A few days ago, the final boss of Appleswill, Pedro Aznar, has published a homemade and cheap way to make a stand for the iPhone to use it as a webcam for the Mac, the function that macOS Ventura will release. While we wait for the final version, the beta is going, the beta is coming; It is worth preparing the necessary infrastructure, even if it is with [música de suspense] an Ikea bag and a pair of clothespins.
One of them, who felt a sudden pain in his left arm upon seeing the final cut, recognized Pedro’s courage even though perhaps his ambition could. And although the tweezers proposal is functional, there is no doubt I thought it worth looking for more aesthetic
Residual hardware cost and smooth experience
Once these plans are received, and while waiting for the usual suspects to launch their official proposals for thirty dollars or a similar amount, I took to Twitter to ask a Valencian with a 3D printer to help me print it, since the guard company was closed for the whole month of August… And someone one introduced himself.
He printed the support in an hour and it was perfect. This yes or yes model needs a MagSafe charging base to operate, although due to magnetism alone it does not require a power supply. This means that if we do not want to sacrifice a MagSafe base, we can resort to a MagSafe clamping ring without an electrical circuit.
Tried to video call Pedro and beyond a FaceTime crash attributable to using the Ventura beta which forced us to switch to Google Meets, everyth ing was fine and he noticed the jump in visual quality when I switched from the built-in camera on the MacBook to the one on the iPhone.
The adapter weighs about 7 grams, so at the approximate price of PLA or ABS filament rolls, about 20 dollars per kilo, the cost of the adapter just in terms of printing hardware would be around 15 cents. Then we would have to add the cost of electricity, the depreciation of the 3D printer, and of course, the work of the manager, who in this case did it with kindness and altruism.
An important nuance for those who dare to print this type of adapter: the screen of a MacBook is not designed to support weight, so it must be at a right angle. If we tilt it backwards, the iPhone will fall out of the adapter being embedded in such a thin layer.
These types of objects are the ones that can get the most out of a home 3D printer: anything that doesn’t require wiring and can be printed in one piece, saving a lot of money per in relation to the purchase of these products from third parties.
I now have an adapter that will allow me to offer good quality video calls, without having to resign myself to a less than mediocre image on a 2021 14-inch MacBook Pro. Because one can not help but think that if Apple’s solution to the regular cameras, saying “now you can hook the iPhone to the Mac”, Samsung or Xiaomi would have given it, the laughs in those regions would have been heard in seven neighborhoods. But this is consumer electronics, like democracy, as weird as it is beautiful.