The new 2021 MacBook Pro models feature a notch which Apple says is a “smart way to give users more space for their content”. But a new video shows that the notch is creating issues for third-party apps which are not optimized for the new MacBook Pro display. YouTuber @Quinn Nelson posted two videos on Twitter that show the notch hides extended menus in the menu bar.
Some apps feature additional content across the menu bar which gives users more options in the form of dropdown menus, extending from the left or right side of the menu bar. Apple says that apps in full-screen mode hide the notch and in a ‘Property List Key’ document told developers that if their apps updated to compatibility mode, the content of their apps will be not be covered by the notch.
On Macs that include a camera housing in the screen bezel, the system provides a compatibility mode to prevent apps from unintentionally putting content in the region the housing occupies. When this mode is active, the system changes the active area of the display to avoid the camera housing. The new active area ensures your app’s contents are always visible and not obscured by the camera housing. The system activates this compatibility mode when an app that requires it runs in the current desktop or full-screen space.
MacBook Pro’s notch covered the content of apps that are not updated to compatibility mode
@Nelson‘s videos show two apps affected by the notch of the 2021 MacBook Pro. In the first video, the notch partially hides the menu items of iStat Menus app but the covered menus were accessible via a mouse.
But in the second video, the extended menus of an older version of the DaVinci Resolve app were completely concealed by the notch and he also could not enter the concealed area to move the menu items. This month, DaVinci Resolve, a popular video editing app was updated to version 17.4 with full support for new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips and runs up to five times faster on the latest MacBook Pro models. Maybe the updated version of the app is not facing the discovered notch behavior.
WHO DESIGNED THIS?! 😂 pic.twitter.com/ADVqmfdqV2
— Quinn Nelson (@SnazzyQ) October 26, 2021
The notch behavior on the new MacBook Pro will conceal extended menus of non-compatible apps. Maybe this will push developers to update their apps sooner rather than later.
