Hacker News Reader

Comment by Reason077 | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

Yeah, my iPhone 11 Pro came with the ultra-wideband chip in late 2019, and before the AirTags were released in early 2021, I believe the only thing it was used was for ordering AirDrop targets by proximity. It was clearly intended for the AirTags from the beginning, but it took about 1.5 years before it actually mattered.

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)

76 degrees is just an aesthetic choice?

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.

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

I believe the rumor is that 76 degrees is slightly uncomfortable enough to look at that it makes you want to adjust the screen, which in turn makes you more likely to try the device.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2012/06/14/why-the...

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.

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.

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.

It would not, since you don't want to carry a piece of plastic all day long to set the angle correctly. Most people just use their phones to check the angle though.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com