The real reason Apple is warning users about MacBook camera covers

Earlier this month, Apple published a support document that warned MacBook owners against closing their laptop with a camera cover fitted. And just as with the whole wearing masks in public debate, there are some people who don’t like being told what to do, even it is for their own good.

First off, some clarity.

Apple didn’t say, “don’t use a camera cover.” Apple clearly said, ” don’t close your MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro with a cover over the camera.”

Apple even went on to clarify the issue:

“If you close your Mac notebook with a camera cover installed, you might damage your display because the clearance between the display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances. Covering the built-in camera might also interfere with the ambient light sensor and prevent features like automatic brightness and True Tone from working.”

I spoke to an Apple repair technician, who, on condition of anonymity, gave ZDNet a rundown of the problem.

“What we’ve been told is that since people have started to work and study from home more, the use of camera covers has gone up dramatically,” the repair tech told me. “It makes sense, people are using video more and more, and it can feel intrusive, so being able to slide a cover across the camera offers some privacy even mid-meetings where people might not want to disconnect. But consequently, the number of screen breakages are up. And it’s a pretty distinctive screen break — leaving a glowing white line down the middle of the display — so we know why it’s happened even if people are evasive about how the damage happened.”

Another reason is tighter tolerances.

“That new 16-inch MacBook Pro has the thinnest bezel I’ve seen,” the veteran tech said, and they’ve been doing this job for a number of years and has handled pretty much everything Apple has made during that time. “It’s almost non-existent, and anything that gets in-between the screen and the body can break the display in a heartbeat. They do, they just go ‘pop’ and the damage is done.”

“Only the other day, I saw a display that had been cracked when someone has closed a coin on it. Left a nice print of the coin on the display. The owner told me ‘it just happened on its own’… hmmm, OK.”