--- title: "Why the notch changed. — iSurge" description: "At launch, iSurge put everything in one notch page. As features came, it got crowded. In 0.4 it has tabs, one size and a Home made of cards. Here is why." url: https://isurgemac.com/blog/why-the-notch-changed/ --- [BLOG](https://isurgemac.com/blog/) # Why the notch changed. It got crowded, so it got tabs. At launch, iSurge put everything in one notch page. As features came, it got crowded. In 0.4 it has tabs, one size and a Home made of cards. Here is why. By Ruthran Baskar · 30 October 2026 · 4 min read IN SHORT - At launch the notch was one page, with a second one to swipe to. Every new feature had to squeeze in. - In 0.4 it has tabs under the camera: Home, Sound, Focus, Keep Awake and Devices, with room for more. - Every tab is the same size, so switching never moves the notch. - Home is made of cards in iSurge’s own style, and Monochrome makes it all white and grey. When iSurge launched on 7 October, the open notch was one page. CPU, memory and battery sat across the top. Sound and the mic were on the left, and the apps using the most were on the right. Swipe, and a second page showed GPU, disk, download, temperature and your devices. The notch at launch: everything on one page, and a second page to swipe to. For a monitor, that worked. You looked up and saw your Mac. NOTCH ## Then it ran out of room iSurge kept growing. Each app got its own volume. The mics got a page. Then came a Focus Timer, Keep Awake and your devices’ batteries. Each one needed a place in the notch, and one page plus a swipe couldn’t hold them. Things got small, crowded and hard to find. A notch you look at all day should be the easiest thing on the screen to read, and it wasn’t any more. NOTCH ## Four ways to fix it So I drew four whole notches, each at its real size: tabs, one page per feature; tiles, an even grid where a tile opens in place; live first, where what’s happening now sits on top; and the Mac beside you, with the Mac on one side and you on the other. Tabs won. They were the cleanest, and they leave room. I want to add more to iSurge, and with tabs a new feature gets its own page instead of squeezing into someone else’s. NOTCH ## Tabs under the camera The tabs sit right under the camera, a symbol over each name: **Home**,**Sound**,**Focus**,**Keep Awake**and**Devices**. There is room for nine. The first new one is already there:**Dev** joins the tabs while one of your projects is running. Sound has a whole page now: your output and mics on the left, each app’s volume on the right. NOTCH ## One size on every tab In the first version with tabs, the notch grew and shrank to fit each page. Switching from Home to Sound made it jump, and your eye had to follow it. Now every tab is the same size. Only what’s inside changes. NOTCH ## A Home made of cards Home is where the notch opens. It is made of cards: what’s playing, the weather, your next event, your batteries, Keep Awake, Focus and Mute mics, and your Mac’s CPU and memory. My first cards looked too much like other notch apps. iSurge already had a look of its own, in its menu bar dropdown: a coloured icon and a bold title, a big number, and a live graph in that part’s colour. So Home’s cards are drawn the same way, and the notch and the menu bar now feel like one app. Home, with sample data, in the same style as iSurge’s menu bar. NOTCH ## Quiet when you want it The notch is always in view, so it shouldn’t pull your eye all day. Closed, it shows little: while a focus runs, only the time; while Keep Awake is on, its lantern. Open, each part has its colour. If you’d rather it stayed quiet, turn on **Monochrome** in Settings › Notch, and everything turns white and grey. Song covers and app icons keep their colours. Home in Monochrome. PRIVACY ## What the new cards need Weather needs a place, so 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, checked at most every 30 minutes and only while the notch is open. Your calendars are read on your Mac and never changed. The new notch is in iSurge 0.4. For a tour of every tab, read [What your MacBook notch can do](https://isurgemac.com/blog/macbook-notch-tabs/), or see [everything new in 0.4](https://isurgemac.com/changelog/). ## 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.