Copper

A blog about conductive layers.

Reverse engineering the MacBook clamshell mode

When using an external monitor, you might want to turn off the MacBook display to focus on the large screen.

Closing the lid does that, but you lose TouchID, the webcam, the nice keyboard and trackpad. Surely there must be a way to call into that same code that lid closing does.

Post image

A window switcher on the Mac App Store? Is it even possible?

Have you ever tried Command Tabbing through 10 different apps, 50 times a day? What a pleasant experience, right?

Well it definitely wasn’t for me, so I created an app switcher, published it on the App Store, then noticed I also needed a window switcher, noticed there’s no such thing on the App Store and proceeded to find a way to create one.

Post image

Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

The 2021 MacBook Pro came with a greatly improved miniLED XDR display which is advertised as being able to handle 1000 nits sustained brightness.

Contrary to everyone’s expectations, when the machine got into the hands of users, it was clear that the display was still capped at the previous 500 nits for normal usage.

My attempt at trying to break through that limit failed, but the details might be useful for someone more determined.

Post image

Why aren't the most useful Mac apps on the App Store?

You might notice that a very small number of your installed apps come from the App Store.

While developing rcmd, a simple app that I really wanted to publish on the App Store, I ran into a lot more limitations than I was prepared for.

Here’s my story of how I overcame those limitations and then tried to understand why other useful apps chose the self-publishing route.