That dot is there to let people know that there's a live mic listening to them and possibly recording them in case they don't want that, right?
So basically, what this guy is saying is that sometimes he wants to show an app that is listening to the audience, but without letting his audience know that they could be recorded by his application.
Here's the crux of his issue.
"In the interest of security and privacy, Apple on macOS Monterey has added a prominent orange dot to display outputs when audio capture is active. That renders their machines unusable for live visual performance, though, since it’s also shown on external displays. Dear macOS team – we urgently need a fix here.
The basic idea here is sound – to avoid software hijacking your camera and audio input and spying on you, essentially, there’s an orange dot to let you know recording is active. But this essentially makes the Mac unusable for live visuals, since it impacts external projectors and LED walls and the like. (Those applications don’t even need to be obviously using audio; live visuals often use mic or line input to produce sound-reactive animation and the like."
Here's where I feel he's being disingenuous:
"Those applications don’t even need to be obviously using audio; live visuals often use mic or line input to produce sound-reactive animation and the like."
So they're not using audio, but may be using the microphone or line input to access sound for "reasons". That's called "using audio". He's trying to draw a distinction that doesn't exist. He wants to make it clear he's using audio in a non-privacy-violating way. And I believe that he is. I do believe he's a good-faith actor who is just trying to use audio input to enhance certain presentations.
However, it has the same behavior as people who do not act in good faith. This is a prime example of dipshits ruining it for everyone. There can't really be an exception because then that exception just gets used by the bad faith actors in the space.
To solve his problem what he really needs is a monitor/projector that doesn't show the top however many pixels required by the menu bar. In a very amateur way, this would be accomplished with a piece of electrical tape over the monitor. For a projector, there could possible be a special lens cap that cuts off the required area. Like a matte lens.
1- I doubt anyone at Apple intended the orange dot to be broadcast to everyone watching their television during a live musical performance on SNL with visuals in the background. It is not possible for the performance to be recording any of the viewers, so there's no possible "dipshit" to be protected from.
2- The dot appears on secondary displays running full screen video: there is no menu bar to crop off. You can only crop off part of the visuals, or your visuals have to be lower resolution to produce artificial dead area to crop.
3- Apple has never given any indication that they intend to add indicators that someone else is being recorded by my computer. The indicators are for the computer owner, to indicate that software may be recording the owner without their knowledge. The parties are all different than you're supposing.
2 - The dot essentially forces a bar. It's not an overlay on the application's graphics. This is what is shown in the images. So there is something to crop off.
Not to mention, if it is known, it can be planned around. This is exactly what television has been doing for years. There are scan lines that don't get shown on screens despite being broadcast.
3 - This is almost as disingenuous as the article. The dot is there to inform the user of the device/screen that they could be recorded. The audience during a performance would qualify as a user in this case. It's basically an indicator saying, "if you can see this, it's possible the device showing this is recording your audio". That is completely relevant for an audience. If you think it's not, then why is it relevant for anyone else. There are thousands of excuses one can use to justify hiding this information from anybody. Once you are potentially violating my privacy, it is relevant to me.
I promise you that the people who do those visuals for SNL (and every other wacky scenario people are coming up with) are not mirroring or extending their desktops. They're using dedicated video hardware for this exact reason.
So basically, what this guy is saying is that sometimes he wants to show an app that is listening to the audience, but without letting his audience know that they could be recorded by his application.
Here's the crux of his issue.
"In the interest of security and privacy, Apple on macOS Monterey has added a prominent orange dot to display outputs when audio capture is active. That renders their machines unusable for live visual performance, though, since it’s also shown on external displays. Dear macOS team – we urgently need a fix here.
The basic idea here is sound – to avoid software hijacking your camera and audio input and spying on you, essentially, there’s an orange dot to let you know recording is active. But this essentially makes the Mac unusable for live visuals, since it impacts external projectors and LED walls and the like. (Those applications don’t even need to be obviously using audio; live visuals often use mic or line input to produce sound-reactive animation and the like."
Here's where I feel he's being disingenuous:
"Those applications don’t even need to be obviously using audio; live visuals often use mic or line input to produce sound-reactive animation and the like."
So they're not using audio, but may be using the microphone or line input to access sound for "reasons". That's called "using audio". He's trying to draw a distinction that doesn't exist. He wants to make it clear he's using audio in a non-privacy-violating way. And I believe that he is. I do believe he's a good-faith actor who is just trying to use audio input to enhance certain presentations.
However, it has the same behavior as people who do not act in good faith. This is a prime example of dipshits ruining it for everyone. There can't really be an exception because then that exception just gets used by the bad faith actors in the space.
To solve his problem what he really needs is a monitor/projector that doesn't show the top however many pixels required by the menu bar. In a very amateur way, this would be accomplished with a piece of electrical tape over the monitor. For a projector, there could possible be a special lens cap that cuts off the required area. Like a matte lens.