This seems like a pretty mild warning for folks who might stick a bulky cover on their camera and press down / pack their laptop tightly and now have wedged part of the screen open with the cover.
I'm a fan of using painters tape.... pretty low profile, easily removed, stays on really well. Also the weird blue glow you get when the camera is on tells you pretty quick "Hey there's a cover on there" where sometimes with the all blackout covers ... I can't tell.
I renew my calls for all devices to have an led indicator (good on Apple here) and a physical switch that cuts power to mics and cameras for all devices with them. With the endless layers of software we have today, I have trouble trusting anything but cutting power.
> I'm a fan of using painters tape.... pretty low profile, easily removed, stays on really well
The cleverest solution I've seen that is 1.) easily toggled, and 2.) harmless to screens is a coworker who built a little vinyl veil that attaches to the top back of their monitor. They can flip it forward to cover the camera, or flip it back to use it. But if you close even the tightest of lids with a couple microns of vinyl in there, it's harmless. Bada-bing, problem solved, and they only used a penny or two worth of materials.
My wife uses a tiny speck of Blu Tak. It’s soft so just gets squashed flat when the lid closes and it’s designed to be infinitely reusable and come off things without leaving a mark. She just pulls it off and sticks it a few cm to the side of the camera when she wants to use it. She’s been doing it for 3+ years (same piece) and it’s genius.
I’ve got some a lot older than that that’s still sticky. I have no idea what wizardry it’s made of but it’s incredible stuff. Probably involves actual magic (aka Materials Science, the closest thing we have to real magic). I use it every day to hold wires in place while soldering, or temporarily positioning components to decide on layouts, etc etc.
It does not have to be a bulky cover. I used an extremely low profile webcam cover on my 2015 MBP for 3 years. I put a similar one on my 16" MBP, and it destroyed the screen after a couple weeks.
Specifically, this is the webcam cover I was using:
I've been using this exact same cover on 3 different MBPs (yes I use 3 MBPs simultaneously, a 2016 13", a 2019 13", and 2019 15") for almost a year and haven't noticed anything even remotely close to it damaging the screen on any of them.
I actually just tested it, and the cover doesn't even make contact with the lower half of the MacBook when closed. The cover fits into the trackpad area, which is recessed. I don't see how it could possibly damage the screen without me putting enough pressure on it where the screen would have been damaged regardless.
Does the 16" have a shallower trackpad or a thinner rubber gasket around the screen than the 13" and 15" models? Even for Apple, it sounds insane that they would create something so fragile it could be broken by a 0.02" piece of plastic.
I used this on the 2016 for years, but even though it's incredibly thin, it is too thick for the 2020. Would love to find a replacement if anyone has a suggestion.
I've been using the same tiny square of black electrical tape for nearly 2 years without issue, just slides across when needed, the tackiness hasn't noticeably degraded in that time, it's barely noticeable to outsiders unless they really look for it and it hasn't let me down yet. When it does let me down, it basically zero cost to replace and it definitely won't crack my screen either :)
Ahh, thanks for the link. The webcam covers I'd seen in the past were just removable plastic stickers, and I was having a hard time visualizing what counts as "thin".
One of the photos shows them be about as thick as a credit card.
But it's also a sign about Apple not doing a good wrt. making their premium products robust.
With many other Laptops in that price range you would either have to use a very fat cover or apply a amount of pressure which might damage your laptop anyway. I just tried it (carefully) with my laptop and the screen has enough "play"/"flex" to handle it just fine.
PS:
Fun fact as far as I remember a number of webcams with LED indicator allow (or did allow in the past) anyone using the camera
to switch off the indicator without stopping using the camera...
>Fun fact as far as I remember a number of webcams with LED indicator allow (or did allow in the past) anyone using the camera to switch off the indicator without stopping using the camera...
While this is still true for many laptops, it hasn't been true for MBP for at least the past 5 years (cannot be bothered to find the exact year), even if someone has full root access to the machine. I say that, because the camera LED on MBPs these days is hardware activated, not software. So if the camera is active on hardware level, the LED indicator will go green, no matter what.
I consider the piece of tape over my laptop camera like face masks. It may not be perfect nor pretty, but it's damn effective, and I feel better having it on.
For the whole damage from using a camera cover thing, I simply bought as low a profile one as I could find and used a few small felt pads in the top 2 screen corners and next to the camera just outside the width of where the touch pad is (keeps pressure off the pad so the sensor doesn't crack).
I had a laptop that just was a pain to pick at with your fingers to open... I just shoved a bunch of paper in there for a while before I went with your solution, some little rubber clear grippy pads in the corners to get it to stand away from the body just a bit.
I use 3M blue multi-surface masking tape on all my devices. I've had a piece on my surface laptop screen for several months now and it is still leaving no residue after removal. I also like to cover the microphone cutouts if feasible (these are directly adjacent the webcam on my laptop).
I'm a fan of using painters tape.... pretty low profile, easily removed, stays on really well. Also the weird blue glow you get when the camera is on tells you pretty quick "Hey there's a cover on there" where sometimes with the all blackout covers ... I can't tell.
I renew my calls for all devices to have an led indicator (good on Apple here) and a physical switch that cuts power to mics and cameras for all devices with them. With the endless layers of software we have today, I have trouble trusting anything but cutting power.