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Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

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Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#151

Post by pb7 »

smoldesu wrote: post #122
pb7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your Asus have a glass screen? Do you carry it in a backpack where there is pressure on the screen? Mind you, this isn't a well known issue. I've had it happen to me once in a decade of owning and frequently traveling with these and my backpack was stuffed to the point that it might damage the screen. I disagree about making it thicker. The newest MacBook Pros are already extremely thick and heavy. I don't want…

> Does your Asus have a glass screen? God I'd hope not. For programming, I cannot think of a single reason you'd want a glass display over a matte one. Maybe if you program in direct sunlight? Even still... I'll go ahead and agree with the other commenter. Part of why I no longer buy Apple hardware is because of these compromises that they assume I want. Trying to bridge the gap between a "creator-class" laptop and a…

I program and I prefer glass displays. It's more uniform, easier to clean, colors are more vibrant, and is easier on the eyes. I opt to not use an external display because most reasonably-priced ones are matte/non-glass and have awful color uniformity.

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#152

Post by eligro91 »

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #62

They have this feature but closing the lid on a MacBook or even putting it to sleep allows Bluetooth devices to stay connected. Heck, a MacBook even while in sleep mode will connect to Bluetooth devices. As far as I can see, this requires a third-party app to fix. Can an application still use the microphone on a Bluetooth device that’s connected?

Happens to me as well. when I'm turning on my wireless headphones and trying to match with my phone, the closed macbook is connecting to it first. this is annoying and requires me either to: 1. pair from scratch 2. go to the macbook, open it, turn off bluetooth.

annoying

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#153

Post by zamnos »

dheera wrote: post #94
zamnos wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the point that you're opening up the laptop and chasing traces, you can do the same thing with Apple devices (with a bit more difficulty). It's not like they're made with rainbows and moonbeams. If you're at that level of paranoia (no judgement if it's justified or not) and have the skill to, just open up the Apple device and chase PCB traces. If you go down that route, iFixit's a good resource with lots of helpfu…

If it's in-chip, it won't be with PCB traces, it would be solid state inside the chip and you wouldn't be able to verify without inspecting the wafer, which is way outside my area of expertise. It doesn't sound like there's a mechanical relay that they are using for this. There's also that if it's inside the chip, there is a risk that malicious software or buggy firmware can still enable it against your permission. W…

Nothing can beat a physical switch but even if it's solid state, unless it's in the CPU itself (it isn't) there still need to be traces in/on the PCB to bring the data from the microphone to the rest of the system, so just probe those traces when the lid is open vs closed. Or learn how to decap chips. There are some really awesome videos out there about that on YouTube!

More importantly though, Apple learned their lesson with the iSight which had a software-based activation LED. They assumed a random script kiddie wouldn't have the smarts to be able to hack the kext kernel module to turn the camera on without also turning the LED on. Unfortunately they learned about the Internet shortly thereafter where random script kiddies were able to get instructions on how to modify that kext, leading to some embarrassing moments, for some (possibly naked) high school teens, and for Apple.

Thats why the linked article is very careful to specifically mention that even having root and being able to manipulate kexts is not enough to silently use the microphone while closed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35059224

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#154

Post by copperx »

dvirsky wrote: post #67
lovehashbrowns wrote: post #62

They have this feature but closing the lid on a MacBook or even putting it to sleep allows Bluetooth devices to stay connected. Heck, a MacBook even while in sleep mode will connect to Bluetooth devices. As far as I can see, this requires a third-party app to fix. Can an application still use the microphone on a Bluetooth device that’s connected?

This has to be the most annoying thing in MacOS. My laptop, soundly sleeping in my backpack, takes over my bluetooth headphones all the time.

Mine connects to the goddamn car, overriding my cell phone.

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#155

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #62

They have this feature but closing the lid on a MacBook or even putting it to sleep allows Bluetooth devices to stay connected. Heck, a MacBook even while in sleep mode will connect to Bluetooth devices. As far as I can see, this requires a third-party app to fix. Can an application still use the microphone on a Bluetooth device that’s connected?

Check out Sleepwatcher [1]. I have ~/.sleep and ~/.wakeup defined to disable and enable bluetooth.

~/.sleep: /opt/homebrew/bin/blueutil -p 0

~/.wakeup /opt/homebrew/bin/blueutil -p 1

1. https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/sleepwatcher

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#156

Post by pb7 »

t344344 wrote: post #102
pb7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your Asus have a glass screen? Do you carry it in a backpack where there is pressure on the screen? Mind you, this isn't a well known issue. I've had it happen to me once in a decade of owning and frequently traveling with these and my backpack was stuffed to the point that it might damage the screen. I disagree about making it thicker. The newest MacBook Pros are already extremely thick and heavy. I don't want…

Screen on my Zenbook has touch layer, that makes glass a bit thicker I guess. And yes I keep it in stuffed in backpack and sometimes drop it. It is a tool, not museum exponate! I had other laptops that left fingerprints. But Macbook Air had glass so thin it would randomly pop from temperature difference (well known issue)! Nobody is forcing you to carry brick around. But some people like to carry brick and Apple shou…

>sometimes drop it. It is a tool, not museum exponate

Yeah, why can't it double as a hammer too?

>And how do you even clean keyboard on Macbooks

The same way you do it on any other laptop.

>That thing falls apart with a bad look

No it doesn't.

>But some people like to carry brick and Apple should make a new model just for them

No they shouldn't, go buy your brick from someone else.

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#157

Post by a9h74j »

eligro91 wrote: post #152
lovehashbrowns wrote: post #62

They have this feature but closing the lid on a MacBook or even putting it to sleep allows Bluetooth devices to stay connected. Heck, a MacBook even while in sleep mode will connect to Bluetooth devices. As far as I can see, this requires a third-party app to fix. Can an application still use the microphone on a Bluetooth device that’s connected?

Happens to me as well. when I'm turning on my wireless headphones and trying to match with my phone, the closed macbook is connecting to it first. this is annoying and requires me either to: 1. pair from scratch 2. go to the macbook, open it, turn off bluetooth. annoying

Sadly or happily for me: one device, one specific pair of bluetooth headphones. I've started getting the $15 ones.

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#158

Post by mgkimsal »

georgelyon wrote: post #145
dvirsky wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be the most annoying thing in MacOS. My laptop, soundly sleeping in my backpack, takes over my bluetooth headphones all the time.

I've long desired form my AirPods to operate in a "play any sound from any of my devices" mode. This seems like a no-brainer and such phantom connections would as a result have no user-visible impact and you could do things like listen to music coming from your phone while hearing sounds from your MacBook.

Unsure if I would love or hate that, but it might be more natural than the iphone/airpods/mac "incoming call" fiasco I face regularly.

Airpods/MacOS - listening to background music. Phone call comes in... VERY LOUD facetime 'ring' announces on mac that I'm getting a phone call.

Pick up phone to answer it... holy tamole - it's minimum 8 seconds between clicking 'answer' and... eventually airpods switching over to phone - most of the time. To the calling party, I've 'answered', but they can't hear me - or... can sort of hear me, but I can't hear them. The speed at which the 'switch' takes place, and the visual delay (air pod icons turning on, then off, then on again, then a floating top notification saying "airpods connected"...)... this is always minimum 8 seconds. Usually 10-11.

I just say "hang on, i'm switching my earpiece over..." and wait. Annoying. Given that this is all in their ecosystem, I expect this to get better, not worse. I'd rather this sort of experience get fixed vs more emojis, or 'sidecar' or whatnot.

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#159

Post by causi »

tracker1 wrote: post #107
causi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God I love having a laptop with proper S3 standby.

Yeah, even Windows/Linux laptops have started moving away from this... if the startup time isn't too bad, I've gotten in the habit of just completely shutting down when traveling. Nothing worse than a dead battery when you open your laptop because of some background BS trying to run.

Laptops will even play tricks on you with full shutdown. I had a Thinkpad that, despite being "shut down" kept popping up on my desktop as "available for streaming" on Steam.

Re: Hardware microphone disconnect (2021)

#160

Post by mgkimsal »

tbarbugli wrote: post #75
dvirsky wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be the most annoying thing in MacOS. My laptop, soundly sleeping in my backpack, takes over my bluetooth headphones all the time.

I had the same, switching to Airpods “fixed” this problem. I doubt Apple will ever do something about this, bt audio works fine as long as you use iPhone, Macbook and Apple pods

'audio' mostly does, unless that audio involved answering a call (posted about this in a separate thread). The experience of listening to music on a mac with airpods, then trying to answer an incoming call on the phone, and using the airpods, is abysmally slow, in my experience.
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