SMS (Sudden Motion Sensor) in Apple laptops
Sunday, January 27th, 2008The Sudden Motion Sensor is a built-in protection for the hard disk designed to protect your data by parking the hard drive head if the computer is dropped or undergoes severe vibration. The Sudden Motion Sensor is designed to detect unusually strong vibrations, sudden changes in position or accelerated movement.
The sudden motion sensor feature was first available in 2005 to the PowerBook G4 and then to the iBook G4 (mid-2005). The SMS feature is also available to the MacBook and MacBook Pro computers. For more information, read this article by Amith Singh on Sudden Motion Sensor.
Programmers have found ways to take advantage of the Sudden Motion Sensor to create some cool applications. Here are some cool apps that uses the Sudden Motion Sensor:
iAlertU
iAlertU, is a car alarm system for your MacBook/Pro computers. It uses the built-in sudden motion sensor to detect movement of the MacBook computer and trigger an audible alarm and visual alarm. I wrote about iAlertU in the past.
MacSaber
MacSaber will turn your Mac into a jedi weapon. MacSaber uses the sudden motion sensor to create a lightsabre sound effect. Check out this cool video of MacBook Man.
SmackBook Pro
SmackBook Pro is a hack to Desktop Manager by Richard Wareham, a virtual desktop utility for Mac OS X.
By patching Desktop Manager and installing some other applications, you can use the Sudden Motion Sensor to switch between one virtual desktop to another. You can watch the demo video at YouTube.
Carpenter’s Level Dashboard Widget
Carpenter’s Level is a dashboad widget that will turn your Mac into a Carpenter’s level tool. When you tilt the notebook left or right the bubble will move from left/right. Useful to find out if your desk is level or not.
BubbleGym
BubbleGym by Balooba Software is a tilt-sensitive game taking advantage of the Sudden Motion Sensor. The game lets you control an object by tilting your PowerBook left/right.
I tested BubbleGym on my MacBook Pro and it couldn’t detect the Sudden Motion Sensor because Apple made some changes to the sudden motion sensor on MacBook and MacBook Pro. The application hasn’t been updated to Universal Application, which will require Rosetta to run on Mac with Intel processor.
