Apple added an orange dot that’s a showstopper for live visuals
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EDIT: As far as I know, the best long-term answer here is for apps that present visuals full screen to "capture" the external display for exclusive use using an API (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coregraphics/14562...), but that's not super common right now.
If I'm understanding you correctly, that means there's already a supported workaround for this if apps just use that API? I don't want to downplay the annoyance of this for apps that aren't using that API, but this suggests there's already an official answer.
I'm mildly surprised the orange dot shows up in full-screen apps; I was going to suggest that might be the easiest "fix" for Apple to make that doesn't require either adding a new security setting or taking away the indicator entirely -- have it only show up in the menu bar, and not when the menu bar isn't present.
I ask earnestly if the change is really such a substantial one?
I have mixed feelings after reading the comments as I think that there are fairly valid arguments in both directions (e.g., that the solutions are plentiful, but also that workarounds aren't really a solution), but the arguments feel a bit empty if there's a "right" way to be handling the visuals that just isn't being used.
As a user I like the change in general as I have caught naughty applications that try to use mic input when I really don't want it, and my misclick/absentmindedness is not uncommon, so seeing such things helps a lot as I don't really think it's reasonable to constantly be checking the various app permissions to make sure they're what I want. This is a good reminder for me.
But I totally get not wanting the dot, as it's even been a prank on a site I go to to have a tiny red pixel just to annoy people (and it's a prank I've used). So I get the frustration with an unexpected visual. But, if there's a way to do the same activity by having the app utilize the correct API, it seems like an issue that is solved in the next update from these visual production apps, no?
I don't think this API helps people that use display out, like a projector or screen.
"The Dropbox badge
"Seeing who’s viewed your files
"Better prioritization for file syncing"
https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/mac-p...
Using the API to disable the dot requires some pretty scary permissions to be enabled on the app disabling the dot.
I made a Swift app using the same method so that non-technical people can also use it: https://lowtechguys.com/yellowdot
Hacky way to have it running all the time :
I put this into a bash file to run the loop in the background at boot.
Just add the .sh in Preferences > Users & Group > Login Items
Then don't forget to chmod +x the bash file so it can be run.
--
#!/bin/bash
nohup bash -c 'while :; do /Users/starmina/Scripts/undot/undot; sleep 1; done' </dev/null >/dev/null 2>&1 &
--
I'd be glad to hear a of a better way to do it.
To us software folks, I t makes sense, but I imagine this'll be linked to many individuals outside of software who won't know even what git is or how to get the fix.
[1] https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink/techspecs... (4K, PCIe) https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio/techsp... (less than 100 bucks, but only 1080p on Thunderbolt) (SDK: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/developer/product/capture-a...)
https://github.com/videolan/vlc/blob/master/modules/video_ou...
Though a quick search through online forums suggest that module isn't compiled into Ubuntu's version of VLC by default, so you may need to compile your own version:
https://gist.github.com/afriza/cd9ce01a7b47b9bd3f192e95af1a0...
Edit: Just checked because I was curious. The default installs of VLC do not include Blackmagic support but you can compile versions from the source for Linux that include it (if you also download the support files from Blacklink first).
Big productions can afford Decklinks and media servers like Disguise D3.
So long as they keep NDI Tools free. It would be great if they could also eventually build in some of the functionality of Dante (NDI is something like Dante but for video) since the Dante software toolkit is very much not free. I think Newtek has been on the right track.
Indeed, we use three of the Flex 4K Out boxes to three projectors doing alpha blending to form a single virtual screen via ProPresenter and it works great!
Especially since someone donated an M1 Mac Mini, not realizing it only supported two traditional external monitors. With NDI we could have an external monitor for the operator display then let ProPresenter generate three virtual monitors via NDI. We can send differently formatted "screens" via NDI to our OBS computer for streaming too - different configurations of lower thirds for texts, full screen mirroring of the main presentation display - whatever we need. NDI really works a treat and I will NEVER go back to analog video again!
We also use the Birddog NDI PTZ cameras for streaming and some crude IMAG too - it's amazing how well NDI works.
Maybe some of those guys scraped together enough money to buy one of the new macbooks (since it got HDMI back). Being forced to spend another $200 to get rid of a stupid orange dot would really sting.
Of course, I'm also confident that software workarounds will exist in the meantime.
edit: looking at your updated post, it is called a "playback card."
This way, you know EXACTLY what the program is computing, nothing else.
Also what’s the use case where they can’t export the video and transfer it as a file or byte stream?
Use case: live (minimizing latency), no compression, compatibility with other gear.
The cheapness of greenscreen effects makes it pretty cheap to use in TV shows a lot these days though.
I think the migration costs (including the learning curves) might seem like a poor tradeoff.
As a hacker without a horse in this particular race (Macs and I parted ways a long time ago), it's definitely interesting to observe the interactions between the two groups in this thread!
IMHO the fundamental difference between the two sides is that when it's posited as a dogmatic matter, it's immediately clear whether or not your (perceived) rights have been violated (Can you do X? No => Violation, Yes => Keep chugging along) but for the latter group it becomes not just a question of whether or not X is possible but also whether or not each individual can agree that X should/shouldn't be determined by the vendor/manufacturer (c.f. the recent hullabaloo about on-device scanning).
I see similarities to the concept of "I may not agree with what you are saying, but I will fight to the death for your right to do so," which just makes it so much easier to agree on whether or not rights are being infringed, regardless of it's something you'd want to engage in yourself or otherwise.
- The app outputting video can use an OS-level API to capture and fully control the external display.
- The Mac owner can use a playback card to output a clean video stream.
- The Mac owner can use their root control of the machine to disable the dot. (A short script to do so is currently the top comment.)
So really, Apple has not taken away rights here. Clean video output is still possible. They have changed a default, though.
I wouldn't call this changing a default. If this were windows and my only option was 1) Petition the developer to rewrite their app 2) Buy more hardware 3) Edit the registry...
I would not consider that a mere change to the default.
Case in point, my mom is getting paranoid about this stuff after watching stuff on Netflix and CNN about how Facebook is "listening in" on her. I can easily just tell her to watch for the dot and know, with reasonable certainty, that she didn't install some app on her own that would hide that.
Nothing about this scenario would change if Apple chose to include a setting in the system menu that turns it off. You would just tell your mother not to mess with that setting... which you've presumably already done for numerous other settings.
The obvious solution would be some sort of prominent warning that disabling this setting might allow malicious behavior or something, but many people are so inured to frivolous warnings that it might not work. I think the only fix to that is to make it even harder to disable, but I'm no UX expert.
I still think Apple should walk it back a little but pretending like that doesn't have unintended consequences is kinda foolish.
Don't nerf my computer because your mother can't be trusted with the digital equivalent of an electric carving knife. Just add a few more warning labels and let Darwin sort it out.
General purpose computing was supposed to be for everybody, not just approved use(r)s. Apple once told me that. It was a long time ago.
A feature like this shouldn't come as a surprise in an update. When deployed via the update, it should be optional and disabled by default. It should only be enabled by default after a major OS release, where UI changes are expected. (And, enabling a feature like this should be part of the typical beta/preview process that happens for all major OS releases.)
That being said: I wonder if covert audio recording on Mac is a problem. IE, did Apple need to "do something" about people being targeted by malware that records their audio?
EDIT: As far as I know, the best long-term answer here is for apps that present visuals full screen to "capture" the external display for exclusive use using an API (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coregraphics/14562...), but that's not super common right now.
Yes, so you can go to the software vendor's "Ideas" or "Suggestions" page and ask for this, and post in forums asking people to upvote it, and hope the devs will do it. Not a great workaround. And sure, someone developed a script to get rid of this but no one is all that happy when Windows does something user-unfriendly that only a regedit hack will get rid of either.
It's not a complicated situation to grasp and it is seriously significant.
(I'm assuming Apple still makes an effort for this segment, but I really have no idea how they do things these days.)
I think they could do a better job (e.g., a simple setting in System Preferences that turns off recording notifications), but to pretend that they're doing this for no reason at all or that the orange dot is a show-stopper for a significant fraction of their user-base is just not making an argument in good faith.
It's getting safer and safer if all you want to do is watch Netflix and check your emails, but it's getting harder and harder to get your work done.
Every time this happens a small minority that is affected screams "this is interfering with my workflow" and the majority says "get over it".
As Apple keeps doing this, eventually they are going to break something you rely on.
Is anyone doing that...?
Well, look at the other person who replied to my comment:
"Every time this happens a small minority that is affected screams "this is interfering with my workflow" and the majority says "get over it"."
That's not technically untrue, but it fails to acknowledge that there is a tradeoff here. Again, I think Apple could be doing a better job of managing the tradeoffs, but this is not simply the majority saying "get over it". This is the majority saying "it sucks that this change interrupted your workflow, but look at the bigger picture"
I'm very much not surprised at saving the wrong pennies.
It doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation if Apple is even remotely interested in addressing this use case, which they should be.
I think the reality is that the set of people who want the feature and who would use it in a live professional environment with expensive hardware and who can't afford a $100 dongle from BlackMagic is so close to the null set that Apple is unlikely to care.
For goodness sake, Apple's own HDMI dongle costs $70. Just spend $30 more and buy the BM one instead.
I used to be.
> It's also a false choice
Yes, yes it is. It's been like this for decades. Entertainers are expected to buy the most expensive hardware available even when they're just getting started. Conform or be stigmatized for using inferior technology. We're talking about an industry in which AudioQuest has no trouble selling passive 3m HDMI cables for upwards of $1k.
Maybe this is the first time Apple has stepped on your toes, but it won't be the last. Be prepared to fork over the cash for a specialized dongle you wouldn't need on any other platform, lest that orange dot mar your reputation.
Let's be real: this isn't going to harm Apple's sales in the slightest, and they know it. The only way they could possibly harm their reputation in the entertainment industry is by lowering their prices, opening up their ecosystem, and eliminating $1k monitor stands.
They know you'll ultimately cough up the dough for an adapter, no matter how much you complain. They know you don't have a choice. They get money from me, a privacy-conscious end user with a choice, and they get money from you, a disgruntled professional without a choice.
How is offering an option for it to ONLY be visible when the menu bar is also visible compromising the notification in any way?
There are software solutions like NDI that the hardware solution doesn't fix and why should I have to buy hardware to fix a problem that should have never existed in the first place?
It's asinine and really not that complicated - don't show UI shit on displays that aren't showing the menu bar. There is always one display that must have a menu bar - show crap like this there and only there.
It's not necessary to force that choice.
Yes, there are workarounds. But artists shouldn't have to deal with that when it worked perfectly fine beforehand. In addition, the more stuff you add to your setup, the higher chance that something will go wrong.
The right call her for Apple is to allow users to give permission to specific apps to disable this but let's not start with the idea that pros are outputting directly from their computers without the right hardware.
Have you ever worked in this industry? Because yes they absolutely are.
The people building the video walls (renting them), and the people actually running the visuals are not the same people.
The unfortunate case with a preference is that as soon as you enable such a permission folks can force users to enable that permission to use their invasive software. The orange dot exists because applications have been abusing privacy by invasively using audio and visual recording to spy on people. The solution to this problem isn't very simple and while the orange dot is causing headaches the lack of an orange dot also causes headaches.
If both options have a disadvantage, give users a choice which of the evils they prefer, for example in the pre-boot environment.
P.S. I am of course aware that it is not typical for Apple to give users a choice.
It can be empowering to users to deny bad choices - since it prevents users from being coerced by malicious software (i.e. tiktok, facebook, instagram - not like virus laden software).
That all said there is some legitimate functionality being lost with this decision.
Some of the conventions I've gone to ran everything in a room off a single laptop. (I've set up such things.)
Concerts aren't much better. Only the largest events and venues have the kinds of "professional" setups you're thinking of.
Again, we're talking about "professionals" vs., at best, prosumers and consumers. Those applications are not unusable because of a small dot.
I think this change would be fine as a default, but it should be configurable by the end user.
Um, no, how about the built in one worked fine, didn't require me to buy a very expensive additional piece of hardware. This change took away functionality that worked before the upgrade?
> let's not start with the idea that pros are outputting directly from their computers without the right hardware.
If professional means derives income from work, you would be wrong. If pro means works for an organization with unlimited budget, you would be right.
It had the same problem that it still has. The OS can place items on the display that you don't want in the middle of a presentation/performance. The only thing that "worked fine before" is that you were ok with what the OS put there because it was rare for that to happen.
>If professional means
It means that a dot in the upper right hand corner makes the function "unusable". If that's the case, then a professional would not extend/mirror a desktop display. They make sure that they control exactly what is being displayed and you can't (and have never been able to) do that with macOS.
It's not reasonable to say it's the "same" problem when they changed it this much.
> The only thing that "worked fine before" is that you were ok with what the OS put there because it was rare for that to happen.
So rare it may have never happened. So yes, it did work fine. Are you implying that's wrong? There's no way to make a bulletproof setup, after all. Maybe with an external device you get a glitched or blank screen instead of a notification, but any hardware or software could fail. Possible chance of failure is not the same as a constant 100% chance problem, and does not excuse a constant 100% problem.
>It means that a dot in the upper right hand corner makes the function "unusable".
I'm pretty sure professional has nothing to do with dots in the corner. There's really not much to defend about this change, and this change really reduces the utility of macbooks for many people who derive their income from work using that macbook. Hopefully, apple gets the message from users and fixes it.
Why not? The internal I/O is pretty good! Except for this issue, obviously.
Portability is essential for some people, and MacBooks have pretty reliable IO.
There is ZERO reason to force the dot on every display. Restrict it to the display(s) also showing the menu bar and this becomes a non-issue. I can't believe anyone involved in this at Apple thought this was a remotely reasonable thing to do!
And, again, we are talking about situations where this orange dot would make the function "unusable". Those situations are not situations where a professional uses the built-in I/O and leaves things to chance.
There's not a lot of money in the scene for most people. They use the software/hardware they have. Hiding notifications and colourful dots from the OS shouldn't really be an issue.
It sounds like there’s something about all of these responses that isn’t resonating with you because I see a pattern of responding and letting us know our experiences are essentially invalid, for some reason. Are you able to speak to why that’s important to you? Why does this seem so far-fetched / unbelievable to you?
It didn't work perfectly fine beforehand, though. They just didn't care about how it worked before. Now, suddenly, they do.
For me, it's good, not bad. I’m sorry that for some people it means they need to do their job a little bit less careless, but the overall importance of this dot is worth it.
Search for it. There are countless threads about the issue online, and last time I checked noone knew of a way to prevent it.
Imagine holding a presentation, or watching a film with someone, and suddenly your private emails fill half the screen...
As repeatedly said by many people, Apple is making a tradeoff between security and special-purpose requirements. If you have a special-purpose requirement, then make sure your tools are configured for that purpose. Don't whine that the general use-case doesn't fit it!
You'll see similar whining from web devs trying to make Chrome or Firefox "hide" the chrome and go full screen programmatically. That's fundamentally incompatible with end-user security and shouldn't be allowed, ever. Asking for it won't get you anywhere. If you need full screen control, use something like Electron, not a web browser. If you need full screen projector/screen output, use a tool/software appropriate for the job.
So, apparently, I gotta dream bigger. Like museum AVP or concert/live performance/DJing type of live visuals. Yeah now an orange dot is a showstopper.
Live visualization takes a live music performance as input and programmatically generates a video that matches said music performance. The video might pulse along with the beat of the music. Or maybe it changes color or shape depending on the “mood” of the audio. The computer driving the visualization receives audio from the live music via a line in, which Apple treats as an active microphone.
A simple live visualization would be to display a video showing the waveform of the live audio feed.
In the Privacy menu in MacOS now, you can authorize applications to do things like use locations services and record the screen. I think it would be reasonable to include an authorization for audio recording and bypass the orange indicator. Or they could turn on the webcam green light when audio input is active?
On OSX at least, some apps are developed by third parties whose code isn't easily scrutinized by Apple or by end users.
I think Apple's policy helps users navigate that situation pretty well. But I also can't see any good reason to prevent users from disabling that feature in a fine-grained way. E.g. per app and/or temporarily.
Apple not taken anything away. What they have done is change a default. Since defaults matter most to the least savvy users, skewing defaults toward security makes sense. Power users can apply extra skill to change the default; that’s what makes them power users.
It's unfortunate it causes problems for some users, hopefully a fix will be forthcoming, but I believe it's an oversight.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/18...
PCs and third-party webcams are of course another matter...
It's just not apple's way to think users might want to do things differently.
Seems like there should be a compromise where apps that are using line input instead of the physical microphone could be exempt from the dot.
"live visuals often use mic or line input to produce sound-reactive animation and the like"
Also, does anyone knows whether the orange dot shows up when you also use an external USB audio interface? If so this is kind of stupid on the part of Apple.
The article also mentions that those apps turn on Microphone capture even when unnecessary, so it seems the dot it's doing its job, although obviously there was a massive oversight, and there should have been a special permission to disable IMO.
Got to wonder who made this decision and how many people reviewed it before it was deployed. Then again, most people aren't doing audio recording while using Keynote (or Powerpoint). Something like this could very easily fly under the radar across the entire company.
This looks like one of those problems where the edge cases are damned obvious in hindsight but aren't noticed until it hits production. Happens to everyone with a non-trivial product.
The real problem here is Apple has a history of ignoring these design mistakes for a very long time. Even when they do fix things, they have tendency to hide any mention of it. It will probably be suddenly and quietly fixed months later in some future point update.
It totally makes sense to display those privacy notifications in the desktop UI. However, when an app goes to full-screen mode, the OS shouldn't interfere with the display by default. There are plenty of szenarios, where the program needs to be able to control every single pixel of the screen.
In those cases, there are hardware solutions for this. That's not the default in any OS right now. Notifications and menu bars cannot be disabled by apps, for example. They need to be disabled from the OS level.
That is not the purpose of full screen mode. If that were the case, then notifications and menu bars would be able to be disabled by the app. They're not. They need to be disabled or muted by the user at the OS level.
That still doesn't change the fact that the point in making an app full screen is to give it control of the entire screen (or an entire virtual one of your choosing).
I have never ever owened a computer where an application could not controle the whole screen. Yes, there are situations, where the OS supersedes the full screen apps input, but usually they are based on user interactions or notifications (which can be disabled).
Yes you have. Every OS has chrome that cannot be disabled in full-screen. You may not regularly experience that, but it does. Imagine you're playing a video game and Windows Update throws an error. That will be displayed over your full-screen game window. It doesn't even have to be originated by the OS. As long as the OS is provided with an extended display, it has the ability to put things on top of whatever your app displays. It may not happen often but it does happen. That's the primary reason why dedicate I/O hardware exists.
This, in my mind, is exactly what makes SIP brilliant as a default but optional feature. It's fantastic for 95% of Mac users, who can browse the web and write emails confident in the knowledge that their microphone is turned off. The remaining 5% need to do weird crap like run live music shows, and should take advantage of the escape hatch.
Wait, what? Does this mean that SIP is now de facto mandatory on macOS, unless you don't use any DRM-encumbered programs?
Or just have an actual physical LED nearby, maybe in the notch. They're cheap too, we decorate Christmas trees with them these days.
The obvious caveat is that a hacker w/ local access can do that themselves to hide their system foothold, which is just par-for-the-course when it comes to physically compromised machines... except I'm willing to bet they're more concerned with "jealous ex" than they are with professional hackers.
Apple is trying to add features to protect against the unprotectable instead of just acknowledging that at some point local access means game over; the only way to do that is to make it virtually unbearable to use the OS as a regular user (see UAC in Windows Vista).
I'm sure there's a way to hack the screen to make the orange dot disappear. At the least you can intercept the output buffer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/qhbt4n/how_to_disabl...
Stuff like this is bad security design because it punts responsibility to the end user. It doesn’t actually stop anything bad from happening. If your design can’t decide whether to stop a program from capturing the mic, how do you expect my grandma to?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.graphics.ca...
Plus there's almost certainly some registry key you could change to turn it off on a per user basis.
What you want is a dedicated LED that is routed directly to the sound input being on at the circuit board level: like the amplifier is on, or that path is enabled by hardware or whatever. Even then, if the meaning assignment is "LED glowing = sound monitored", you cannot trust it entirely: the LED being off could mean that the LED itself is faulty. But at least you know that the mechanism cannot be tampered with by software.
it is much more valuable to have an indicator that your mic IS hot than having no indicator at all, not to mention adding an led indicator does fuck all for people who don't buy the $currentYear+1 laptop.
To easily solve both the privacy and the live visuals issue, Apple should make it so that the dot is only shown on a display of it is:
- the primary display (the one notifications appear on, since that's where the user typically checks for system status),
- the built-in display, if any,
- the display the cursor is on, or
- the display containing the frontmost window.
These are the only kinds of displays that make sense to have a persistent privacy indicator on. Anyone who's sitting at a computer is looking at at least one of these displays.
The secondary displays that artists use to show fullscreened live visuals always fit none of these criteria.
> And it does seem there could be a fix here; you already have to give applications permission to access your mic and camera, and it seems there should be some way for an app to disable the orange dot once its permissions are elevated with opt-in by the user.
MacOS already has security mechanisms meant to prevent malware from e.g. installing a rootkit into the kernel, or reading keychain passwords - one of those mechanisms could be used to prevent programs from altering whatever setting controls "show orange notification dot" (which, in a sane design, would be opt-out - or, opt-in to "disable orange notification dot) on their own.
This was a problem with webcams before the light was hardcoded to the power supply.
If that's the definition you're using - MacOS already guards against that, simply because the orange dot is already being implemented in software in a way that is difficult/impossible for ordinary programs to change (but is controllable by the OS). And, from what I understand, MacOS already has many settings that are OS-controlled - you can't do certain things without authenticating yourself to the OS, and neither can software on your behalf.
If that's not quite right, I'll have to ask you to elaborate on what scenario you're thinking of.
1. we don't want it there and they didn't ask permission or give a way to remove it
2. a tiny orange dot on a monitor will turn into a basketball sized orange ball on a big professional display
am I getting the right idea?
"I mean, jeez. They just left the mouse cursor in the middle of the screen, what's the big deal?"
100% of the computer graphics at these events came from PCs and Macs with their default video output. Some even came from the HDMI output on a Raspberry Pi.
I worked a lot with the production companies behind these shows and it seemed to be SOP to use a regular Macbook with Powerpoint to drive the displays.
"In our particular case, this means that this orange dot appears on the stage output, which is totally unacceptable for anyone using macOS as a professional video tool that sends video output to a video projector."
Imagine an orange dot appearing on top of every video billboard in Times Square.
Seems unlikely that whatever's driving the billboards in time square needs to have the mic on...and that a tiny bit of postproduction is a burden on the people making said videos.
There have been many interactive billboards in Times Square. Some of them are at ground level. The article even mentions this use case: "Those applications don’t even need to be obviously using audio; live visuals often use mic or line input to produce sound-reactive animation and the like"
> tiny bit of postproduction is a burden on the people making said videos.
What postproduction are you referring to? The dot is added to the video output by the Mac, not added to the video file. You can't edit it out.
Why would anyone want to suppress a warning to the user that they are being surveilled?
Crop a 20 pixel column? Surely we have hardware that can do that in real time today...
1) Who uses macOS to run a billboard?!?
2) As far as I can tell the orange dot displays in the menu bar? Does it show in the full screen app???
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/693969
Removing it in full screen ought to be the easy fix for Apple. By the time you've started the app and are done fiddlign with it while setting it up for production use, it should no longer be a surprise that it's using the mic.
Also, AFAIK apps don't use to autostart in full screen (might even be against design guidelines) so there should always be an opportunity to notice any spying in time.
It's absolutely not a stretch someone has a mac mini to run these.
That said, only a fool would upgrade to bleeding edge software in this usecase.
> Imagine an orange dot appearing on top of every video billboard in Times Square.
I don't think I would notice or care?
Do you think none of the advertisers, or billboard owners, would notice or care?
Those are the clients paying the people that read this site to create and run their live visuals.
A 5 foot diameter orange dot on top of their ad is not what they signed off on. There is money at stake.
Whether you care or not isn't relevant.
Frankly, it doesn't matter if you would notice or care.
It is a special case where Macs connected to a projector are used to display live visual. The microphone is on, most likely so that the visuals can respond to sounds, and you get to show an ugly orange dot to your audience.
Macs are used a lot in the entertainment industry so it is not an insignificant problem.
The initial example of live shows (specifically the subset of which where the same device is being used for some kind of audio input and visual output) is so far the most convincing example because the orange dot is redundant there.
Would it bother you if Star Wars had an orange dot in the corner the whole time? People want to make professional videos and live streams, and not have a constant reminder that there's a Mac somewhere involved in the video... and this has hosed people's workflows.
My honest guess is that the author of the article is SUPER mad about this out of some principle-of-the-thing about how the design shouldn't do this, and they just ran with that in writing self-righteous nonsense about how this makes presentations impossible or something.
It's about as bad as having the cursor show up on the edge of a live presentation slide.
This is a news site for professional digital musicians and animators. The kind of people that are in charge of making the digital visuals behind a live performance like I described. This is not a "principle of the thing" argument, it's a "this update stops us from doing our job using Mac hardware" argument.
The hyperbole here is just so extreme.
You've never been near a show production, have you? I was involved with an amateur theater that had some projections during one of their plays. Even they were very peculiar about what was projected, where, and how.
One of the projections was a black-and white archive footage. Yes thank you, I'd love an orange dot there, it doesn't ruin it at all.
So presumably you'd see a big orange dot in the right-most screen here: https://i0.wp.com/www.grimygoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2017...
Mic input is very useful for receiving timecode to keep production gear in sync.
But.... why? Why would a little orange dot offend anyone?
TRUE: the dot BEING THERE is useless (and undesireable and bad)
FALSE: the dot makes Macs useless for live visuals
Just because something is 100% bad design, bothersome, 100% negative, and should never have been allowed to happen, does NOT mean it destroys a product entirely.
When Mini Coopers were made with the stupidest turn signals ever (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28661282) that doesn't make the car undrivable even though there's ABSOLUTELY no defense of the design.
I see that some people above suggested a solution with an extra hardware device but even though a lot of theses creatives are using macs, they aren't especially tech literate outside of their field and have to make do with venue that can use quirky hardware with sometimes very limited time to set up their gears.
This dot is a major pita for these users.
One of the best features on Macs for the past couple of decades has been the small green light. They should add this, as hardware, to iPhones and iPads. Software dots on the status bar indicate to me that the OS people view it as a key issue but the hardware folk haven't caught up to the issue yet.
Break the cycle, stop buying Apple!
So basically, what this guy is saying is that sometimes he wants to show an app that is listening to the audience, but without letting his audience know that they could be recorded by his application.
Here's the crux of his issue.
"In the interest of security and privacy, Apple on macOS Monterey has added a prominent orange dot to display outputs when audio capture is active. That renders their machines unusable for live visual performance, though, since it’s also shown on external displays. Dear macOS team – we urgently need a fix here.
The basic idea here is sound – to avoid software hijacking your camera and audio input and spying on you, essentially, there’s an orange dot to let you know recording is active. But this essentially makes the Mac unusable for live visuals, since it impacts external projectors and LED walls and the like. (Those applications don’t even need to be obviously using audio; live visuals often use mic or line input to produce sound-reactive animation and the like."
Here's where I feel he's being disingenuous:
"Those applications don’t even need to be obviously using audio; live visuals often use mic or line input to produce sound-reactive animation and the like."
So they're not using audio, but may be using the microphone or line input to access sound for "reasons". That's called "using audio". He's trying to draw a distinction that doesn't exist. He wants to make it clear he's using audio in a non-privacy-violating way. And I believe that he is. I do believe he's a good-faith actor who is just trying to use audio input to enhance certain presentations.
However, it has the same behavior as people who do not act in good faith. This is a prime example of dipshits ruining it for everyone. There can't really be an exception because then that exception just gets used by the bad faith actors in the space.
To solve his problem what he really needs is a monitor/projector that doesn't show the top however many pixels required by the menu bar. In a very amateur way, this would be accomplished with a piece of electrical tape over the monitor. For a projector, there could possible be a special lens cap that cuts off the required area. Like a matte lens.
2- The dot appears on secondary displays running full screen video: there is no menu bar to crop off. You can only crop off part of the visuals, or your visuals have to be lower resolution to produce artificial dead area to crop.
3- Apple has never given any indication that they intend to add indicators that someone else is being recorded by my computer. The indicators are for the computer owner, to indicate that software may be recording the owner without their knowledge. The parties are all different than you're supposing.
2 - The dot essentially forces a bar. It's not an overlay on the application's graphics. This is what is shown in the images. So there is something to crop off.
Not to mention, if it is known, it can be planned around. This is exactly what television has been doing for years. There are scan lines that don't get shown on screens despite being broadcast.
3 - This is almost as disingenuous as the article. The dot is there to inform the user of the device/screen that they could be recorded. The audience during a performance would qualify as a user in this case. It's basically an indicator saying, "if you can see this, it's possible the device showing this is recording your audio". That is completely relevant for an audience. If you think it's not, then why is it relevant for anyone else. There are thousands of excuses one can use to justify hiding this information from anybody. Once you are potentially violating my privacy, it is relevant to me.
I promise you that the people who do those visuals for SNL (and every other wacky scenario people are coming up with) are not mirroring or extending their desktops. They're using dedicated video hardware for this exact reason.
That’s a funny word for “extremely minor visual artifact.”
Yes, it would obviously be much more "valid engineering" to have each of these devices have their own custom, invariably much buggier and crappier, OS.
Instead, I prefer to use devices with a hardware kill switch for camera and microphone, e.g., https://puri.sm/products/librem-14.
Power users should be able to disable anything.
why?