Article · AI translation
IT Home reported on November 8 that a new app called “Backglow,” developed by designer Juan Buis, lets users customize the illuminated Apple logo on the lid of the new MacBook Pro laptops.
The free version of the app lets users manually adjust the brightness of the Apple logo independently of the MacBook Pro’s screen brightness setting. Users can also turn off the logo light completely with one click, without running a command in Terminal.
The free version also offers a “Breathe” mode that makes the Apple logo light slowly and gently brighten and dim in alternation, similar to the sleep indicator light on older MacBooks.
Users can unlock the Pro version of the app with a one-time payment. Its limited-time price is $9 (IT Home note: approximately 60.2 yuan at the current exchange rate), after which it will rise to $15 (approximately 100.3 yuan at the current exchange rate). The Pro version adds two lighting modes: “Music” makes the Apple logo light change to the rhythm of music playing on the Mac; “Agents” makes the logo light pulse continuously while Claude Code performs tasks and flash to alert users when their intervention is needed.
Apple began phasing out the illuminated logo design on MacBooks in 2015, but has reintroduced it on the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, both of which feature touch-sensitive PROLED XDR displays.
On older MacBooks, the Apple logo was lit by the screen’s backlight. OLED displays, however, have no backlight, so Apple needed an entirely new technical solution.
Daring Fireball author John Gruber revealed that Apple designed a custom light source specifically to illuminate the logo again without increasing the thickness of the laptop lid. As for why Apple brought back the design, he said an Apple representative answered: “Because it’s cool.”
Apple says in an official support document that, by default, the logo lights up whenever the Mac is awake. The computer automatically adjusts the logo’s brightness according to the screen brightness and the surrounding light conditions detected by the ambient light sensor.
Buis said the Apple logo uses white LEDs and does not support changing colors.