Way back in ~2008 I wrote the Newton Virus https://www.everita.com/how-the-newton-virus-was-made + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh75j6OHhRc (sorry for the broken images, need to update that site). Between that and using a hidden API to take screenshots of each individual element on your desktop (from icons, to taskbar, to windows) the effect was pretty believable. One of the most fun (and frustrating) projects I ever worked on.
I've tried to find this for so long. I remember seeing it at the time as a teenager and thinking it was SO COOL. Basically made me discover Apple and want a Mac. :)
When I saw the post the Newton Virus was the first thing I thought of. Thanks for making it. I remember showing my family the video and remarking about how cool it was.
Aaackshually, the Sudden Motion Sensor was introduced on 2005 in the PowerBook G4, and continued through the intel MacBooks with hard drives.
While officially undocumented, people figured out how to access it back then, with novel uses like smacking your MacBook to change spaces (virtual desktops) or swinging the Mac around to make lightsaber noises.
(I should know, I was in university back then and swung my Mac around like an idiot, lol.)
On the first Retina MacBook Pro 15" in 2012, and moving forward with all MacBooks that were SSD-only, they removed the SMS as it was not needed.
To my knowledge, this is the first time we're hearing that Apple Silicon machines have an accelerometer on the SoC, officially or otherwise. It's also certainly not branded or marketed as the SMS was. (https://support.apple.com/en-us/100871)
Apple has a motion sickness mitigation feature that displays dots on your screen that move based on physical motion, so it’s fairly well known that the accelerometer exists.
> the sensor lives under AppleSPUHIDDevice in the iokit registry, on vendor usage page 0xFF00, usage 3. the driver is AppleSPUHIDDriver which is part of the sensor processing unit.
If it can read your heartbeat from your wrists resting next to the trackpad, maybe it can use that as a user satisfaction signal for gratuitous UI changes.
From testing, it seems to require me to press my wrists quite hard against the macbook to get a somewhat accurate reading on the heartbeat. Non the less a cool project and I wasn't even aware my macbook has an accelerometer.
On my M4 14-inch MacBook Pro, it looks like there are two accelerometers: One with {"DeviceUsagePage"=0xff00,"DeviceUsage"=3}, and one with {"DeviceUsagePage"=0xff00,"DeviceUsage"=9} - They both identify as Bosch BMI286
Ah, after some testing, it looks like these both refer to the same IMU, DeviceUsage=3 is for the accelerometer and DeviceUsage=9 is for the gyroscope. The serial number is also the same for both.
author here, quick update: the sensor code is now a standalone pip package
pip install macimu
from macimu import IMU
with IMU() as imu:
print(imu.latest_accel()) # Sample(x, y, z) in g
print(imu.latest_gyro()) # Sample(x, y, z) in deg/s
Are you implying that it is paranoid and irrational regardless of circumstance to want this?
Sorry to disappoint. I’m working in the human rights space, with dozens of real world experiences by people I work with. I got raided once myself. They were unable to locate any computer on my premises. They however took my phone and a couple of encrypted hard drives for forensic analysis. They asked for the device PIN, which I did not provide. A court later ruled the raid and seizure and temporary confinement illegal. I did not reuse the returned phone. They didn’t pay for the replacement, or the lawyer.
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