[antennafirepla]

You could, for orders of magnitude more compute than reading a magnetic encoder (my assumption at how they estimate it)

[estimator7292]

Sure, but not more than what you're already spending on transforming the image. And it's not like these devices are exactly lacking in horsepower.

[3eb7988a1663]

This is trivially broken by people who affix some type of cover over the camera. I do this on the off chance some errant application thinks it deserves to take pictures of my environment.

[yonatan8070]

If someone covers the camera, the feature isn't relevant since it requires the camera to see your desk

[kazinator]

Isn't the desktop view is produced from the iPhone camera capture, not from from the MacBook's camera?

[empressplay]

If you have a new Macbook the built-in camera does it

[kazinator]

I'm typing on a 2024 Macbook Pro. Is that sufficiently new? I don't see how it would work, practically. The only camera is the user-facing one. If the screen were tilted down toward the desk, I'd have to kneel down to see it.

[Cthulhu_]

But compute is cheaper for the manufacturer than adding a sensor (parts & labor, and it adds up over millions). Someone must've done the math.