--- title: "What your MacBook notch can do. — iSurge" description: "On its own, the MacBook notch only holds the camera. iSurge 0.4 opens it to your day: music, weather, your next event, and tabs for Sound, Focus and more." url: https://isurgemac.com/blog/macbook-notch-tabs/ --- [BLOG](https://isurgemac.com/blog/) # What your MacBook notch can do. In iSurge 0.4, it opens to your day. On its own, the MacBook notch only holds the camera. iSurge 0.4 opens it to your day: music, weather, your next event, and tabs for Sound, Focus and more. By Ruthran Baskar · 27 October 2026 · 6 min read IN SHORT - On its own, the notch holds the camera and nothing else. macOS leaves the space around it empty. - iSurge 0.4 opens it to your day: what’s playing, the weather, your next event, your batteries and your Mac’s CPU and memory. - Tabs under the camera give Sound, Focus, Keep Awake and Devices a page each, and Dev joins them while your projects run. - Click the notch to open it, or choose in Settings › Notch to open it when the pointer rests on it. A MacBook notch is the black cut-out at the top of the screen that holds the camera. macOS doesn’t put anything in it. The menu bar flows around it, and the space beside it stays empty. An app can use that space, and that is what iSurge does. When iSurge launched, the notch became a live view of your Mac: two stats beside it, and CPU, memory, battery and sound when it opened. [Look up.](https://isurgemac.com/blog/look-up/) tells that story. In 0.4 the open notch was redrawn around your working day. This post walks through what it shows now, tab by tab. NOTCH ## How do you open the notch? Click it. The notch opens below the camera, with iSurge’s icon on the left, Settings on the right and a row of tabs in between. Move the pointer away and it closes. If you’d rather not click, open Settings › Notch and set **Open the notch**to**When the pointer rests on it**. In full screen, the notch hides after 2 seconds and comes back when you move the pointer to the top, so it stays out of a game or a film. Every tab is the same size. Switching from Home to Sound or Focus never moves or resizes the notch, so your eye stays in one place. NOTCH ## Home: your day at a glance Home is the tab the notch opens on. It is made of seven cards, in two rows. Home, with sample data: music, weather, the next event, batteries, quick controls and the Mac’s vitals. - **Now Playing:** the song from Music or Spotify, its cover and buttons to go back, pause and skip. Drag the bar to move in the song. With both apps open, their icons at the top right switch between them. Nothing played yet? Play starts Spotify or Music. - **Weather:** where you are, the temperature and today’s high and low. Click it for the next six hours and the next five days. - **Calendar:**the weekday, the date and your next event, or the one happening now. When today is done, it shows tomorrow’s first. Click it for the rest of today, with**Open Calendar** to jump there. - **Batteries:** rings for your Mac first, then your devices, lowest first. Four rings at most; the last one says how many more there are. A click opens Devices. - **Controls:**three buttons.**Keep Awake**,**Focus**and**Mute mics**. While a focus runs, its button shows the time left. - **CPU**and**Memory:** the number now with a live graph. Click either to see the apps using the most, with Quit. Now Playing shows Music and Spotify only, because those are the players iSurge can control. A browser or another app making sound shows in the Sound tab instead, with its own volume. SOUND ## Sound: every app, its own volume The Sound tab puts your Mac’s sound on one page. On the left: the volume, where sound plays (click AirPods or the speakers to switch), your mics, and **Mute all mics**. On the right: every app playing sound, each with its own volume slider and its own output. Sound: the Mac’s output and mic on the left, each app’s volume on the right. So you can lower the music and leave a call loud, without leaving the app you are in. Sound passes through iSurge and is never recorded. FOCUS TIMER ## Focus: a timer and where your time went The Focus tab is a focus timer. Pick a length and press **Start focus**. While it runs you see the time, what comes next, and**Pause**,**+ 5 min**,**Skip**and**Stop**. The notch tells you when time’s up, and while it runs, the time sits beside the closed notch. Focus: the timer on the left, today and the last 7 days on the right. Beside the timer is today’s focus time, with the apps you used most while focusing, and a bar for each of the last 7 days. Point at a bar for that day’s time. Only app names are kept, never what was in them, and it all stays on your Mac. KEEP AWAKE ## Keep Awake: stop your Mac from sleeping The Keep Awake tab keeps your Mac from going to sleep while a download or a long job runs. Pick a length: **Indefinite**, 15 or 30 minutes, 1 or 8 hours, or until a time you choose. Then press**Start**; the lantern lights up and shows what’s left. Three switches sit below: **Keep the screen on**,**Also with the lid closed**and**Turn off below 10% battery**. The lid-closed option is new in 0.4 and has a post of its own: [how to keep a Mac awake with the lid closed](https://isurgemac.com/blog/keep-mac-awake-lid-closed/). NOTCH ## Devices: every battery in one place Devices shows your Bluetooth devices and their batteries. AirPods get left, right and case; a mouse or a keyboard gets one ring. Eight fit on a screen, and more scroll. Click one to open it in iSurge. With nothing connected, the tab says so and offers **Bluetooth Settings**. DEV ## Dev: your projects, while they run The Dev tab appears only while one of your projects is running. It lists them, each with its memory and its share of the battery today, and **Pause** takes you to that project in iSurge’s window. Dev joins the tabs while your projects run. Beside the list are the two things that matter most right now. That might be a build you asked iSurge to watch, containers near their memory limit, something left running after you closed a project, Homebrew updates for what your projects use, or your local servers with a button to open each one. With nothing to say, the projects take the whole width. To hide the tab, turn off **In the notch** in Settings › Dev. NOTCH ## Monochrome: the notch in white and grey Each tab has its own colour when open. If you’d rather the notch stayed quiet, turn on **Monochrome** in Settings › Notch. Everything turns white and grey; song covers and app icons keep their colours. It is off unless you turn it on. PRIVACY ## What leaves your Mac Weather needs a place. iSurge asks macOS for your location once and rounds it to about 1 km, or you type a city in Settings › Notch. The forecast comes from MET Norway and is checked at most every 30 minutes, only while the notch is open. Your calendars are read on your Mac and never changed. Music and Spotify are controlled on your Mac, and macOS asks once for each. ## Questions ### Can I make the notch open without clicking? Yes. In Settings › Notch, set Open the notch to When the pointer rests on it. ### Why doesn’t my browser show in Now Playing? Now Playing shows Music and Spotify, the players iSurge can control. A browser playing sound shows in the Sound tab, with its own volume and output. ### Can I choose the weather’s city? Yes. In Settings › Notch, set Weather for to A city and type its name. You can also pick °C or °F there. ### Does the Dev tab always show? No. It shows only while one of your projects is running, and you can turn it off with In the notch in Settings › Dev. iSurge 0.4 is $14.99 once or $9.99 a year, and if you had iSurge before 0.4 it stays free for you, with every update. [See the prices](https://isurgemac.com/pricing/). ## Get iSurge Pay once, yours for good. [Buy iSurge](https://isurgemac.com/pricing/) Already have it? [Download](https://isurgemac.com/download) Requires a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) and macOS 15 Sequoia or later. Notch features need a MacBook with a notch; everything else works on any supported Mac.