by Jason Snell

iFixit reveals the magic behind the new glowing MacBook Pro logo

When I was in Los Angeles getting briefed on the MacBook Pro with PROLED, I asked Apple representatives directly about how they made the Apple logo on the back glow again, given that OLED displays don’t leak light out the back.

They jokingly told me it was “magic,” said that it was actually hard work to do, and refused to get into details.

Okay, I said—I’ll just wait for iFixit to tear one apart.

On old MacBooks, light from the LCD backlight shone through an apple-shaped window in the lid. But the PROLED’s pixels make their own light. So, yes, Apple waited until the first MacBook Pro without a backlight to bring back the backlit logo.

Of course we had to get inside.

The result is pretty much what you’d expect:

Under a taped patch in the middle we found four LEDs, all in a strip along one edge. The light hits a reflective layer and passes through a diffuser, turning four little points of light into one evenly glowing apple. The logo itself has a mirror-like coating that looks shiny with the lights off.

(There’s also a YouTube video of the teardown.)

My favorite aspect of this new easter egg of a feature is that with the light off, you can’t tell that it’s the new MacBook Pro. It doesn’t look like the white logo cut-out of years past; it looks exactly like the mirrored metallic logos of the last decade. Except… then it lights up. Magic indeed.