According to the same leaker who was first to mention Apple was bringing a stupid, rather pointless notch to the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, the next-generation MacBook Air scheduled to be released in 2022 will also feature the same black mark on its display.
In a forum post from August discussing the new MacBook Pro models, leaker Ty98 said that the next-generation MacBook Air will include the same notch that Apple is introducing for the MacBook Pro.
He also said that the MacBook Air will “look much better” as Apple plans to eliminate the current wedge design. The MacBook Air has long had a design that transitions from thicker at the back to thinner at the front. The leaker claims that the next MacBook Air will have a “very round and light” design.
It is expected to feature a 13-inch mini-LED display…
MacDailyNews Take: The MacBook Pro’s unnecessary notch is literally a black mark on an otherwise near-perfect machine.
And next year, Apple will mar the MacBook Air with a Stupid Notch™, too.
“We couldn’t figure out how to do it elegantly (read: right), so we’ll spread it everywhere to make it look intentional” is hardly a winning design philosophy.
Or any design philosophy. It’s just bad marketing. “Unapologetically plastic,” as it were. — MacDailyNews, October 19, 2021
The fact that Apple adds an artificial black bar in their apps to try to hide the notch tells you all you need to know.
BTW: this is not to say that the MacBook Pro is not the best portable personal computer ever made. It is. We’re just saying that the notch is ill-considered pointlessness that adds unnecessary complexity for no good reason.
Apple’s Stupid Notch™ doesn’t even deliver Face ID to the Mac and, even if it did, it’s not worth the obstruction.
It’s not at all difficult to imagine hearing Steve Jobs saying, “That’s shit. Stop wasting my time. If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.”
Even crap Windows PC peddlers like HP, Lenovo, and Dell can manage to include cameras on their laptops that don’t cut into the displays and content when they’re not trying to be hidden outright with a faux bezel in software.
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Dead on target as usual, MacDailyNews.
It’s also not difficult to imagine Tim Cook nodding without even looking at it while his attention is focused on solar panel pamphlets, gay pride parade flyers, or catalogs for bowlegged pants.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay, whatever. They still bought iPhones with the thing, so… If they want a Mac, what other choice do they have anyway?”
5 stars for “catalogs for bowlegged pants.”
Hey MDN, it is time to start viewing the inelegant kludge as a feature rather than a deficit!!
Lost all credibility with this characterization, revealing fear more about your own prejudices and homophobia than any technical or design knowledge.
F A C T C H E C K :
There is nothing “homophobic” about Brutal Truth’s comment above.
False accusations diminish the power of the word.
Saying that Tim Cook might be perusing “gay pride parade flyers” is funny, and very likely something that HAS actually happened multiple times in the past. It does not connote prejudice or dislike. Likewise, Brutal Truth is not “solarphobic” nor does he have a phobia relating to the “bowlegged.”
You are confused. You do not understand the word “homophobia.” You should stop using it until you do.
Well there goes his arsenal…
With that kind of arsenal you can deliver a real pounding!
With that kind of arsenal you look like an idiot.
The notch isn’t bad looking at all. Just don’t put a hole in the screen.
I don’t mind the knotch, having it gives us a bigger screen and a camera!
You already had a camera on MacBooks without the Stupid Notch™.
A fake black bar across the top of apps to hide the Stupid Notch™ gives you the same display area as would a bezel neatly containing a camera.
The display area is not always obscured by a black bar. If it were, you would effectively never notice the notch.
Yes, we had cameras before. No, the prior bezels were not this narrow. Wide bezels allow you to put a LOT of things behind that metal. Get rid of the metal and where would you “Logic Lesson” put that camera?
Dell Precision 5560 (below, click for larger image). Thin bezels with the camera system not cutting into the display.
As noted by MDN above, HP, Lenovo, etc. all have figured this out and implemented it better than Apple.
Dang Someone email this image to Tim Cook properly. Before everything has a notch
Just wait, the Windows computer manufacturer will even copy the notch for their laptops! LOL
It is far more likely that PC makers will follow the punchout camera hole trend or do that with a one-way mirror type display patch over the punchout to more completely hide it without resorting to notches.
Some of us speculated that things at Apple might get better when Jony Ive left, but I think they’ve actually gotten worse.
Ah, MDN, I’m sure with your multiple PhDs in mechanical, electronics, and optics engineering and design you have done much, much better with that very narrow bezel on the top while not impacting the visual space!
Feel free to post your design drawings that Apple should have used!
(And for the record, I hate the notch on my iPhones and probably soon 16″ MacBook Pro with the M1 Max. I just don’t have the solution that MDN clearly seems to have.)
Ah, the old loser’s “attack the messenger because you can’t refute the message” move.
Always a classic.
Dell Precision 5560 (below, click for larger image). Thin bezels with the camera system not cutting into the display.
The Dell Precision 5560’s camera system consists of:
Infrared emitter
RGB-infrared camera 720p
Ambient-light sensor (adjusts keyboard backlight brightness)
Camera-status light
The MacBook Pro notch housing consists of:
1080p camera
True Tone sensor (adjusts screen temperature to match ambient environment)
Light sensor (to adjust keyboard backlight brightness)
Camera-status light
I suspect the 1080p camera and the TrueTone sensor are forcing Apple to work with more space than the thin bezels allow. Both the Precision and XPS still sport 720p cameras. But this could also be a bullshit marketing move to make the MacBooks have a distinctive look. No idea.
All of Apple’s brilliant engineers and designers just put back Magsafe, the function keys, HDMI port and SD Card slot that everyone was screaming at them for taking away 5 years ago, sounds like a bunch of idiots to me. The Stupid Notch™ exists because it’s a cost saving move by Apple like almost everything. The camera is much smaller than the notch, maybe they’ll include Face ID next year, but in any case it was cheaper to leave this placeholder than to design something elegant and then spend 0.001% of their cash to retool next year. The bean counters know that it won’t impact sales much and with their inflated prices (no cost savings for in-house silicon of course) they won’t feel a thing.
Well said! Exactly my thoughts… Sheesh!
The solution is simple, just make the bezel a tiny bit larger. Bezels serve a useful purpose, I have never understood the obsession with eliminating them.
Pretty sure you can’t say “black mark” anymore. That’s racist!
Ya’ll are insane. Yep, I’m sure Apple added a notch because they’re lazy and poor engineers.
Either that, or the MBP lid is so insanely thin that they need the entire thickness for the camera module. Rather than making a quarter-inch bezel across the top they decided to may a mini-quarter-inch-bezel only where they need it.
THAT WAY THEY COULD GIVE USERS 74 PIXELS OF FREE SPACE ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT OF THE NOTCH. Which actually corresponds quite nicely with the thickness of the menu bar. So the menu bar disappears from the body of the screen, giving full screen for viewing, and yet its functions are there, as before, when needed.
If developers prefer a quarter-inch bezel across the top, they can add a nice black strip across the top.
Or maybe you’d prefer a smaller screen? Or a bigger lid?
Ya’ll are insane.
If Apple so greatly values the “74 PIXELS OF FREE SPACE ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT OF THE NOTCH,” why do they fill it in with empty black on all of their apps, faking the hardware bezel that should be there if their camera array were properly designed?
If Apple actually valued the “74 PIXELS OF FREE SPACE ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT OF THE NOTCH,” they’d use it, not try to hide it in all of their apps.
Not to mention: the Dell XPS and Precision sport 720p camera and don’t have a TrueTone sensor.
I also expect Apple made this move to bring FaceID in a future iteration of the laptop
The Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen 4 has a 1080 camera.
Yeah, and a thick forehead bezel to match.
This confirms that Apple needed the notch to fit the 1080p camera. I’d much rather the notch than Lenovo’s implementation.
Lenovo’s is hardly a thick bezel. I had planned to purchase two new MacBook Pros. Not now, I’ll wait until the notch is gone.
Seventy pixels out of two thousand plus pixels is not a great gain of screen space. I’d far rather have the iPad Pro approach – classy. This looks like some of the work Apple used to criticize.
“Imagine putting a piece of electrical tape on your laptop at the 12 O’clock position…permanently.”
”The notch is a distraction, as if someone left a barbecue sauce thumbprint in the middle of the top of my screen when opening it.”
Yes I’d prefer a smaller screen or a bigger lid, 100%. We’re talking a few millimeters here, barely noticeable. That notch is a big ugly glaring black splotch that my eyes are constantly drawn to, I hate it. I know some people can tune it out, must be nice.
Nice to see Tim Cook is keeping Apples long tradition of doing 99% insanely great, and pairing that with 1 insanely stupid but always a MAJOR mistake. The hockey puck moronic mouse comes to mind.
Agree with your note, except to point out that the hockey puck moronic mouse pre-dated Tim Cook.
Mac users. Look at your menu bar. Is there currently anything in the middle of it? No, okay. So how about we move it up above your current screen and put the camera in the unused space. Cool idea no? And hey, if you use Dark Mode it goes away entirely.
The fuss is misplaced. It looks fine. Fullscreen modes on programs and what not don’t show it. Move on.
“Meh, it looks fine.”
Certainly that’s the customer sentiment Steve Jobs was always shooting for.
I have stuff all across my menubar. Now I’ll have space — for less.
Need Fight II
Return of the Red-ass
Dammit it’s NERD Fight.
Ohhh for christ-sake people.. GET A GRIP! You’re gonna WHINE about this when you have a 10 core CPU and a 16-32 GPU at your disposal??? I know as a Professional Media provider… none of us true creatives are complaining about a thing. In fact, we’re rejoicing! I guess some of you are without a job or a life… suggest you GET ONE!
“Whine” is the precise description of this babble on. Advocacy of buying from that great product innovator Dell is an indication of some needed time on a therapist’s couch. Bizarre.
The iPhone, notch and all, is selling at never before volumes and profitability. The new MacBook Pros will likewise do so. Apple may make a few tech readers unhappy, but the rest of the world loves their products and designs.
Apple bit the bullet and put a notch in the MBP display for a couple of reasons.
1) The mini-LED backlight has increased the thickness of the display panel so a ‘hole punch’ solution is not viable unless the lid is made much thicker, like the enclosure of the iPad Pros. Simple pjs ice dictates that the camera electronics and LED backlight cannot occupy the same space
2) Apple will be adding FaceID to Macs shortly after FaceID 2.0 launches in upcoming iPhones. By putting the notch in now, one that is large enough for future camera features like FaceID, Apple eliminates the need to redesign the display and modify the macOS UI a second time.
It is utterly amazing how certain Apple fans become apoplectic whenever Apple makes a design decision that they don’t like.
The sky isn’t falling Chicken Littles!
If Apple would have done it this way, I would have ordered two MacBook Pros. I was ready to order a great machine. Not now. Sadly disappointed. Just cannot spend that much money on something like this:
“Imagine putting a piece of electrical tape on your laptop at the 12 O’clock position…permanently.”
”The notch is a distraction, as if someone left a barbecue sauce thumbprint in the middle of the top of my screen when opening it.”
Has anyone considered what this would look like on a white bezel? Waited for new Air but already dumped the idea because of white bezel. I wonder how many will not buy because of no headphone jack, mini sd slot and the right screen. Lots of people need these and can not afford to pay more to switch to Apples accessories and throw what they have away. They would then have a $2000 Air. This will hit Apples pocket book. Wait to see what Dell is coming out with. Very few window users will jump ship to get a Air for $$2000 when all is done. Whit all the colors does this mean a plastic case?
Did Apple botch the notch? Or should we snitch on the b!tch that leaked the news? It’s Apple niche, that’s for sure, Natch!!
It’s officially part of the Apple ecosystem 🙂
OMG…. still complaining about “the notch” since 2017 ??? Guys… it’s time to get over it!
You won’t even notice it when you use the Laptop!!!