WARNING! Keep those magnets away from that small area between your USB and Headphone port on your MacBook Air!
That’s right. No matter how tempting it is, apparently placing a magnet on the left side of a late 2010 MacBook Air, right between the USB port and the headphone jack, will cause the WiFi and screen to turn off. So far Apple has not provided a solution for users who need to store their magnets there, and Apple PR has not returned our calls on this important matter.
via Notebooks.com
It’ s the sleep wake sensor that is the unit. that’s why it goes to sleep.
Wait, this on top of the other issue all Macs have where if you accidentally hit shift-control-eject on your keyboard the display shuts off (usually until you interact with the Mac again!). This is getting ridiculous Apple, electronics should be impervious to magnets and hot keys!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Could it be that is the place where the magnetic sensor is to know when the screen is closed?
If it is, I’d say its functioning as designed…
I am pretty sure that this is an intentional result meant to put the mac to sleep when the screen is closed. I would assume that there is a magnet in the screen bezel that matches up with this spot when it is closed.
Electronics are effected by magnets?!
Quick! TO THE BATMOBILE!!
Just be glad it doesn’t have a CRT display 😛
I was going to buy a macbook air, but what with all these issues coming out, hmm I dunno.
😉
I’m with the others on saying that’s where the shut screen sensor is for the Air to go to sleep when you close the display.
@ Ramai – don’t let that deter you from buying one… I’m with the others, it’s an intentional part of the design to sense when the screen has been shut. Not a fault as such!
You should store your magnets on top of your spare hard drives. They hold on nice and secure.
They are designed to do this. All MacBooks have a magnetic switch on the left side to put the machine ro sleep.
Yeah right, this is not a bug – its a feature! : D
Pretty irrelevant what it is, feature or ‘fault’.
Anyone that goes running magnets across their computers will probably wonder why there computers die so quickly…
Fucking magnets, how do they work?
it is the magnet to set the computer on standby when you close the screen … exactly the same as on an HP laptop and probably many other laptos …
http://www.youtube.com/user/claushornstrup?feature=mhsn#p/u/3/L0Stkg3jErk
OMG!!1!!!1!
MAGNETGATE anyone?
Come on…who doesn’t like to stroke their Apple with a magnet?
I’ve read that if rest your hands on those “keys” thingies it can inadvertently cause strange symbols to randomly appear, and even make changes to your screen. Also, using your MacBook Air to replicate Galileo’s gravity/acceleration test can slow your system’s performance.
So you have magnets in your iPhone case? Have you noticed that your iPhone compass isn’t working? Guess why.
I don’t think they are designed to do this, nor do I have the habit of running magnets across my computer. In my case it was simply a hair pin left on the table that inadvertently got stuck to that area on the left side of my MacBook Air. Now the computer’s behaviour was pretty scarry. This is what happened: I was watching a movie and shut down the lid for a few minutes, and when I opened it again the film started to run again although the screen was still dark. There was this song playing loud, and I couldn’t change the volume – actually I couldn’t do anything. Shutting the lid again wouldn’t put the computer to sleep anymore, I even tried to press the start button for 5 seconds but the computer didn’t shut down.Then I pulled the power connecter from the computer body and the music stopped (so I guess it went to sleep); when I connected it back, the song began again, but always with the screen in the dark. I thought it might be some supernatural voice controlling my machine like a sci fi movie. : ) But then I put my hand under the computer, on the left side, found the hair pin, took it away from the computer (not knowing that was the cause of the whole phenomenon), and everything went back to normal.