[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 :/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-03-07 23:00 UTC)