
Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro has a mysterious new ‘lid angle sensor’ - jameslk
https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/19/20973135/apple-16-inch-macbook-pro-lid-angle-sensor
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re
This reminded me of "lid controlled volume" (from the reddit running joke of
absurd volume controls):
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6fowct/lid...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6fowct/lid_controlled_volume_mac_edition/)

That one was implemented using the ambient light sensor to estimate angle.

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hcarvalhoalves
Something about the new microphones maybe? Safety measure?

EDIT: Found this [https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-
pro-16-micropho...](https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-
pro-16-microphone-in-clamshell.2212013/) , apparently the mic kept working
even w/ lid closed on old models but not anymore.

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gcoguiec
From the comments:

> I’m guessing the angle of the screen tells the software at what angle your
> head probably is, and that data is use that as an input for tuning audio
> spatially.

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mncharity
I could have used something similar, when doing XR-ish laptop human
interfaces. Assuming sufficient resolution. Knowing screen pose relative to
eyes, from head tracking on the laptop webcam, it would have been nice to
simply derive keyboard pose, without needing to track it separately (with an
extra camera/mirror/kludgery).

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core-questions
Maybe it's something to do with how people often carry around their machine
partially open?

