Hacker turns MacBook Pro into a musical instrument by exposing a hidden API

Hobbyist programmers typically do not concern themselves with the existential question of "why" - they simply do things because they can. An engineer and tinkerer, who goes by Sam Henri Gold on Twitter/X, is one such coder who admits to having "too much free time", and has ended up discovering a hidden API buried inside macOS that detects the angle at which the lid is currently at.

It is unclear how exactly Sam managed to utilize the API, but he somehow did, and also went the extra mile and created a full-blown application that not only reveals the lid angle data, but also plays a soundtrack when the lid is moved. The sound effect he chose for his project is honestly quite perfect - the creaking noise of a wooden door being opened or closed.

The tweet has since gone pretty viral, with a plethora of feature suggestions pouring in, ranging from musical instruments to a Pac-Man controller. Sam decided to implement a theremin simulator, and it sure does sound exactly as one might expect. Does this serve any real purpose? Not quite, but the act of uncovering hidden APIs is quite tantalizing for sure, especially for tinkerers who like to dig deeper than the rest of us.