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By Doohickey-d 2025-09-0720:285 reply The lid angle sensor is also serialized to the motherboard: you cannot replace it, or the motherboard, without performing calibration, which can be performed by an apple authorized service provider, or alternatively, in Europe (and elsewhere where Apple offers parts for self-service repair), you can purchase the sensor from Apple, connect the machine to the internet after replacing it, to then perform the calibration, only if the sensor was purchased from Apple.
So the hardware is capable of performing the calibration, Apple just does not graciously grant you the right to install a recycled or third party sensor in your machine.
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/759262/Torn+Lid+angle+se...
By userbinator 2025-09-0721:522 reply They call it "calibration" when it's presumably nothing more than writing a serial number to an EEPROM somewhere. See also the related story of sabotaging iPad screens to work but subtly degrade when the serials don't match, and cameras that only semi-work when swapped (with genuine original Apple parts). This type of pathological lying that Apple loves to do is why I'll never buy or recommend to others any of their products.
https://github.com/Vladislav98759/Macbook-Lid-Angle-Sensor-C...
No, it actually does set the zero point.
By userbinator 2025-09-081:471 reply Interesting but that proves the point even more --- it's hardly "calibration" when it effectively does nothing more than write constants to the EEPROM. They certainly have enough processing power in the machine to do that automatically too without needing anything more, but instead they make everyone go through a whole song-and-dance to do this trivial process; which doesn't even require Apple's involvement.
"Set the angle to 0 (closed) and press Enter. Open 10 degrees and press Enter. Repeat for every 10 degrees from 0 to 170" would be an example of actual calibration.
By nomel 2025-09-084:35 Minimum angle seen during a full motion would be perfectly reasonable.
By awesome_dude 2025-09-084:33 3rd party keyboard :)
By kif 2025-09-084:47 LOL. I really hope this is sarcasm.
By Bud 2025-09-083:58 [dead]
By Nathan2055 2025-09-080:527 reply Okay so here's the argument I've heard: if arbitrary replacements of the lid sensor were possible, it would be feasible to create a tampered sensor that failed to detect the MacBook closing, thus preventing it from entering sleep mode.
This could then be combined with some software on the machine to turn a MacBook into a difficult to detect recording device, bypassing protections such as the microphone and camera privacy alerts, since the MacBook would be closed but not sleeping.
Additionally, since the auto-locking is also tied to triggering sleep mode, it would be possible to gain access to a powered off device, switch the sensors, wait for the user to attempt to sleep mode the device, and then steal it back, completely unlocked with full access to the drive.
Are these absolutely ridiculous, James Bond-tier threat assessments? Yes, absolutely. But they're both totally feasible (and not too far off from exploits I've heard about in real life), and both are completely negated by simply serializing the lid sensor.
Should Apple include an option, buried in recoveryOS behind authentication and disk unlock steps like the option to allow downgrades and allow kernel extensions, that enables arbitrary and "unauthorized" hardware replacements like this? Yes, they really should. If implemented correctly, it would not harm the security profile of the system while still preventing the aforementioned exploits.
There are good security reasons for a lot of what Apple does. They just tend to push a little too far beyond mitigating those security issues into doing things which start to qualify as vendor lock-in.
I really wish people would start to recognize where the line should be drawn, rather than organizing into "security of the walled garden" versus "freedom of choice" groups whenever these things get brought up. You can have both! The dichotomy itself is a fiction perpetuated to defend the status quo.
The line should be drawn by the owner of the device.
As the user and owner of the product, I should be the sole decider about my own security posture, not some company who doesn’t know my use case or needs.
It’s crazy how we’ve managed to normalize the manufacturer making these kinds of blanket decisions on our behalf.
By clickety_clack 2025-09-082:09 Yes it’s wild. Imagine if we decided that people can’t be relied on to install good locks for their doors, so we gave the government responsibility for locking and unlocking your door every time you wanted to leave your house.
A lid sensor is just so peripheral. Where do the vendor lock-ins end?
By vlovich123 2025-09-081:112 reply How does Apple know the owner of the product has authorized the HW change?
There’s a secondary argument you could make here whereby because the replacements must be valid Apple parts that have uniform behavior and tolerances, the strength of the secondary market is stronger and Apple products have a stronger resale value as a result, because you’re not going to encounter a MacBook with an arbitrary part replaced that you as the second-hand buyer know nothing about (this is why the secondary market for cars doesn’t work without the ability to lookup the car history by VIN).
By userbinator 2025-09-081:49 Apple doesn't need to know. Once it's sold Apple is no longer the owner.
By doubled112 2025-09-082:361 reply That car comparison doesn't work here. You can't be sure about the true history of a car, only what was reported.
When I replace a wheel bearing assembly in my driveway, you still can't see that by looking up my VIN. Nobody knows except myself and the person I bought the parts from.
Was it a dealer part? An OEM part? A poor quality replacement? Can't tell without looking.
This might actually support Apple's side of the argument, although I do not. I don't think we need some Carfax equivalent for MacBooks.
This might actually support Apple's side of the argument, although I do not. I don't think we need some Carfax equivalent for MacBooks.
In some ways, Apple's scheme is better than Carfax. In other ways, it's worse.
It's worse because you can't get access to the repair history of a device.
It's better because you can actually have a reasonable degree of confidence that no "driveway repairs" have taken place since Apple's scheme is not known to be broken.
By buzzerbetrayed 2025-09-083:491 reply This is my biggest complaint with the strict "my device, my rules" people.
I want Apple to lock down my device to customization, repairs, etc..
I know I am never going to install an app through means other than the app store, even if I could. I know I'm never going to repair my device through anyone other than Apple, even if I could. I want to know that my device will be a $1,000 paperweight to anyone who steals it.
I want to pay Apple to ensure there are no "driveway repairs".
A number of years ago I accidentally ended up with a second hand iPhone with a shitty "fake" screen repair. I had no way of knowing it wasn't an Apple screen. But it fucked me over as soon as it started failing a couple months after I bought it.
I get tired of the people demanding that a company, with willing, paying customers, isn't allowed to protect their customers because they want something the company doesn't offer. Fuck right off with that shit and buy from a company that does offer that.
By worthless-trash 2025-09-084:301 reply I feel your'e just mad because your expectations of buying a second hand phone were not met.
By vlovich123 2025-09-084:47 I had a similar experience myself paying for screen repair in SF and getting back a phone with a butchered display. Why wouldn’t you get mad for spending money and not having your expectations met?
By tpmoney 2025-09-082:57 > As the user and owner of the product, I should be the sole decider about my own security posture, not some company who doesn’t know my use case or needs.
It's not so cut and dry though. The "user" and the "owner" of a product are not always the same person, but hardware security impacts the "user" more than the "owner".
By saurik 2025-09-084:27 If you have access to my laptop long and deep enough to replace the hinge sensor with a fake one that prevents the lid from closing as a way to turn it into a recording device -- which of course would also require installing software on it -- instead of just putting a tiny microphone into it (or my bag), you are simultaneously a genius and dumb. And if you really are going to that level of effort, hoping that I don't notice my laptop failing to go to sleep when I close it so you might be able to steal it is crazy when you can 100% just modify the hardware in the keyboard to log my password.
Hell: what you really should do is swap my entire laptop with a fake one that merely shows me my login screen (which you can trivially clone off of mine as it happily shows it to you when you open it ;P) and asks for my password, at which point you use a cellular modem to ship it back to you. That would be infinitely easier to pull off and is effectively game over for me because, when the laptop unlocks and I don't have any of my data (bonus points if I am left staring at a gif of Nedry laughing, though if you showed an Apple logo of death you'd buy yourself multiple days of me assuming it simply broke), it will be too late: you'll have my password and can unlock my laptop legitimately.
> There are good security reasons for a lot of what Apple does.
So, no: these are clearly just excuses, sometimes used to ply users externally (such as yourself) and sometimes used to ply their own engineers internally (such as wherever you heard this), but these mitigations are simply so ridiculously besides the point of what they are supposedly actually securing that you simply can't take them seriously if you put more than a few minutes of thought into how they work... either the people peddling them are incompetent or malicious, and, even if you choose to believe the former over the latter, it doesn't make the shitty end result for the owner feel any better.
Keeping a victim device unlocked when the lock state is responsible for encryption key state is a totally legitimate risk.
With that being said, I don’t think Apple see this specific part as a security critical component, because the calibration is not cryptographic and just sets some end point data. Apple are usually pretty good about using cryptography where they see real security boundaries.
Don't invent reasons for Apple to continue to have a stranglehold over their monopoly of critical computing infrastructure.
Companies as big as Apple and Google that provide such immensely important platforms and devices should have their hands tied by every major government's regulatory bodies to keep the hardware open for innovation without taxation and control.
We've gone from open computing to serfdom in the last 20 years, and it's only getting worse as these companies pile on trillions after trillions of nation state equivalent market cap.
The government regulators also have an interest in knowing the laptops they buy for eg the NSA have authenticated parts to avoid supply chain attacks.
If you're selling cell phones you already spend plenty of time satisfying regulators and vendors from all over the world. The cell phone companies aren't the ones with power here. (In general tech people have no political power because none of them have any social skills.)
By cwillu 2025-09-083:16 Because the NSA is buying used laptops?
By oxguy3 2025-09-081:09 If repair shops can buy the $130 calibration machine, presumably the super spy in this story (who for some reason couldn't steal the data while they were replacing the lid sensor, nor can they steal the data when the laptop's in use, but somehow can steal the data when it's idle with the lid down) can also get a calibration machine, and then deliberately set the zero point incorrectly.
Yes.
“Sure, you can borrow my laptop. It’s fine. Take it home. I promise not to spy on you while the lid is closed. I promise not to record aaaaaany audio or anything! And I definitely won’t hear any conversation that contains information that I’ll use to stalk you later!”
There are a million ways that some nefarious person could spy on another, but at least this isn’t one of them.
And I am a very suspicious person, thanks to some eye opening experiences that I’ve had. When someone says that they want to do something that not a lot of people want to do, I immediately wonder how they will use that against myself or someone else. Because that has happened multiple times to me.
I also hate that I am suspicious of people who want to at least have the opportunity to fully own their devices; something that is perfectly reasonable to want, but I am. What would that additional ability do for them? What will they be capable of doing that they can’t do now? How and when will they use it to get what they want out of someone? Or out of me?
If you don’t think like this, I really envy you. For the longest time, every teacher, every supervisor, every commander, every non-familial authority figure I had until I was probably 35, used and manipulated me for the purpose of advancing themselves. Every single one. The ones in the military didn’t even attempt to hide it.
I’m so scarred because of people convincing me to help them screw me over that I no longer trust anyone who is concerned about things like laptop lid angle sensors. Because who are you trying to screw over and why does that angle sensor stand in your way?
By AnonHP 2025-09-083:07 > When someone says that they want to do something that not a lot of people want to do, I immediately wonder how they will use that against myself or someone else. Because that has happened multiple times to me.
I’m intrigued. Would you be comfortable sharing some of these real experiences here (with sensitive details fudged/removed)?
By commandersaki 2025-09-084:19 I mean nobody expected pager bombs, but here we are.
By throwaway314155 2025-09-080:572 reply Isn't there software that does exactly this? Called caffeine, I believe?
By classichasclass 2025-09-084:34 ITYM "caffeinate"
DESCRIPTION caffeinate creates assertions to alter system sleep behavior. If no assertion flags are specified, caffeinate creates an assertion to prevent idle sleep. If a utility is specified, caffeinate creates the assertions on the utility's behalf, and those assertions will persist for the duration of the utility's execution. Otherwise, caffeinate creates the assertions directly, and those assertions will persist until caffeinate exits.By vlovich123 2025-09-081:081 reply Installing software generally requires user permission. Replacing Hw can be done surreptitiously. At least that’s the strongman variant of the security argument.
By wpm 2025-09-084:43 `caffeinate` is installed by default on macOS.
If we're talking Bond-tier assessments then Apple already sell a covert microphone: AirTags. They “have no microphone” according to product specs, but they do have a huge speaker, and a speaker and microphone are the same thing like a generator and motor are the same thing: https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/Pages/news/eaves_dropping.aspx
By ungreased0675 2025-09-082:04 There’s a fairly large jump between having a microphone and being able to be used as a surveillance device.
Negative take: Vendor lock-in
Positive take: discourage theft; not only is the device locked down / encrypted and you can't just wipe / reinstall it, you can't even break it down for parts.
When the iphones etc first came out, they were a very attractive target for theft. Come to think of it, that's one reason why I was hesitant to get an iphone back then.
I used to have an extremely negative view on all this serial number pairing that Apple does, then I found out why.
Within mainland China, Apple was facing fraud of having their devices purchased, stripped for genuine parts, and then rebuilt with knockoffs and sold as new to unsuspecting victims within China or returned. This whole thing that we hate in the west was in response to that fraud.
I don't like it at all, but it's not all Apple being assholes.
By josephcsible 2025-09-0721:382 reply That would be a good argument for Apple showing a warning every time it's powered on or something, but not for it refusing to work altogether.
By SchemaLoad 2025-09-083:411 reply The situation has changed recently for iphones. Parts are icloud locked now. While the part serial is registered to an icloud locked iphone. Any phone with those parts will refuse to work entirely until the part is either removed or the part is unlinked from the owners account.
By privacyking 2025-09-084:02 Source? What message does iOS show?
Yeah, but then you could just flash with a different ROM or something and prevent that warning from being displayed?
Then what stops this "counter-measure" from "working?" Could they not just "flash with a different ROM or something" to allow the part to work normally?
I genuinely doubt that the level of theft ever rose to a large enough margin, if it did, Apple would have pulled out of China.
For reference, Apple employs ex-NSA, CIA, TLA professionals to solve this exact problem with a near endless budget and 0 oversight and accountability.
Most notably, one of the organisational leaders was caught bribing the sheriff's office for concealed carry permits, https://www.ft.com/content/e73676d7-c6bc-4b07-b9bf-9bd702f1f... / https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/29/apples_chief_security...
By jackvalentine 2025-09-080:35 > I genuinely doubt that the level of theft ever rose to a large enough margin, if it did, Apple would have pulled out of China.
There was a point where the black market in China was making more on Apple products than Apple itself. They initially tried to have stricter warranty conditions in China as a fix, but state media decided this was an affront to the country: https://www.infoworld.com/article/2271627/apple-clarifies-wa...
Hence, the technical fix.
Why pull out when you can apply a technical fix and retain both access to the biggest consumer electronics market in the world and maintain the good graces of the country that manufactures almost all your products?
If you could do that, you could just flash a new ROM to ignore serial errors, too.
The checks are not entirely in software, and would not be in showing the error, either.
By 486sx33 2025-09-0723:07 [dead]
By zdw 2025-09-0721:14 A lot of "new" products in the "bargain" category can have remanufactured parts, even without telling the end users.
For example, in this DankPods video he pulls apart two cube speakers, and while they look mostly the same on the outside, one has a Nokia-sized lithium battery that is directly soldered to, and the other has a swollen pouch pack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfnabYBtJ2I&t=325s
Unfortunately end users can't tell whether they got a "race to the bottom" item, so as much as I'd like cheap repairs, it seems like those also come with a huge amount of buyer beware that they may not know about.
By userbinator 2025-09-0721:53 More like plausible deniability.
By specialist 2025-09-0722:181 reply Yes and: Requiring genuine parts reduces risk of silent hardware pwnage. Which is a no-negotiable requirement these days.
That said...
I demand that Apple makes genuine parts available to end users and 3rd repair shops.
And being 100% pro Right to Repair, I support repairs with non-genuine parts.
For peace of mind, have your gear repaired by Apple. For the cost sensitive and tinkerers, you have options.
Problem with doing repairs by apple is that they always go with "let's replace the motherboard"
By SoftTalker 2025-09-080:051 reply Because the time spent on diagnosing the specific problem and replacing just the faulty component would cost more.
that's charitable.
I would presume that the world's third largest company by market cap would be attracted to that option because it's the most profitable thing to do.
Yes -- there is a nuance between 'most profitable' and 'most thrifty'.
By astrange 2025-09-082:26 You don't get to be an extremely profitable company by doing things that cynical people online assume are the most profitable thing to do, since they always pick the most evil option assuming it's most profitable.
By nozzlegear 2025-09-082:16 How does AppleCare factor into your presumption?
By sieabahlpark 2025-09-080:09 [dead]
By bigstrat2003 2025-09-082:15 That is certainly the argument that is made. I don't believe it, however. I don't for one second think that Apple did that for the benefit of users and not as a way to turn an extra buck.
>discourage theft
Does it though? Are there statistics that clearly show devices aren't being stolen anymore because they cannot monetize them anymore?
The way I see it the only thing this does is make you feel better the thief cannot monetize it, or use it, but it does nothing to prevent the theft which is really a moot point in the grand scheme of things. We end up paying in this way, of not having the freedom to easily and cheaply replace parts, while being comforted that even though they still are getting stolen from us, whoever steals them cannot use/monetize them. Which is quite primitive in a sense, and I do not think it's worth it. But that's just me.
According to the GSMA last year phone theft (which arguably has much more part serialization and anti-theft measures implemented) has been a steady 1% of smart phone users worldwide. It does not seem these attempts to lock down systems are successful in reducing theft. https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/industry-services/...
However I wonder if they have had an impact on data and financial theft. Which things like part serialization wouldn't affect but system security measures would.
By tpmoney 2025-09-083:12 In the early days, iPhones being both extremely popular and expensive made them pretty big theft targets and Apple was getting pressure from the various state governments to "do something" about the increases in phone theft. At least according to NY and CA, the activation lock alone in iOS7 caused double digit drops in the iPhone theft rates: https://appleinsider.com/articles/14/06/20/police-say-ios-7-...
By mr_toad 2025-09-0722:32 Alternatively, without these measures phone theft might be a lot more than 1% of users. People get killed for less than a smartphone costs.
By shuckles 2025-09-0721:54 It’s a dynamic system. The number staying the same doesn’t tell you anything about causality or the counterfactual.
By userbinator 2025-09-0721:54 I suspect the majority of phone thieves don't care about the previous owner's data, they just want it wiped so it can be sold to someone else.
By phoronixrly 2025-09-0720:483 reply Yeah, imagine a world where people who are forced to steal are competent enough not only to know which phones they can sell, but to be able to guess the make and model in the middle of a mugging
By seventhtiger 2025-09-0720:582 reply They actually do though. First thing to learn when swiping is what's worth swiping, and if no one will buy an iphone paper weight then it's not worth the risk.
Yeah it's like saying "home invaders don't know if there is anything good inside they just choose houses at random." The point of the theft is to get something out of it.
I've thankfully never had my house robbed, or a cell phone or laptop stolen. I have had my car broken into. The thieves chucked a paving stone through the window, grabbed a backpack sitting on the passenger's seat, and ran off with it. Left the paving stone in the driver's seat. The backpack had my gym clothes in it. A T-shirt I was rather fond of, a pair of shorts, a few extra pairs of socks, and a shitty pair of sneakers, all were well worn.
Replacing the backpack and gym clothes was probably $100, market value was maybe $10, and it was $507 to fix the window. (my deductible was $500.)
By fluoridation 2025-09-0722:171 reply I thought you were going to say "but they ignored the $100 textbook on the dashboard" or something. The anecdote doesn't demonstrate anything. How much of an inconvenience the theft was for you is not a factor for the thief. They got $10 by chucking a rock through a window, and they only lost the opportunity cost of choosing a different victim.
By seabass-labrax 2025-09-0723:342 reply They had to take the cumulative risk of getting caught though - one well-targeted burglary to take a designer handbag or diamond necklace would earn that thief as much as the indiscriminate 'stealing nwallin's gym clothes' thief would make in a year, as long as they had the network to sell the contraband on without incriminating themselves.
By fluoridation 2025-09-0723:55 That risk is there regardless of what they steal. The kind of thieves who break into cars are low-effort-random-reward. They have neither the patience nor the skill nor the resources for the kind of planning you're referring to. Yes, the bag didn't contain much valuable. A different bag might have. Had the thief known that for a fact beforehand they probably wouldn't have bothered.
Outside nwallin's car: no valuables
Inside nwallin's car: maybe valuables?
By mensetmanusman 2025-09-0723:59 There is no risk in may states like California:
By arcane23 2025-09-0721:07 That might account for a small set of scenarios, most times they just go for whatever sticks to their hand, in pockets/purses, without knowing what they'll get. As long as there's devices that can be monetized they will attempt to steal them if they cannot make sure it's not worth it.
And this would account for pros, let alone newbs in stealing, or just irrational behavior, or people who just enjoy creating harm with no gain. I think this is a case where the justification is weak and in reality it's more about greed and control on Apple's side rather than some potential benefit that is actually seriously diluted by a lot of other not mentioned factors.
By reaperducer 2025-09-0720:56 imagine a world where people who are forced to steal are competent enough not only to know which phones they can sell, but to be able to guess the make and model in the middle of a mugging
No need to imagine. This actually happens with watches.
In Hong Kong (and likely other cities), you can pick a watch from a "catalog" that is a binder of photos of watches on people's wrists in public, and the middleman will have the watch custom-stolen for you.
By niklassheth 2025-09-0721:52 The majority of phones in the US are iPhones, especially in big cities where phone theft is most common.
By londons_explore 2025-09-0722:401 reply Anti-theft isn't the reason.
Apple could easily have a dialogue that pops up saying:
"The XYZ sensor in this device is still registered to a device attached to robert8 @icloud.com. Please log into that account now to authorize the component swap".
Whilst the swap isn't authorised, firmware would power the system off after 10 mins, making any stolen laptop parts useless.
By SchemaLoad 2025-09-083:45 That is how it works as of recently https://support.apple.com/en-au/120610
By deepsun 2025-09-0720:44 Theft of what, sorry not clear. Thieves keep stealing macbooks no prob.
By commandersaki 2025-09-080:391 reply I read somewhere the angle sensor also has a privacy feature of cutting off microphone at hardware level. This is probably the main reason for parts pairing.
... and this can't done with the myriad of other ways a lid can know it's closed.. why?
Presumably MacBooks still have a big un-shuttered camera on the screen? Presumably there is still a light sensor?
I get the idea of parts pairing as a theft/parts-out deterrent -- I don't get it as a method of cutting features on existing machines. "We need the lid angle sensor to be valuable, so let's cut out our eyes and seal our ears."
By commandersaki 2025-09-081:27 <shrug> I don't work for Apple and design these things, but for some privacy things they do go to the extreme. I can imagine the scenario where a TLA tries to replace the angle sensor so they can keep the mic open for surveillence reasons, hence why they do parts pairing.
https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/security/secbbd20b00b/...
As the saying goes, is it even theft if you don't own the device? (If you can't do whatever you wish.)
By mr_toad 2025-09-0722:36 If we want to split hairs, technically it’s robbery, which is more serious than theft. In the UK for example, the maximum sentence for robbery is life imprisonment.
By BoorishBears 2025-09-0720:41 Yes, Apple rents me some very powerful hardware that allows me to make a living.
Someone depriving me of it is theft.
By jen20 2025-09-0721:55 That is a particularly idiotic saying.
By 2OEH8eoCRo0 2025-09-0721:131 reply They are still a target for theft
https://www.economist.com/interactive/britain/2025/08/17/the...
> More recently London has become known as the “phone-snatching capital of Europe”. If the victims manage to track their devices, the goods are most likely to turn up in China.
> Globalisation created the supply chain that allows each iPhone—assembled from nearly 3,000 components—to reach the hands of a consumer. The same forces inverted see that phone yanked out of it, re-exported and broken apart again.
By seabass-labrax 2025-09-0723:381 reply I wouldn't personally trust the Economist with this kind of thing, at least not compared to publications by technically-minded experts that have been shared elsewhere on this thread, such as the Register. The phone-snatching is real, but the effectiveness of this theft in creating usable spare parts, or of the efficacy Apple's software in reducing said theft, is much harder to determine.
By 2OEH8eoCRo0 2025-09-081:23 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255110862?sortBy=rank
> Stolen iPhone is in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China; what can I do?
By user3939382 2025-09-082:39 Louis Rossman has talked about this extensively and I believe come up with a solution.
By moralestapia 2025-09-0722:052 reply Weird to be mad at this when you didn't know it was a thing 10 minutes ago ...
By jojobas 2025-09-084:56 If I told you some John Smith had brutally killed a cat I bet you'd be a bit mad, even thought you'd never heard of him before.
You can dislike something in general and simply point out when a scenario matches what you dislike, as is happening here.
By moralestapia 2025-09-0722:211 reply You can't repair what doesn't exist, though.
By moralestapia 2025-09-0722:311 reply Give it some thought, I'm sure you will grasp it eventually.
By nazgul17 2025-09-080:44 What a condescending and arrogant answer.
I think you should also think more about this.
One can believe that Apple (or any company) should let you do whatever you want with your hardware - in general - and point out any instance when they don't; even if that specific instance is not something that touches you!
This is true of everything. Another example: if you believe in freedom of speech, you should vocally defend anyone who is deprived of it, even when that is not you. Otherwise, you lose by divide and conquer.
Apes together strong.
By postalcoder 2025-09-0717:085 reply To those wondering why the MacBook would have a sensor for this, it’s likely there to support Desk View[0]. It shows the items on your desk in a geometrically correct, top-down view. Knowing the angle of the display is very helpful when applying keystone correction.
Simpler than that I think - when do you turn off the screen or sleep? Because it isn't fully closed, but you want to be able to 'privacy-duck' the screen a bit before that, and having a sensor rather than just a fixed angle switch makes it software defined and something they can update.
By hamandcheese 2025-09-0719:313 reply I'm pretty sure the sensor for that is a simple reed switch.
By OJFord 2025-09-0719:47 A reed switch (plus magnet and choice of location) would be an implementation of a 'fixed angle switch' per my comment above.
More likely a hall effect sensor, which is solid state and a lot smaller. And yes, older MacBooks had something like that, as evidenced by the fact you could put them to sleep by holding a magnet in the right place (just to the left of the trackpad IIRC in the models I'm familiar with)
By 0_____0 2025-09-0723:01 I pranked a coworker once by sticking a magnet to his desk somehow to get his macbook to sleep when his computer was in a certain spot.
When I ran a MacBook Pro in closed clamshell mode and put another laptop on top of it, it went to sleep. Must be a weight sensor in there as well. (/s)
By reaperducer 2025-09-0720:58 They weren't sleeping. That's how Mac Minis are made.
Why though? That seems unnecessarily complex? It seems fine to me to just use a reed switch and sleep when it's closed or very close to closed.
By missinglugnut 2025-09-0720:19 It's one sensor in both cases, and in the latter case you can do so much more: change the thresholds in an update, detect when the lid is in the process of closing, apply hysteresis (on a simple switch, there's an angle where vibration could cause it to bounce between reading open and closed, but with an angle sensor you can use different thresholds for detecting and open and closing state change).
But most of all...you don't have to commit to a behavior early in the design process by molding the switch in exactly the right spot. If the threshold you initially pick isn't perfect, it's much easier to change a line of code than the tooling at the manufacturing plant.
By Reason077 2025-09-0720:18 Why use two sensors when one will do? If you already have an angle sensor, it makes sense to get rid of the reed switch and reduce your production costs.
It can’t be exclusively for Desk View. Desk View only works on Macs with wide-angle cameras, which were introduced in 2024 and 2025 models.
But this sensor has been in MacBooks since the 2019 models.
By appellations 2025-09-0720:04 Apple has a history of adding sensors, security chips, etc. a few revisions before the feature they support launches. It’s a really good idea because it helps them sort out the supply chain, reliability, drivers, etc. without any customer impact. It decouples the risks of the hardware project from the risks of the software project.
If things go particularly well you get to launch the feature on multiple hardware revisions at once because the first deployment of the component worked great, which is a neat trick.
At Apple Stores, laptops screens have to be opened exactly at 76 degrees. I wonder if they use this sensor and specific software for adjustment (I'm not implying this is the only reason it's there)
It seems like it would be much quicker and easier to just have a piece of plastic or something cut at a 76 degree angle that they can place on the laptop and fold the screen up to.
By SchemaLoad 2025-09-083:49 Could be that the demo OS reports some metric on how often the laptops are set to 76deg and how often customers move it. Probably a whole ton of usages of the sensor and if it's price comparable to the old close sensor they used to use it would be easy to justify.
By wklauss 2025-09-0723:04 I've heard employees use the measurements app in their iPhones sometimes to adjust in the mornings, but having a sensor in the laptop lid seems like a much easier way to do it and you don't need to carry anything with you.
I'm assuming so. Apparently it's an angle that "invites" people to use the computers, but I don't think there's anything specific about 76 degrees that makes it better than, say, 73 or 82. As long as you can see the content from an average height, it should work. Most likely they just settle on that angle because it looked good to the store team that was staging the first store, measured it, turned out to be 76 and kept it the same across stores since then for consistency.
By bnj 2025-09-0723:48 Yep this seems like it makes a lot of sense— and adding on, picking a measurement means that all of them can be the same (consistency, as you said)- having variation in the same row would look bad from a distance
By DSingularity 2025-09-0720:39 Shows you how good they are at planning and decomposing features into well scoped hardware and software features which can ship earlier, provide some value, while enabling richer future features. You have to respect them for this because this is how they have always operated.
By KeplerBoy 2025-09-0721:04 Fascinating feature! Is it known how they do it?
Is it just an image transformation or a full blown AI model using Gaussian Splats or something along those lines?
By anal_reactor 2025-09-0717:189 reply You could calculate the angle from the camera view as long as at least some piece of the MacBook is in view.
By antennafirepla 2025-09-0717:303 reply You could, for orders of magnitude more compute than reading a magnetic encoder (my assumption at how they estimate it)
By estimator7292 2025-09-0717:351 reply Sure, but not more than what you're already spending on transforming the image. And it's not like these devices are exactly lacking in horsepower.
By 3eb7988a1663 2025-09-0717:581 reply This is trivially broken by people who affix some type of cover over the camera. I do this on the off chance some errant application thinks it deserves to take pictures of my environment.
By yonatan8070 2025-09-0718:462 reply If someone covers the camera, the feature isn't relevant since it requires the camera to see your desk
Isn't the desktop view is produced from the iPhone camera capture, not from from the MacBook's camera?
By empressplay 2025-09-0720:52 If you have a new Macbook the built-in camera does it
By Cthulhu_ 2025-09-0720:34 But compute is cheaper for the manufacturer than adding a sensor (parts & labor, and it adds up over millions). Someone must've done the math.
By gcanyon 2025-09-080:05 The Mac camera light is wired inline. If the camera is on, so is the light. Since we're not seeing the camera light flashing on periodically, this isn't how it's being done.
By sannysanoff 2025-09-0717:49 shameless plug: https://sannysanoff.github.io/whiteboard/
not only for mac users.
By ivanjermakov 2025-09-0718:121 reply Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1425/
This was correct a number of years ago. Feels a little strange we can just do an API call for bird recognition now.
By andreareina 2025-09-081:24 Flickr did it in 2014, same year as the comic. Unfortunately the service is down and they didn't include a screenshot of it working.
https://code.flickr.net/2014/10/20/introducing-flickr-park-o...
But is there actually an API for that? Last I checked the big providers Video Intelligence APIs even distinguishing cats and dogs was still unreliable.
By junon 2025-09-0723:31 Just to see if a bird is in the picture (like the comic states) using chatgpt et al can probably do a sufficient job.
Not condoning people make this app, just thinking about how fast things have moved in just a few short years.
By SAI_Peregrinus 2025-09-0720:591 reply BirdNET from the Cornell lab of ornithology provides that api.
By filoleg 2025-09-0721:26 Unless I am missing something massive, BirdNET[0] is for identifying birds by sound, not by images.
Merlin[1] (also from Cornell Lab of Ornithology), on the other hand, has both image and sound ID. I haven't used either, so I cannot compare the quality of results from Merlin vs. BirdNET for sound ID, but afaik only Merlin has image ID.
By MaxikCZ 2025-09-0720:32 These days you dont need an api, you can run the stack on tamagochi
By reaperducer 2025-09-0721:01
By vaenaes 2025-09-0717:30 [dead]
By lazide 2025-09-0717:48 Ho boy, good luck convincing people it wasn't watching them wank!
That sounds like an excuse to enable turning on the camera without turning on the light for it just because no user-software is using it. No thanks.
Plenty of users put stickers on their cameras. One simple user trick would break your whole workflow.
By gcanyon 2025-09-080:03 The Mac camera light is wired inline so as to make this impossible. The only way for the camera to be on and the light not is if the light itself is broken.
By Biganon 2025-09-0719:40 Wow, anal_reactor figured it out when the designers at Apple couldn't ! Truly impressive.
By hulium 2025-09-0721:36 Other laptops have this too. Linux has a driver for it.
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Hinge-Driver-Linux-5.12
The sensor angle would be in a file like `/sys/bus/iio/devices/iio:device*/in_angl0_raw` (device number can vary). At least I have this in a config file and remember it working (maybe on a different computer?). I cannot get it to work anymore on my laptop.
