These apps will completely remove the notch on the new MacBook Pro
- 29 October, 2021 06:54
The new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro has a new feature that
everyone is talking about. No, it's not the blazing processor
speed, it's the notch at the top of the display. Some people don't
like how it looks, even though it doesn't take away from the
workable space of the screen.
Apple has a solution if you use an app in full-screen mode. But when you're not, the menu bar often is another color other than black and the notch stands out. For some, its mere presence feels like a poke in the eye, another example of Apple doing something innovative that they don't agree with and they just have to sit there and take it. (I actually don't feel that way. The notch doesn't bother me. But according to social media, many of you CAN'T STAND IT! ARGH!)
But you don't have to just sit there, you can do something about it, thanks to the software community. A few developers have already made utilities that black out the menu bar, effectively hiding that god-forsaken notch. Here's a look at some of those menu bar utilities.
Top Notch
From MakeTheWeb, makers of the CleanShot screen capture app, Top Notch (free) can be set to launch at startup and it appears as a menu bar icon. It's a pretty basic utility with just the essential set of features: turn on/off the black menu bar, activate rounded screen corners, and whether the app should work with dynamic wallpapers (the ones that change colors based on the time).
Top Notch is a basic
app but it's free. Image: IDG
Forehead
Developer Jordi Bruin likes the notch. He's also sympathetic to those who don't share his feelings, so he wrote Forehead (you set the fee you want to pay the developer). It has a basic feature set, but if you want to go to the extreme with the rounded corners, you can really do so with Forehead by using its slider to go from no rounded corners to a corner radius of 100.
Bruin notes on his website that Forehead may not be able to modify some wallpapers and that Forehead doesn't currently update the variations of dynamic wallpapers and uses the default.
Go crazy with the rounded corners. Image: IDG
De-Notch-ifier
Developer publicspace.net is known best for longtime favorite A Better Finder Rename (also called Better Rename on the App Store). They took their Boring Old Menu Bar utility and reworked it into De-Notch-ifier (14-day free trial, licensing starts at $9.95).
While Top Notch and Forehead are pretty basic tools, De-Notch-ifier is chock full of customization options. Here are some of the settings you can adjust:
- Menu bar color: Maybe you want an orange menu bar all the time.
- Light and Dark modes: You can set different menu bar colors for each of these modes.
- Screen corners: Set how rounded you want the wallpaper corners to be, or not rounded at all.
- Dynamic Wallpaper updates: You can set the interval at which the menu bar is refreshed to match the dynamic wallpaper.
For $10, you get a lot of customization options.
IDG
