Showing off a bit more of the feature’s flexibility, Hegenberg has demonstrated two potential orientations of the Notch Bar: One where the MacOS menu bar hides out of sight until you move your pointer to the top of the screen, and another where the Notch Bar sits above a static menu bar. Still lots of bug-fixing to do until then? Slowly things are falling into place, I think for Christmas I can do a first non-alpha release. Just added brightness & volume scroller widgets and a emoji widget to the BTT Notch Bar alpha. Instead, everything is located at the top of the screen. There’s no need to remember a bewildering array of keyboard shortcuts or switch between multiple apps.
The key benefit is that since the Notch Bar is ever-present, you always have your shortcuts close to hand. All the while, you can tweak each button’s icon, colors, and label. And you can add volume and brightness controls - and even an emoji button - into the Notch Bar, much like the old MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar. It integrates tightly with Apple’s Shortcuts app, letting you start your automations with just a tap or a click. It can launch specific apps or perform defined shortcuts and gestures. You can use it to display widgets like the current weather or whatever you have playing in Apple Music. In other words, it makes the new notch a whole lot more useful.Īs with everything in BetterTouchTool, the Notch Bar’s strength lies in its flexibility. It’s like a control strip for quick-access shortcuts. But BetterTouchTool goes one step further and adds customizable buttons to this black bar. “So what? Plenty of other apps do that already,” I hear you say. This puts a black bar on either side of the MacBook’s notch, essentially making it disappear. Andreas Hegenberg, the mind behind BetterTouchTool, has updated their app with a new beta feature called the Notch Bar. Yet we totally get it: The notch looks pretty damn weird.įortunately, the developer of one of the best MacOS utility apps has come to the rescue. That’s a shame, because it really is one of the best laptops we’ve reviewed all year. Fitbit Versa 3Įver since the 2021 MacBook Pro was released, its notch has been a source of fascination - and derision.