| probably got well over 99% of the userbase covered with
| the defaults and opinions here. From a software/QA/UX
| perspective things get wild pretty quickly if you cover
| every < 1% use case.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I think Apple's probably got well over 99% of the
| userbase covered with the defaults and opinions here._
|
| The vast amount of MacOS apps built by the community to
| undo Apple's terrible and backwards UX choices, and the
| amounts of sales those apps get, disproves your theory
| that over 99% of people are fine with the defaults Apple
| forces on its users.
| mtrower wrote:
| Does it? Or is it possible that 1% is still pretty large?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Maybe it's bigger than 1%.
| gumby wrote:
| The existence of such programs merely says there are
| enough users willing to install such programs that it's
| worth making them available (and that macs have the
| affordances -- APIs -- to make these kinds of changes,
| which ios does not have). There are so many macs in use
| that a tiny percentage is enough.
|
| I suspect the same is true in the general case in the ios
| app store: that there is a long tail of apps used by a
| tiny %age of users, but with an enormous user base that's
| enough to make a free or even paid app.
|
| And after about 35 years of mousing and about four years
| of iphoning I expected to want to revert apple's change
| to mouse-gesture-scrolling with Lion, but after only a
| few seconds I was sold. YMMV, of course, but I agree with
| the "99%" hypothesis.
| goosedragons wrote:
| That setting is particularly terrible because they mirror
| it in both "mouse" and "trackpad" settings or at least
| that's how they used to do it. So it SEEMS like you can
| have independent settings for a mouse and trackpad but
| they control the same thing (which is equally weird, does
| any other setting do that?).
| serf wrote:
| > Overwhelmingly, it does "just work" as Apple intended.
|
| that's a creative re-wording of "you're holding it the
| wrong way."
|
| Not all Apple fans have been on board with the slow morph
| from general purpose computer to walled-garden console --
| although admittedly that audience is probably mostly
| gone, anyway.
| karaterobot wrote:
| FWIW, I think the phrase "just works" implies that you,
| the user, should expect it to work without any tweaks or
| workarounds. So, the user's preferences are implied.
| Saying that it just works in _many cases_ , or that it
| just works _for Apple_ is not what is implied by that
| marketing. It 's a strong promise that was chosen for a
| reason, and in many cases they do not live up to it.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| you, the user, should expect it to work without any
| tweaks or workarounds
|
| I think that, for any reasonable definition of "it just
| works", it would clearly refer to essential functionality
| and not the extremely long tail of niche tweaks that at
| least one user out of millions might want to perform.
|
| For example on Apple devices I've often wanted a feature
| that would let me skip PIN/FaceID authentication when
| connected to my home network. No such feature exists. But
| I'd say there's a clear distinction between a missing
| feature and "not just working."
|
| Of course, "it just works" is a vague marketing phrase
| that they haven't used in a long time, perhaps a decade
| or more? So, whatever. You have the power to decide it
| means whatever you want it to mean, and then decide if
| Apple meets your made-up standard or not. I freely admit
| that's what I'm doing.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > I think that, for any reasonable definition of "it just
| works", it would clearly refer to essential functionality
|
| Really? I always heard it as something more like "we've
| thought of everything, all the details, and you don't
| have to fiddle with our products like with Windows." I
| think essential functionality is _always_ implied, with
| any product, but with Apple, it seemed like their promise
| was for a higher level of user experience than that.
|
| Acknowledged that this is an old marketing statement (I
| believe it was a Jobs-ism, which dates it), but please
| look at the context of the thread.
| taneq wrote:
| Do they still use that line? While some of their newer
| stuff does meet that standard, a lot more "just works if
| you already know what it does" (eg. AirPods need to be in
| the case to pair... why?) and still more seems kinda
| random (fk you iOS keyboard.)
| karaterobot wrote:
| I don't think they do, but I was responding to a comment
| about the applicability of the phrase to current Apple
| products. Maybe "it just works" is like Google's "do the
| right thing": both make sense if you append "(for us)" to
| the end.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| The zoom scroll is disconnected from the scroll direction
| as well. I'm not sure if they fixed it by now or if I
| just got used to it, but it was super disorienting when I
| noticed it.
| tbarbugli wrote:
| I had the same, switching to Airpods "fixed" this problem. I
| doubt Apple will ever do something about this, bt audio works
| fine as long as you use iPhone, Macbook and Apple pods
| mgkimsal wrote:
| 'audio' mostly does, unless that audio involved answering a
| call (posted about this in a separate thread). The
| experience of listening to music on a mac with airpods,
| then trying to answer an incoming call _on the phone, and
| using the airpods_ , is abysmally slow, in my experience.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I have AirPods, but the experience still sucks with
| multiple devices.
|
| I have my phone, my laptop, my iPad, and two iPads for my
| kids, all on my account. I literally am unable to make my
| kid's iPads forget my AirPods, because it is tied to the
| apple account. If I have the iPads forget them, it forgets
| them on all my devices. It is annoying as hell, I have to
| leave Bluetooth off on my kids iPads.
| zamnos wrote:
| Umm, your children's accounts are on children accounts
| and not literally your account though, right? Because
| that could cause problems down the line.
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-a-childs-
| devic...
| hamburglar wrote:
| "Ummm" aside, this is not at all obvious. I have an iPad
| from before I had kids. When setting it up, I was asked
| to enter my Apple ID, so I did. Then came kids and a new
| use for this iPad, and a second iPad, which obviously
| needed the same apps, and a third. No, it never occurred
| to me to set up appleids specifically for toddlers. It
| did eventually prompt me to set up a new "iPads" appleid
| when I switched from android to iPhone and suddenly
| discovered that all my text messages were being delivered
| to my children. But the ipads are family devices, not
| per-child, and if apple thinks I'm going to give each kid
| an appleid, they aren't paying attention to how people
| actually want to use their devices.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Not sure if you have kids, but the devices didn't start
| out as being theirs. It was my iPad, they started using
| it more as they got older, and eventually I got a new one
| for me. I should set it up properly, but it happened
| gradually and I have not gotten around to changing it...
| and now all the apps and accounts and settings are tied
| to my Apple ID.
| ehPReth wrote:
| The kids iPads should be on their own managed kids Apple
| IDs, should they not? https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/HT201084
| giobox wrote:
| Emphasis on _should_ here. In the "real world" with real
| family pressures a lot of the time good account hygene
| goes out the window. In my experience account sharing is
| rife on "kid" iPads, especially as many of them are often
| hand-me-down devices that people don't want to have to go
| through the pain of reinstalling everything again for a
| new user.
|
| The ideal solution is iOS on iPad gets multiple user
| account support (like general purpose Macs and PCs have
| had for decades....), and you could just quickly throw on
| a new kid account, but Apple clearly like forcing you to
| buy one iPad per user account and reinstall _everything_
| every time it gets a new user - shared devices aren 't as
| great for the company bottom line.
|
| The sad thing is this support is largely there in the OS
| already built; its just locked to schools/businesses and
| is a PITA to setup for private owners:
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-
| overv...
|
| Honestly, the lack of multiple user accounts is
| borderline criminal in my opinion, especially on the high
| spec expensive M1 iPad models that cost as much as a
| multi-user laptop.
| ehPReth wrote:
| I agree; it's really a shame that they don't have multi-
| user support unlocked for iPads with Family Sharing,
| especially for those with kids! It's right there and
| probably wouldn't take too many engineering resources..
|
| I'd be worried that little Timmy would accidentally turn
| on photo sync or something for the adult's account and
| see... certain pictures he should not be seeing kinda-
| thing. Or iMessage and send something to someone. Though;
| if you're strict about the restrictions feature or guided
| access you should be safe?
| chrisfinazzo wrote:
| For the average person, they (Apple) probably feel like
| Family Sharing is the right mechanism to address these
| issues. Education and Business customers have Shared iPad
| because of the different environments they operate in
| where the use case is clear.
|
| In a world where (generally speaking) people are
| expensive and hardware is cheap, Apple probably thinks
| each person having their own device is easier than trying
| to shuffle around - potentially - 1 TB home directories
| for each person.
|
| We're getting closer, but storage and networks need to
| get even better before the majority of regular people can
| do this and will tolerate it, not just the power users.
| giobox wrote:
| > hardware is cheap
|
| There is nothing cheap about iPads, especially the models
| that have the same M1 processors and similar pricepoints
| as a MacBook. It's laughable they don't have multiple
| user support today, and is solely to protect sales of the
| devices.
|
| I'm genuinely surprised someone would defend this
| behaviour. Imagine you bought any other computer for
| north of 1000 dollars and you could only log one person
| in at a time - its unheard of, and was solved decades
| ago.
|
| Again, iOS is already a multi-user OS - Apple just choose
| to artificially restrict how you can use it.
|
| > potentially - 1 TB home directories for each person.
|
| This is just being silly - people log families and many
| users into drives far smaller than this _all the time_.
| jmbwell wrote:
| Creating AppleIDs for your kids through Family Sharing
| and using those AppleIDs on those devices would solve
| this. You as organizer can view and manage all devices;
| all purchases are paid through your account (but are tied
| to the purchaser), and you can set restrictions and
| require permissions for many activities (including in-app
| purchases). Plus, all the bluetooth devices remain per-
| user. And it keeps your stuff out of their stuff and vice
| versa (though selected items can be shared).
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201088
| cortesoft wrote:
| I should do this for my kids, yes, but it is still
| annoying just for my own devices. I don't want to use my
| AirPods on all my devices, just one... why can't I do
| that?
| miskin wrote:
| On the device you do not want them to connect to
| automatically go to Bluetooth settings, find your
| AirPods, click on (i) and change "Connect to this iPhone"
| from "Automatically" to "When Last Connected to This
| iPhone".
| lrem wrote:
| Microsoft does the same. My Bose QC35s keep going "surface
| connected", "surface disconnected" every couple minutes.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| This is the exact headache I have.
| georgelyon wrote:
| I've long desired form my AirPods to operate in a "play any
| sound from any of my devices" mode. This seems like a no-
| brainer and such phantom connections would as a result have
| no user-visible impact and you could do things like listen to
| music coming from your phone while hearing sounds from your
| MacBook.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Unsure if I would love or hate that, but it might be more
| natural than the iphone/airpods/mac "incoming call" fiasco
| I face regularly.
|
| Airpods/MacOS - listening to background music. Phone call
| comes in... VERY LOUD facetime 'ring' announces on mac that
| I'm getting a phone call.
|
| Pick up phone to answer it... holy tamole - it's minimum 8
| seconds between clicking 'answer' and... eventually airpods
| switching over to phone - most of the time. To the calling
| party, I've 'answered', but they can't hear me - or... can
| sort of hear me, but I can't hear them. The speed at which
| the 'switch' takes place, and the visual delay (air pod
| icons turning on, then off, then on again, then a floating
| top notification saying "airpods connected"...)... this is
| always minimum 8 seconds. Usually 10-11.
|
| I just say "hang on, i'm switching my earpiece over..." and
| wait. Annoying. Given that this is _all_ in their
| ecosystem, I expect this to get better, not worse. I 'd
| rather this sort of experience get fixed vs more emojis, or
| 'sidecar' or whatnot.
| leipert wrote:
| Honest question: Why don't you answer the call from the
| Mac? Or do you have that continuity feature disabled?
| chrisfinazzo wrote:
| This was one of the first things I disabled with
| Continuity. As for why, it's not that complicated.
|
| 1) It's a distraction. I am also one of those people who
| turned on "Silence unknown callers" to send everyone I
| don't know to voicemail. If it's important, you'll get a
| message there. My phone either lives in my pocket or is
| on the desk next to me, so it's very unlikely I'd miss
| something.
|
| 2) At least with AirPods, although I have "connect
| automatically" turned on, I will never intentionally
| connect them to more than one source at a time.
|
| Therin lies madness and bugs.
| officeplant wrote:
| Idk how you live without silence unknown callers. I get
| an upwards of 20 spam calls a day interrupting me
| otherwise while using the phone.
| chrisfinazzo wrote:
| I _do_ use it, not sure how that was unclear.
| officeplant wrote:
| Ah sorry, My brain completely fumbled your sentence.
| chrisfinazzo wrote:
| No worries,
|
| I had to reread my own sentence to make sure I wasn't
| being a complete moron.
|
| NOTE TO SELF: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I _usually_ want to walk away from the computer. I sit at
| the computer enough already. If a call comes in, I want -
| sometimes need - to be able to walk away.
|
| The long/short of it is, both devices 'know' about the
| airpods. Call comes in to phone, during an answer, having
| airpods switch to the phone _quickly_ - like, under 2
| seconds - is what I 'm expecting. I'm not sure that's an
| unreasonable expectation (maybe it is?). At some point, I
| would think, given all the neural-core-AI stuff in the
| phones and ecosystem, it should know that I always switch
| airpods to phone to talk... maybe do it automatically at
| some point?
|
| The phone now knows my daily routine, giving me traffic
| updates 10 minutes before I normally leave to hit the
| gym. Yet... the 'fill in your email' prompts on the phone
| suggest 'my' email address is something I have not
| actively used in 11 years. I don't understand the 'why'
| behind some of these things. If the device is going to
| learn... when will it learn I don't use that email
| address any longer? Obviously separate issue, but... as
| has gone on for decades - we get loads of new features,
| but often little attention paid to clean up and refine
| last year's new features.
| sroussey wrote:
| Why have the Mac ring if you don't answer from the Mac? I
| turned that off in settings. Still text via Mac though!
| mgkimsal wrote:
| "settings" was vague. I looked in system settings -
| nothing there. Apparently, it's a 'facetime' setting?
| Will this make switching 'audio from mac via airpods' to
| 'audio from iphone via airpods' any faster?
| givinguflac wrote:
| You should be able to tap the speakerphone icon on your
| iPhone, choose AirPods, and they'll switch immediately in
| my experience
| freemanofthewan wrote:
| This "why" has been growing since Steve passed. I have
| been an Apple user for 20+ years. The experience has been
| slowly going downhill for the last 5 years. I think they
| survived on Steve's vision for the first couple of years
| after his passing. The brains behind Apple are still
| there, clearly, M1, M2... the vision is missing. The
| why's you mention seem to be those unpolished pieces
| Steve would never have allowed the release of.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| This is why I (and many others) I think still have some
| fond memories of Snow Leopard, marketed as 'bug fix'
| release. That feels like the last time there was a united
| push to polish up existing stuff without throwing in
| 'new' things.
| officeplant wrote:
| I just remember being glad it was only $29.
| RulerOf wrote:
| I've often said that Airpods are the best bluetooth
| headphones I've ever bought, and they still suck.
| leipert wrote:
| That makes sense! I don't use my AirPods with my work
| MacBook, as I have separate Apple IDs. So the continuity
| feature doesn't work for me anyhow.
|
| Also: I don't get a lot of calls anyway. But when I do, I
| tend to wander around as well. So it makes complete
| sense.
| zakki wrote:
| I feel many objections to Apple's products behavior are
| responded with "a suggestion " to just follow Apple way.
| leipert wrote:
| Oh. I wasn't objecting. I am not getting many calls,
| maybe one a week, but the explanation of "picking up and
| wandering around" makes complete sense.
| AdamGibbins wrote:
| I disabled that as it has some very confusing and
| undesired behaviour. For example if you're listening to
| Spotify on your Mac, then get a call on your iPhone you
| hit pause on your keyboard media keys so you can pick up
| the call - and it hangs up.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Seems like a hard choice between two kinds of behavior that
| will annoy two different sets of people, and are mutually
| exclusive.
| shortcake27 wrote:
| There used to be a option to disable bluetooth devices
| waking a Mac. It was removed a couple years ago. I can kind
| of understand because this would also prevent a
| keyboard/mouse waking the Mac, which isn't ideal. I assume
| a lot of people were turning this setting off then
| complaining their Mac won't wake.
|
| However, if a Macbook is sleeping and closed with no
| peripherals attached, I can't see any use case for waking
| from bluetooth. It doesn't make sense.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Sleeping but plugged into a monitor, while closed, would
| be one. For other cases, I suspect it's more about making
| sure the device(s) can be used almost instantly after
| waking.
|
| Does seem like it'd be nice if the behavior were
| something you could toggle, though.
| cj wrote:
| Similarly, whenever I'm working at my kitchen table I always
| "lose" my mouse as if there's another monitor connected.
|
| I realized a couple weeks later MacOS display continuity (or
| "sidecar"?) was connecting to my Mac Mini located directly
| upstairs using it as a 2nd monitor while I'm downstairs.
|
| My apple watch also regularly unlocks my Mac Mini when I'm
| downstairs (Mac Mini in a bedroom upstairs).
|
| All of these features pose serious security issues if your
| physical location isn't secure/trusted.
|
| There really should be a "Travel Mode" for MacOS that
| disables features like these. No one wants airport security
| to open a laptop and have the apple watch immediately unlock
| it for them while standing 20 feet away (or in another room).
| sroussey wrote:
| You should spend a few minutes in setting. Continuity
| allows a mouse and keyboard to run multiple macs and iPads.
| You move the cursor all the way over to the end of the
| screen. It stops but if you push more it will switch to the
| neighboring Mac. Easy to disable in settings. You can
| unlock your other Mac this way (I think), and Apple Watch
| will unlock if you are close by. All changeable in
| settings.
| cj wrote:
| Problem is I like Apple Watch unlocking. But not randomly
| when I'm downstairs cooking dinner!
| highwaylights wrote:
| I don't really trust it. The sports bands (which I find
| most comfortable) are especially vulnerable to being
| "scooped" off the wrist with two fingers in a single
| motion without interrupting the presence detection.
| sroussey wrote:
| For sure!
|
| Now that I have an apple silicon Mac and a keyboard with
| touch id, I turned that feature off.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > There really should be a "Travel Mode" for MacOS that
| disables features like these.
|
| Sadly that is not the Apple way. We'll have to wait years
| for them to come up with a "solution" that doesn't involve
| a disable button. If they even decide to work on it.
| sneak wrote:
| Simply powering off the laptop already enables what the
| user is asking for. Apple has thought of this.
| naikrovek wrote:
| your optimism is contagious
| unxdfa wrote:
| I've disabled unlock with Apple Watch and bought a touch ID
| magic keyboard. This is a far better solution!
|
| It was neat for a couple of days until I was walking out of
| the room and my mac unlocked itself.
| kingkawn wrote:
| FYI the feds can legally compel you to use biometric
| scanning to open your device, but cannot compel you to
| give up passcodes.
|
| Last I heard
| scarface74 wrote:
| Because law enforcement always follows the rules and they
| don't employ rubber hose decryption.
| unxdfa wrote:
| Feds is not an attack vector that concerns me. My
| coworkers or kids changing my wallpaper or getting access
| to my kit is.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Can't they just touch the sensor like 3 times and then
| make you tell the password?
| krastanov wrote:
| I think you got this backwards. The 5th amendment means
| that the state can not force you to share information you
| have in your head, e.g. you can not be forced to give a
| password. But the state can force you to give a physical
| key, harware token, or a biometric read.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Can they force you to give up the post-it on which you
| wrote down your password? If yes, are there any real
| limits to how much pressure they can apply before they
| give up? If no, what's stopping them from giving you a
| pencil and a stack of post-its, and letting you know
| they'll keep applying pressure until you produce _a_
| post-it with the password on it, which they " _know_ "
| you have " _somewhere_ "?
|
| Point being, I feel this is getting into xkcd://538
| territory.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Oh yeah, for some reason my brain reversed the logic,
| thanks! :D
|
| Though certain EU courts can "make you give up" your
| password, as far as I know. Nonetheless, security is only
| good when it is used -- widely-used biometrics with a
| potentially stronger password (due to not having to enter
| it all the times) is statistically safer for the
| population over everyone having "password1" as a secret.
| Especially with a good fallback like emergency mode on
| iphone/apple watch. Afterwards only the password can
| unlock the device, and it is a single long press of two
| hardware buttons.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Definitely should be an os-level feature to disable all
| that, similar to using panic mode on ios to disable
| biometrics.
|
| I personally boot my laptops to the filevault screen and no
| further when going through the security checkpoints. Keeps
| the disk encrypted and requires my password to continue.
| highwaylights wrote:
| "Would you like to enter the password before or after I
| check in the back to see if we have any latex gloves
| left, sir?"
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Doesn't look like Filevault has a duress option--
| otherwise it'd be pretty nice to have a separate password
| that boots you to a dummy partition showing a fresh
| desktop install with apparently nothing on it. For bonus
| points, you could have the dummy OS kernel-patched so
| that it doesn't even show the other partitions as
| existing, and just pretends it's occupying the whole disk
| with mostly empty space.
|
| "That computer? Oh yeah, I just picked it up, officer;
| was going to start configuring it when when I arrive at
| my destination."
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Rookie mistake. It should have a shitload of random stuff
| on it, recently updated, _including_ something mildly
| embarrasing1 on it.
|
| 1: it depends on the person what that is, but it should
| be believable, "in character" so to speak.
| thomaslkjeldsen wrote:
| > There really should be a "Travel Mode" for MacOS that
| disables features like these.
|
| Have you tried macOS Lockdown Mode?
| mattpavelle wrote:
| macOS Lockdown Mode is not intended to be used by casual
| travelers to prevent unintended macOS unlocks.
|
| Per Apple, "Lockdown Mode is an optional, extreme
| protection that's designed for the very few individuals
| who, because of who they are or what they do, might be
| personally targeted by some of the most sophisticated
| digital threats. Most people are never targeted by
| attacks of this nature."
| lostlogin wrote:
| That seems a crazy way to keep mines mouse attached.
| sneak wrote:
| Powering off the computer will do that. The passphrase is
| always required on cold boot.
| unxdfa wrote:
| Mine doesn't do that at all (M1 14" MBP). Are you on an M1
| macbook or an Intel one out of interest?
| lancesells wrote:
| Keyboard Maestro and Shortcuts.app can turn it on and off on
| Sleep and Wake.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| This is hilarious. And people wonder why I'm such a Luddite.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| the best bit is when they want to squash features
| hamburglar wrote:
| This comment section is a sheer delight to anyone who's ever
| said they prefer wired headphones because of the flakiness of
| Bluetooth and had a chorus of people respond that they must
| be doing something wrong because Bluetooth "just works."
| vosper wrote:
| There's a thing called Kill Bluetooth on Sleep (KBOS) that
| works perfectly for me (2015 MacBook Pro)
|
| https://github.com/alb12-la/KBOS
| prepend wrote:
| I like how sleep works on my MacBook in that I can close my
| screen and open it back up to work in less than a second. On
| windows this doesn't work. Half the time my dell or Lenovo
| freeze up and the other half it hangs for seconds.
|
| However, I notice that it sleep mode it will have tons of
| network traffic and I wish there was a setting to make it
| really turn off when the lid is closed and not do anything.
| gligorot wrote:
| And you can't turn bluetooth off without logging in first, a
| feature which is available for WiFi. Horrendous UX decisions by
| Apple.
| threeseed wrote:
| > a feature which is available for WiFi
|
| I am not able to disable WiFi from the login screen.
|
| I think it would be a horrendous decision to allow random
| people to do this.
| porbelm wrote:
| Well if you have the Find My Device functionality enabled,
| not being able to turn off Bluetooth (and WiFi) is a _good_
| thing, since a thief cannot disable location deriving and
| reporting features by turning them off.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Surely the Bluetooth beacon/Find My Device workflow could
| be separated from the user accessible headphones use.
| gligorot wrote:
| I don't think those are connected...or at least it would be
| silly for that to be the case. Say your laptop was stolen
| when your BT was off for some random reason - does that
| mean you won't be able to find it?
| threeseed wrote:
| Bluetooth is a fundamental part of the Find My and
| broader Location Services stack.
|
| Low power devices like AirTag rely entirely on Bluetooth
| LE and the Find My network to determine their location.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > Horrendous UX decisions by Apple.
|
| Is there any OS that offers that by default? I don't remember
| ever seeing that on Windows or any linux distro I used.
| gligorot wrote:
| Whether other OSs do by default is irrelevant. Are you
| saying that I just be content with the ability to turn off
| WiFi?
|
| Besides, MacOS is cherished by many as a UX/UI masterpiece,
| yet there are many annoyances that need to be fixed by the
| user. For example window management is a big one, I simply
| haven't been able to achieve the comfort of i3 on my work
| Mac. (tmux comes close, but I can't run Firefox in there)
| I_am_tiberius wrote:
| In general they should finally open source the operating system.
| A close source system should not be called safe, private or
| secure.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| First, Apple does open source the core OS as Darwin. I
| appreciate your perspective, but I am curious why anyone would
| think that open sourcing the rest of it is even a remote
| possibility?
|
| As far as closed source being safe, I don't think open source
| is safe either. We have seen some horrendous exploitable bugs
| which lived in open source code for years. Just because
| something can be thoroughly audited, doesn't mean it is.
|
| I've personally been around a lot of years, and I'm just no
| longer convinced that a handful of sincere and enthusiastic
| volunteers can be better at security than a highly motivated,
| well paid, staff of competent engineers. These systems are just
| too complex nowadays. I get the concept of open source and
| having the ability to review the code, etc., but in practice
| stuff happens anyway in either case. Sorry for the rambling,
| but I guess I'm just not so convinced any more about the
| absolutist arguments concerning the relative merits. Maybe I'm
| just getting too cynical...
| rob-olmos wrote:
| Another annoying mic feature was older macbooks (before T2 I
| think) didn't have any built-in way to plug in the 3.5mm jack for
| a mic, and the usual sound output still be the internal speakers.
| Or an easy way to set the mic to monitor mode like in Windows.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| On the topic of closing and opening your MacBook, has anyone else
| had an issue where with an M1 any time they open it from sleep
| the cursor moves at like 20hz until you close it and open it
| again?
|
| It's been driving me mad and I can't find anything about it
| online.
| ryanianian wrote:
| My M1 often wakes from sleep only to beachball and 20hz-screen-
| refresh for 120-150 seconds. I think it's a thing with the
| memory-management. I have to restart the machine to fix it or
| it will happen every time I close the lid.
|
| Oh, and the machine forgets its audio settings when this
| happens, too. Always tries to revert to built-in speakers while
| it's closed despite having a CalTech hub with speakers I've
| selected dozens of times.
|
| I don't understand why laptops continue to have such weird
| power-management problems. I thought we fixed this stuff ages
| ago.
| BeenAGoodUser wrote:
| I have this issue when my MacBook Pro wakes up after its
| battery went empty, even once charged it doesn't go away and
| you have to restart it
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I had an issue that drove me mad where if the battery went to
| 0% (and macOS went into hibernate), I would then plug it back
| in and the mouse cursor would be quite... jittery. Almost to
| the point of unusable at the worst of it.
|
| macOS 13.1? appears to have solved this problem. Better late
| than never.
| whitepoplar wrote:
| Same here
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Oh!! I just finally updated to 13.1. I should test it out.
| Thanks for the reminder.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Oh I had the same jittery pointer but couldn't figure out the
| cause. Seems gone now so maybe it was fixed in the update.
| possiblelion wrote:
| Holy crap, same! I had the issue on my M1 MBP and now am having
| the same issue with my M2 MBA. Please anyone help if they know
| how to fix it.
| jarboot wrote:
| What fixed this for me was disabling siri
| ezekg wrote:
| If this really is the fix, I really need to know _why_.
| worksonmine wrote:
| She's using all resources to cleanup after the party she
| had while you were gone.
| tornato7 wrote:
| I have the same exact issue on my M1 MacBook Air. You can find
| plenty of others online with the same issue if you search
| 'cursor lag' - however I haven't found a working solution. If
| you figure it out please let me know!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I'm finding results now. How did I not find these earlier?!
| Thank you.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I am getting more and more frustrated with all the things Apple
| thinks I want my computer to do.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I am glad you all disagree with my personal feelings. :^/
| [deleted]
| pulse7 wrote:
| Please, just add a physical switch to disconnect the microphone
| and camera and even battery! Why the hell do we need special
| chips to do this? Every chip can be hacked... internet hackers
| can't turn on physical switches...
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| It doesn't sound like a special chip, it sounds like an optical
| relay hooked up to a Hall effect sensor. If magnetic connection
| is available, the optical relay will disconnect the microphone
| entirely. They just started doing this with T2+ models.
| notfed wrote:
| Is closing the lid the only way to do this? I never use my
| camera or mic. I'd be happy opening my laptop and switching a
| dip switch. Does one exist? Does anyone know?
| hermanb wrote:
| It is not disconnected by "a chip". It is disconnected by
| something that closely resembles a physical switch.
|
| This is the point of the article. There is no software
| involved. It can't be hacked.
| amsterdorn wrote:
| Too bad your phone doesn't have a privacy feature like this! The
| advertisers are always listening.
| rationalist wrote:
| While it's plausible and certainly a risk, I don't think anyone
| has presented any good evidence of it yet.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| Apple would have to make a foldable for such a feature to be
| acceptable for their target demographic.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Anyone claiming that is just not familiar with the processing
| requirements that would entail.
|
| Especially that you leave more than enough data for advertisers
| by simply using facebook/messenger and interacting with other
| people, or just searching google, it simply wouldn't make
| economic sense to create such a software/hardware which would
| drain batteries like no tomorrow, and open them up to serious
| backlash.
| iamspoilt wrote:
| Does that mean MacBook microphone cannot work while operating in
| Dock mode?
| havefunbesafe wrote:
| Imagine how terribly it would work, given that the mic is
| adjacent to the speakers.
| jaysinn_420 wrote:
| Yes, that is exactly what it means.
| amf12 wrote:
| This is an interesting use case that is worth mentioning. This
| feature would make MacBook unusable for me unless I use a
| Bluetooth headset.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Yes, and it's incredibly annoying.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I guess this fits the situation: https://xkcd.com/1172/
|
| It probably wouldn't work well due to the obstruction anyway.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| When will Europe say they can do this?
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| This title is slightly confusing. I was thinking that closing my
| MacBook disables this privacy feature
| O__________O wrote:
| Title was updated, but for context, prior to editing by HN
| mods, HN's title for the post read, "Closing your MacBook
| hardware disconnects microphone, safety/privacy feature" -- was
| confusing edit made by OP; current title now mirrors title on
| Apple.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I know some of the reasoning, but I find it really obnoxious the
| way it kills the wifi when switching users. I often am bouncing
| back and forth, I get the reasoning, but it would be nice if
| there was a setting to stop that.
| unscrew5430 wrote:
| I wonder whether one would be able to do passive sound
| reconstruction using the laptops camera, as it isn't being
| deactivated. I guess you would only be able to extract sounds
| lower than ~30Hz if the camera records at 60Hz, but that should
| be enough to detect steps for example. Not that this has real
| privacy implications, but I think that would be a fun way of
| disproving that no sound can be recorded.
| janniks wrote:
| I was recently trying to figure out whether the microphone is
| usable when using my notebook in clamshell-mode. Turns out Apple
| added a privacy/safety feature to all Apple silicon-based Mac
| notebooks and Intel-based Mac notebooks with the Apple T2
| Security Chip. It will hardware disconnect the microphone when
| the lid is closed, based on the lid sensors.
|
| Pretty cool safety feature!! Even though I'm sad I can't use my
| mic in clamshell mode
| dheera wrote:
| And how are we supposed to trust Apple that this is in fact
| what's happening?
|
| With a Framework laptop I have a hardware physical switch and I
| can actually open it up and see the PCB trace and verify that
| it disconnects the microphone.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Hardware physical switches are a gimmick feature - if you
| can't trust your OS to that degree, then you surely have
| bigger problems than your microphone.
| dheera wrote:
| Of course I can never trust a closed source OS like MacOS.
|
| Linux is a little better. But it's not just the OS. I might
| be in a Google Meet call where I have given microphone
| access, but can I trust the mute button? I'd rather have a
| physical mute.
| zamnos wrote:
| At the point that you're opening up the laptop and chasing
| traces, you can do the same thing with Apple devices (with a
| bit more difficulty). It's not like they're made with
| rainbows and moonbeams. If you're at that level of paranoia
| (no judgement if it's justified or not) and have the skill
| to, just open up the Apple device and chase PCB traces. If
| you go down that route, iFixit's a good resource with lots of
| helpful pictures. (But still sometimes not enough.)
| dheera wrote:
| If it's in-chip, it won't be with PCB traces, it would be
| solid state inside the chip and you wouldn't be able to
| verify without inspecting the wafer, which is way outside
| my area of expertise. It doesn't sound like there's a
| mechanical relay that they are using for this.
|
| There's also that if it's inside the chip, there is a risk
| that malicious software or buggy firmware can still enable
| it against your permission.
|
| With a Framework laptop you can peel back the bezel and
| it's right there in plain sight. If the switch is in the
| off position it's a hard physical break to the microphone
| circuit. There is no possible software that can enable the
| microphone.
| zamnos wrote:
| Nothing can beat a physical switch but even if it's solid
| state, unless it's in the CPU itself (it isn't) there
| still need to be traces in/on the PCB to bring the data
| from the microphone to the rest of the system, so just
| probe those traces when the lid is open vs closed. Or
| learn how to decap chips. There are some really awesome
| videos out there about that on YouTube!
|
| More importantly though, Apple learned their lesson with
| the iSight which had a software-based activation LED.
| They assumed a random script kiddie wouldn't have the
| smarts to be able to hack the kext kernel module to turn
| the camera on without also turning the LED on.
| Unfortunately they learned about the Internet shortly
| thereafter where random script kiddies were able to get
| instructions on how to modify that kext, leading to some
| embarrassing moments, for some (possibly naked) high
| school teens, and for Apple.
|
| Thats why the linked article is very careful to
| specifically mention that even having root and being able
| to manipulate kexts is not enough to silently use the
| microphone while closed.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35059224
| ademup wrote:
| I would really like to know why this comment was down voted.
| It is a perfectly valid question with a rational explanation.
| Indeed, I was surprised to have needed to scroll down so far
| to find it, as it was the very first question that popped
| into my head as well.
| sixothree wrote:
| People are willing to put their love of Apple products over
| their values for open and verifiable hardware.
| manv1 wrote:
| One could say that, given the market share, that the vast
| majority people don't care a whit about open and
| verifiable hardware.
| sixothree wrote:
| Agreed. But Framework does seem to prove there is _some_
| interest. Regardless. I find it strange that people flock
| to Apple products when Microsoft clearly embraces open
| source in more ways than Apple.
| r00fus wrote:
| Just use a headset or external mic. If you're in clamshell
| you're probably at your desk/home office so that's quite
| reasonable.
|
| Also nice - if I'm WFH and one of my family walks in with some
| drama, I close the lid, go clamshell mode, and I am quite sure
| any corporate spyware isn't listening in.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| I wish there were good quality webcams without microphones.
| My external microphone has a mute switch but my Streamcam mic
| is still available to any corporate spyware.
| reductum wrote:
| I wish the same. In the meantime, I like using these
| physical USB switches to easily disconnect my webcam when
| not in use: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X82661H
| itslennysfault wrote:
| [flagged]
| crazygringo wrote:
| The microphone is located inside the left speaker grille
| anyways, so it would be terribly muffled in clamshell mode
| anyways.
|
| Note this is in contrast to previous models where the
| microphone had a tiny hole on the left edge (next to USB-C
| ports) and it could be used in clamshell mode.
|
| Which at first I thought felt like a downgrade... but the
| reality is that your laptop isn't usually in a good position
| for mic pickup when it's closed anyways -- people often keep it
| off to the side or something, under a monitor riser, etc. While
| the speaker grille location, being front-facing rather than
| side-facing, is far better for picking up voice when using the
| laptop normally. And that anybody using a mic in clamshell mode
| usually already has one in their webcam or AirPods or headset
| or a dedicated mic anyways.
|
| So all in all it seems to work out pretty well.
| bilekas wrote:
| The 2015 pro model i have is an absolute nightmare for the
| fan as the mic was picking up the noise of the fan and so the
| CPU was working overtime to cancel the noise leading to
| cascading fan and heat noise.
|
| Ended up just disabling it completely permanently. Was a
| particularly bad design i think.
| philsnow wrote:
| > The microphone is located inside the left speaker grille
| anyways, so it would be terribly muffled in clamshell mode
| anyways
|
| I don't think the hardware disable is meant as a UX
| convenience ("let's always disable it in clamshell mode
| because it sounds terrible"), as that could have just been
| done in software. It's meant for people privacy-conscious
| people who want to see a closed laptop and be able to assume
| it's not recording.
|
| Meanwhile, I'm looking at this throwaway aside in the
| article:
|
| > (The camera isn't disconnected in hardware, because its
| field of view is completely obstructed with the lid closed.)
|
| and thinking to myself that somebody is going to figure out
| how to record audio given just the "completely obstructed"
| view of the camera.
|
| There's a long history of attackers reliably detecting
| logging keys with audio using just inter-keystroke latency
| and some histograms, or easily figuring out PINs tapped out
| on a phone screen because the OS doesn't bother putting
| access to accelerometers or gyroscopes behind an app
| permission. Attackers get very creative, especially when
| they're told that something is "impossible".
| zamnos wrote:
| Recording sound from a video-only device that has been
| covered, with no hardware modifications would be a really
| really neat trick! Using Van Eck phreaking against all
| sorts of hardware is fascinating to me. FM radio broadcast
| from how RAM gets accessed and things like that. Maybe
| noise in the camera sensor can be used to pick up noise
| from the microphone on the motherboard (which is where the
| microphone is on Apple Silicon devices). I'm not going to
| say it's impossible, but it seems highly unlikely given
| everything else in play.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| > There's a long history of attackers reliably detecting
| logging keys with audio using just inter-keystroke latency
| and some histograms
|
| I wrote some fiction about this. The cosmic microwave
| background is hiding an audio signal. It's the sound of a
| keyswitch. Humanity uses the radio astronomy equivalent of
| these techniques to discover which keystroke caused the big
| bang.
| prettyStandard wrote:
| Can confirm with my older MacBook that anytime I try to use
| the microphone with the lid closed people always complain.
| j45 wrote:
| I have leaned on the clamshell mode mic from time to time as
| well.
|
| Tbh getting a simple but high quality mic has been nice.
|
| It picked up a Steelseries Tusk.
|
| It was the highest recording quality I could find for in ear
| headphone with a small boom mic for the dollar.
|
| Easy to leave one each in my bag and desks if I like it. I'm
| considering finding a way to use the mic only.
|
| It doesn't hurt to be the clearest sounding person by a long
| shot on most calls.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Tusq-Mobile-Gaming-
| Headse...
|
| https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/steelseries/tusq ..
| the recording quality section is of interest.
| fsflover wrote:
| The correct solution would be to have a hardware kill switch
| for the microphone (and camera). This is exactly what Purism
| laptops offer.
| kube-system wrote:
| When it comes to privacy, for the vast majority of users,
| sane defaults are better than requiring the user to take
| manual action.
| victor106 wrote:
| Exactly!!!
|
| This might seem like I am an Apple fanboy but I am not, I
| have plenty issues with Apple products but when it comes to
| Privacy Apple is the only company amongst the big tech we
| can trust.
|
| Microsoft, Google, Facebook are all anti-privacy and just
| about using dar patterns to steal users info. It's
| disgusting.
| kube-system wrote:
| I wouldn't leap that far, I'm just talking about the lid
| switch on a laptop here.
| fsflover wrote:
| > when it comes to Privacy Apple is the only company
| amongst the big tech we can trust
|
| No, it's not:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26644216.
| j45 wrote:
| Even if it was configurable to disable either.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| No, that's not the "correct solution". It's _another valid
| solution_ , with a different set of costs and benefits.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I'd rather have an LED on the same circuit as the microphone.
| If it's live, it has to send current through it. Easy to
| observe.
| sdfhbdf wrote:
| Probably not in Apple's "it just works" design philosophy.
| Also that's another moving piece that can break.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| I mean... it doesnt seem uncommon to have people dock a
| closed laptop so I would argue it doesnt "just work".
| dymk wrote:
| How would a microphone work with the lid closed anyways?
| It'd be muffled. If you're docking your laptop closed,
| you've got an external webcam / mic if you need those
| inputs.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| The same way it used to work, by putting the input on the
| external facing portion of the case. Or even better, have
| both so that it can optimize for the current clamshell
| mode.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Two+ tiny holes at the top of the lid facing upwards when
| the lid is open and at you when the lid is closed
| brutusurp wrote:
| The position of the mic on the newer laptops is
| unmuffled. It's actually a very high-quality signal that
| can't be muffled. The only way to quiet it is to "kill"
| it; disconnect it.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Why would I need to get mic if I have it in laptop? It
| makes very little sense to me.
| dymk wrote:
| So then you dock it with the lid open, in which case the
| mic and camera work fine and aren't muffled...
| OmarAssadi wrote:
| For the same reason you might have other external
| peripherals. A laptop, realistically, can only fit
| something so decent inside of it. The 2020+ MacBooks do
| have surprisingly OK internal mics, but that's about all
| they are: OK.
|
| Maybe I'm just an extra-big baby about it all. But what I
| find a little annoying with the COVID-era of work-from-
| home and distance learning is how few people seem to care
| about audio. Even as a teenager on TeamSpeak, rather than
| getting a more expensive graphics card or whatever, I
| spent my money on an SM7B. Now it is more important than
| ever.
|
| Maybe this isn't reasonable, but I feel like if not for
| yourself, to prevent "sorry, can you repeat that?"
| moments, you kind of owe it to the people who have to
| listen to you. Like as an autistic person, hearing a
| dozen people's overlapping background static, tinny
| compressed audio, etc, it really, truly slowly drives me
| nuts. I can't deal with that level of auditory sensory
| stuff all day. If someone has a bad microphone, I want
| out of the call ASAP.
|
| A Shure SM58 will last you a lifetime, fit on your desk,
| cost <$100, and no one will ever complain about sound
| again.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| People don't know how bad they sound. It's as simple as
| that I think, there is no easy monitor functionality in
| Teams and friends like the preview image for camera, so
| there is no urgency.
| slavik81 wrote:
| The laptop microphone will pick up whatever noise is in
| the room. It's easier to filter out background noise with
| a microphone that is closer to your mouth.
| dymk wrote:
| This is a hardware kill switch, in the form of a (set of)
| transistors
| fsflover wrote:
| Can it be reprogrammed?
| jeffbee wrote:
| No. It is bare logic.
| fsflover wrote:
| Interesting. Note however that my comment was a reply to
| "I can't use my mic in clamshell mode". A normal kill
| switch would solve this.
| earlyam wrote:
| A cool feature on laptops would be a jumper you could
| physically disconnect, and a tiny window (on say, the bottom
| of the laptop) to verify it hasn't been reconnected.
| kube-system wrote:
| If you need a window on the case of your laptop to verify
| that your hardware hasn't been tampered with, you've got
| bigger problems.
| meltyness wrote:
| You're against transparent technology?
| alin23 wrote:
| In case you or anyone else needs to disable the MacBook screen
| and still use the mic, camera, keyboard, trackpad etc. I added
| a feature called BlackOut in my Lunar app that can do that
| (https://lunar.fyi/#blackout).
|
| This allows "clamshell mode" without closing the lid.
| _(although some people might want to close the lid for desk
| aesthetics, this feature is not for them)_
|
| On Apple Silicon with macOS Ventura the feature can really
| disconnect the screen by Command-clicking the power button:
| https://shots.panaitiu.com/x52NJxpR
|
| There's also a write-up on how I reverse engineered this
| feature: https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/turn-off-macbook-
| display-clams...
|
| _On older systems, BlackOut mimics a disconnect by setting the
| screen to 0 brightness and mirroring it to avoid windows
| getting trapped there._
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| haha, that was a really interesting writeup. It looked a lot
| like the process I end up following when I try to reverse
| engineer something
|
| The whole way through I kept wondering "Wow, I wonder how
| he's going to tie this all together in the end!" .. and then
| I got to the end
| cscharenberg wrote:
| This is incredible software. Thank you for linking to it. It
| has features I've long wished for in a laptop!
| samstave wrote:
| >> _" Apple silicon-based Mac"_
|
| What does "silicon-based" - mean? What other computer is not
| 'silicon-based'?
|
| --
|
| Is there a way to mechanize the HW detachment of microphone
| connections at will while using the machine open?
|
| That would be great - if you had a physical switch on the side
| of machine, which physicall moves the mic wire a mm away from
| the contact.
|
| ---
|
| Weird thing - I put tape over my webcam at all times, unless in
| use, obv.
|
| After some time I received a pop-up alert on windows 11 and it
| lasted briefly, and went away - but freaked me out: " _You
| should unblock your webcam_ " or something to that effect, I
| dont have the exact wording - but it was an alert telling me to
| unblock visibility of my webcam - I think it may have mentioned
| something about UX reasons - but it happened so quick I missed
| all the wording.
|
| Yeah - tape over your cams.
|
| ----
|
| It would be cool to have a phone case where is the case screen-
| facing-flap is closed, it pulls the wool over the eyes of the
| front-facing cams, so even in 'sleep' mode when the case is
| closed, the phones cams are all covered... but the mic is a
| different creature.
|
| ------
|
| Remember when NSA was intercepting cisco equipment to install
| HW back doors in devices shipped to 'enemy' states.
|
| We have known forever about NSA HW backdoors...
|
| but a case that can manipulate the HW MIC switchoff mechanism
| of a phone with such capability would be cool.
|
| Else ; we need 100% trustworthy ability to disable our Spy-
| Pilots.
| weberer wrote:
| "Apple Silicon" is the brand of processors.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_silicon
| samstave wrote:
| Ah, thank you.
| hoosieree wrote:
| Silicon-based, not to be confused with those nice vintage
| germanium-based Apple products from the '60s.
| sirsar wrote:
| > >>"Apple silicon-based Mac" > What does "silicon-based" -
| mean? What other computer is not 'silicon-based'?
|
| Read as (Apple silicon)-based.
| samstave wrote:
| Thank you. Wasn't aware.
| sixothree wrote:
| I assume clamshell mode would affect heat dissipation through
| the keyboard.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| If I'm reading correctly, this also removes one of the 20
| potential issues with clamshell mode. Unfortunatley there are
| still plenty of other issues with clamshell mode :/
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