DECEMBER 2021 MACWORLD 51screen to house the 1080p FaceTime
camera, hence the notch. It’s important to
point out that the notch doesn’t infringe on
the screen area—you still get a 16 by 10
screen below the notch, so the notch area
is extra screen space compared to the
older MacBook Pro.
The macOS menu bar runs through the
notch by default, but there is an option to
make the menu bar sit under the notch
when in full-screen mode. It’s a per-app
setting in the Get Info box called “Scale to
fit below built-in camera,” and if the app
developer has not defined what mode to
use in their app, you’ll find this option.
When activated, the space around the
notch is blacked out, making the bezel
look something like it does on the 13-inch
MacBook Pro. (We have a separate article
with a little more detail on this [fave.
co/3k6Y2h7].)
With the notch in play, app menus will
continue on the other side of the notch if
necessary, but at the cost of your menu
bar icons on the right side—they’ll be
temporarily removed from the menu bar
and replaced when you create space by
switching out of or quitting an app. This
doesn’t just happen with apps that have a
lot of menus; if you use a lower screen
resolution (such as the Larger Text setting
in the Displays system preference), you’ll
easily see how the menu listing runs into
the notch and continues after it. And menu
bar icons on the right
disappear.
This behavior was
always the case in
macOS, but it rarely
was an issue since
there aren’t many
apps with menu items
that extend that far.
But now that the
notch takes up
precious menu bar
space, it will probably
happen more
frequently.
This suddenly
makes Control CenterThe 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display has a 3024-by-1964 native
resolution at 254 pixels per inch.