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by usefulcat 471 days ago
The notch has gone away, at least as of Sonoma on a 15" M3 Air, but at the cost of some real estate at the top of the screen. Basically they just don't draw anything at or above the lower edge of the notch, so it looks like the screen ends there even when it doesn't.

I actually wanted to get the notch back so I could have as much vertical screen real estate as possible and was disappointed to find that there doesn't appear to be any reliable way of doing this.
2 comments
rafram 471 days ago
It sounds like you've changed your screen resolution to a 16:10 aspect ratio: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/17j5zo5/i_think_ive_fo...

The notch is definitely still there by default.

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usefulcat 471 days ago
No, from the time I bought it last year I never changed the resolution until I noticed the notch was gone and was trying to get it back, but to no avail. I also don't have anything unusual installed, definitely nothing display-related. It's pretty much as I received it from Apple, modulo whatever updates have been released since then.

Currently it's set to 1710 x 1107, which is labeled "Default", and no notch. When I look closely at the right angle I can clearly see the notch dipping into the screen, but the OS does not use any of the area to either side of the notch--it's completely dark there.

Just now I ticked "Show all resolutions" and tried at least a dozen other available resolutions and none of them use the screen above the notch bottom. Sonoma 14.6.1, 15" M3 Air.

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rafram 471 days ago
OK, I have no idea what setting you could have set, but this is not stock behavior on any MacBook with a notch.
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culopatin 471 days ago
That’s not normal. Are you sure you don’t have an app that’s doing that or toggled a setting in so,etching like Onyx and forgot?
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usefulcat 470 days ago
Quite sure. SyncThing and mosh are the two most unusual apps that are installed. And I've spent a fair amount of time researching to find out what setting could cause this. The only thing I've found that could supposedly affect the notch is the display resolution, and changing that makes no difference for the notch.

One thing that did occur to me though is that it was a 'refurbished' MacBook. Bought it from Apple, and it looked brand new, but it does seem possible that someone could have done who-knows-what to it before I got it. Or perhaps there is some defect in the display near the top and Apple did this intentionally to conceal it.

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adastra22 471 days ago
I have exactly that setup, and I see a notch. Are we talking about something different?
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