Gui RamboFun fact about the M4 iPad Pro: it’s the first device to support and use Apple's new Secure Indicator Light (SIL) mechanism. When using the microphone or camera, the corresponding indicator dot is effectively rendered in hardware (using the display), making it a lot less likely that any malware or user space app would be able to access those sensors without the user’s knowledge.
Take It EV Podcast 🎙️@_inside @stroughtonsmith wasn't macbook pro touchbar first one to have that too, physical indicator on the camera that is on when the camera is on, cannot be turned on by software separately ?
Dan Herbert@takeitev The MacBook webcam light has been hard wired into the camera for a lot longer than that. I think it's been wired like that since ~2012 for MacBooks. It sounds like the M4 light is a little bit different in that it also activates for microphone use and might be powered by kernel software rather than wired-in-series like the traditional webcam light.
Nathan Manceaux-Panot@danherbert The biggest difference is that the iPad's indicator light is not a separate LED—it's an image, displayed on-screen! I wonder how they went about implementing that
@Cykelero Possibly similar to how Android does it where the SoC has a secure sandbox for the kernel for rendering that takes priority over all less-secure (userspace) drawing instructions?