SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Apple Warns Customers Not To Close Its Laptops With A Camera Cover Attached:
Though it might strike some people as obvious advice, Apple has published a support page that warns MacBook owners not to close their laptop with a camera cover in place. Damage like a cracked display could result, according to the company, because "the clearance between the display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances." MacRumors spotted the advisory, which Apple posted on July 2nd.
Those little plastic camera covers with a sliding mechanism are super common nowadays. Heck, I remember getting one as a holiday gift from The Verge's parent company, Vox Media. But they could spell disaster for your laptop screen if you shut the laptop with the cover still on, and Apple's laptop repairs are extremely costly. Even with AppleCare+ accidental coverage, the deductible isn't cheap.
Instead of using a cover, Apple says that customers can trust the green LED beside the camera on a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air that illuminates whenever the camera is active.
Apple does acknowledge that some people have no choice in the matter and might be required to use a camera cover by their employer. In those cases, the company says the cover should always be removed before closing the laptop.
Not just apple laptops but all of them. Have any of my fellow Soylentils besides myself suffered damage to your laptop due to this?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2020, @07:24PM (2 children)
A laptop lid doesn't require such precision, and the false notion that Macbooks are designed to tight tolerances is merely an Apple excuse for the incompetent designers/engineers not allowing for "slop."
Experienced designers and engineers generally add slop (or extra clearance) to allow for alignment discrepancies and/or for part shrinkage/expansion. The motto is, "always add plenty of slop," unless the item requires precision. Big laptop lids need slop -- not precision.
Furthermore, camera covers are not a problem for non-Apple laptops.
Additionally, many of the sliding camera covers are about as thin as two or three sheets of paper.
As they say, "Enjoy your crapple!"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Sunday July 12 2020, @07:50PM (1 child)
The other issue is that the lid should provide the structural rigidity, not the display. Displays are not structural elements.
Closing the lid such that a camera cover on the bezel becomes the contact point with the lower half of the device should place a bit more stress on the lid itself, and the hinges (but not enough to be a problem if the lid is half decent). It should add no stress to the display at all.
This is just the latest casualty of Apple's pointless war on thickness.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Sunday July 12 2020, @08:27PM
re: pointless war on thickness.
They won't be happy until you can shave with your 15" wide laptop and people end up bleeding out from accidentally bumping one.
It doesn't matter to me so much -- the last version of OSX I liked was Snow Leopard but it gets increasingly lousy with each passing update -- one OSX version "upgrade" even required me to buy a multiple desktop app after they changed that built-in feature into something incomprehensible and unusable. I'm done with them.