Your AirPods know which way you face.
TurnTab reads the motion sensors in your AirPods, works out which way your head is facing, and acts when you turn. Here’s what happens in between.
It starts in your ears.
AirPods with head tracking carry the same motion sensors Spatial Audio uses. With your permission, macOS shares their readings about 25 times a second.
TurnTab turns each reading into one number: how far your head is turned from the screen. No camera, no microphone, and your head-motion data never leaves your Mac.
The dial in your menu bar.
That number drives the dial in TurnTab’s menu. The head turns with yours, the lime ends are where actions fire, and the app at each end is what you’ll get.
- 1
The line, 25°
Turn past the tick and the side lights up. Closer to the centre, nothing happens, so reading the other half of a wide screen never fires anything.
- 2
The beat, 0.25 s
Stay past the line for a moment and the action fires, once. A glance that comes straight back doesn’t count.
- 3
The way back, 8°
Come back inside the line by a few degrees and it’s ready again, so wobbling on the line can’t fire it twice.
Watch it switch.
Turn right and the sprint board comes forward in Chrome; turn left for the game. Looking back returns to the document.
Frost that follows your head.
From 8° the side you’re turning away from starts to blur, and by 45° the whole screen is covered. It eases in and out, so it never snaps.
The blur is progressive, like a lens: strongest at the edge, fading towards your work. It runs at your display’s refresh rate, and it’s click-through.
A centre that stays put.
Motion sensors slowly drift. TurnTab watches how fast your head is actually rotating and holds the angle steady when you’re still, so the centre doesn’t creep.
If the stream stops for more than a few seconds, say your AirPods switch to your iPhone, the new readings may face a different way. TurnTab suspends everything until you nod twice or recenter, so nothing can fire by surprise.
Look at the screen
Recenter once, with ⌃⌥⌘C or the menu.
Sit still
Slow drift is held back while your head isn’t moving.
AirPods drop out
Actions and frost pause. Short hiccups keep your centre.
They’re back
Nod twice or press Recenter. Never done for you.
Private by design.
Your head movement is processed in memory and thrown away. Your settings stay on your Mac.
The only thing TurnTab sends is your license check, about once an hour: your key, an anonymous ID and the name of this Mac, and the version numbers. Read the privacy policy.