What does the notch hide on Apple laptops?

The new MacBook Pros have been official since Monday and with them comes a revamped design giving pride of place to thinner borders fora very successful case/diagonal ratio. For the final result, however, we will come back: the full screen experience is seriously spoiled by a prominent notch. And this is not just an aesthetic opinion. Indeed, the characteristics of the intruder are puzzling in many respects…

A good camera?

According to official information provided by Apple, the FaceTime HD camera on MacBook Pros with M1 Pro chip only offers a definition of 1080p (this is already better than before) accompanied by a “advanced image signal processor with computer video processing“. So find out what that means, if it's not just a simple indication dedicated to making people forget that nothing other than a simple standard quality lens is integrated behind the notch.

No TrueDepth sensor dedicated to modeling the face in three dimensions to then unlock the device, therefore. Face ID was, however, the excuse fornotchon iPhone for several years: hard to believe it now. Furthermore, Windows PCs do very well with facial recognition without risking distorting the content displayed on the screen. We can also citethe most expensive iPads, whose space between the slices and the slab is even more compact without any punch being necessary.

Serious disadvantages

Although developers can occupy the entire surface surrounding the notch (to the right, left and below) with their apps, as recently confirmed in a support document from Apple, most platforms like DaVinci Resolve do not are not yet up to date accordingly.

This is even the case at Cupertino itself, as we can see on Logic Pro and Xcode. Finally, let us point out that the mouse can pass under the notch, a sign that the system really recognizes a rectangular image. But like those who use multiple monitors, the risk of wasting time identifying the position of your pointer is great.

L’argument marketing

In reality, like the unsightly and useless stem of the AirPods, this notch probably responds more to a question of brand image than to a real technical need. Indeed, with your MacBook Pro equipped with this specificity, you will definitely not go unnoticed at the BU. Your colleagues will then immediately know that you are ready to spend the equivalent of their quarterly salary to show off in the canteen.

“But no, it's a computer that's truly more powerful than all the others!” →non.