This is ridiclous
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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Uh how often are you having to power on your Mac mini? I think mines been off like twice last year.
Having the power switch away from where I often blindly poke around to plug cables in, sounds like a good choice.
Damn, that is some amazing copium....
They had a well established place for the powerbutton, why change it?
As an IT guy, if I worked with Macs this would be terrible to work with
You know, now that you say it, I'd bet that's exactly why they did it. They probably want to fuck over companies that would otherwise have racks of Mac Minis (for clusters, colocated servers, etc.) and force them into Mac Studios or Mac Pros instead.
Nah, if you are racking computers, and they don't have built in lights out management, you open them up and connect remote triggers to the power button leads, allowing you to remotely start them if they get shut off. I'm sure lots of companies do have Mac farms for Mac and iOS development, but I doubt Apple give a crap one way or another about them.
Well first off if you look at the picture, this is a much smaller device. If the power switch was in the same place as the larger case it would be on the side edge.
Secondly because it’s now moved into a space where it’s not going to be accidentally hit, and requires an intentional effort to press.
That’s great, how many IT guys have to manually go around turning off hundreds of computers at the switch instead of running some automated method across the whole network? Such a rare and unlikely situation that the average home consumer and user of a device such as this really doesn’t ever have to factor in.
As another IT guy at a university, having to manually turn on 30 computers in a classroom for updates or whatever is already a pain in the ass. Wake on LAN is not a reliable solution. Havin to manually flip over every box, then putting them down, and then fixing the cables that got yanked... I'd throw those fuckers in the trash.
The Dell Optiplex 3080 Micro's form factor is perfectly tiny without compromising user comfort.
I have never bought an iPhone or a Mac and I agreed at first that this seems an extra step. But you surely wouldn't have to flip it over? The device will be raised enough it appears that a finger could slide in the gap and hit that button. But maybe I don't know shit or have slender fingers or something but feels like it could be operated without flipping.
What am I missing?
Still a daft design but yeah...
I have been using a MacBook trough work for 7 years now and I think I actually clicked shutdown once this year too keep the battery at ~80% during my 1 month holiday. Otherwise I maybe reboot it once every month or two to fix some weird homebrew upgrade issues. And that's it. The thing is just "on" in deep sleep, forever.
If the Mac mini's behave similarly to the MacBooks, the standby energy usage is so low it's probably easier to just keep it in on/standby/sleep all the time and just wake it by keyboard or mouse. And because Apple develop their own hardware, standby and sleep actually work reliably. So they probably intend for you to only use that power button for a hard reset. Even shutting it down and moving it, plugging the power back in wil probably start it up again. Just like opening the lid on my shutdown MacBook also boots it before I even touch the power button. Even a keypress or mouseclick will probably turn the damn thing on.
Yes it's an odd design choice, but in regular day to day use it probably won't matter. Especially if you realise that its not a windows machine that needs to shutdown or reboot often.
Yeah my current Windows machine only gets rebooted upon updates, but previously I've noted needing to do it more frequently. My work laptop I shut down out of habit because they only supplied me with an 8gb ram device.
When I'm forced to move to Win 11 on my personal PC I'll move to Linux instead.
WoL is amazing when it works
I had to update a remote laptop where windows was EoL for patching cutoff on a weekend and I threw my arms up in the air when it reported in a few minutes later
It looks like it's raised up off the desk by the circular portion in the center. Still annoying to press but a finger probably fits under there.
You're a Windows shop? Why don't you deploy a policy that prevents users from shutting down computers?
Mainly because our students are idiots and will complain if the computer doesn't turn off. Or worse, take independent action and hold the power button, or actually yank the power cable. Maybe I should just lean into it and convince them that the monitor is the computer.
Jokes aside, how could I implement such a policy? I've only found one that hides the power buttons from the start menu, but Windows still responds to ACPI.
The policy you’re looking for is in Computer Configuration->Policies->Windows Settings->Security Settings->Local Policies->User Rights Assignments->Shut down the system
This policy takes account or group names from your local or domain AD as its variable (like Domain Admins). After it’s successfully applied, only those users or groups will be able to shutdown the machine gracefully.
Create a new GPO or edit an existing one and apply it to the ADUC organizational unit containing the computer objects you need to target.
Thanks, but that's the same one that I found. It removes the power button from the start menu and disables the
shutdowncommand, but the computer still responds to ACPI and even the keyboard's power-off button.You can handle those issues with power, setting group policies, and inhibiting action when the power button is pressed (that includes keyboard power buttons). Nothing will stop the user from killing power by holding the physical power button down, except for changing that setting (if available) in the BIOS.
Computer config->Preferences->Control panel settings->Power options
Why would they be idiots for wanting to turn these computers off?
If the computers aren’t running something important while not in use, I think they should turn them off as we’re already wasting far too much energy.
I might be missing something, but it sounds like leaving your car running or leaving lights on in your home the whole year.
There are use-cases where a computer should not be turned off by its user for the purpose of remote management. I'm dealing with one just as I'm writing this comment.
There's an exam in a classroom. In 20 minutes I'll have to run an ansible script to remove this group's work, clean up the project directory, and rollback two VMs to the prepared snapshot to get ready for the next group. I've put a big-ass banner on the wallpaper telling the students not to shut down the computer, and already half of them are off.
Oh my. Good luck!
Okay in such a case I understand why these machines shouldn’t be turned off.
But, for normal people using their computers for admin/gaming, I still think it’s one of the easy ways of saving a bit of energy.
Most computers go into a deep power saving mode when they aren’t in use. Far less than a light bulb or power brick.
How often do you accidentally press a power button on a desktop computer? I don't even do that on my laptop, where the power button is close to the keyboard.
My phone case has a magnet in it (so it mildly sticks to metal surfaces).
I've put it on a laptop and accidentally triggered the "lid close" sensor
Is your power button at the back of your pc next to the usb and hdmi ports? The place you dont look when trying to plug in a memory stick by feel.
Of course not, who would put a power button on the back or bottom of the computer? Front, side, or top are the places it goes for almost every computer out there.
I feel like it’s such a waste of energy when powering off your computer when you’re not using it is so easy.
Startup power consumption is a LOT depending on how much needs to open.
For work my i9 laptop spends about 3 minutes chugging down 60-100 watts. An M1 Mac mini draws 5 watts fully powered on and idle. Sleep the machine draws less than a watt. The idle power of the power supply just being connected to the wall is going to use more power than that.
The standby drain is negligible and it allows for the device to stay updated and synced.
A lot of negligible things added together can make a lot.
My computers are perfectly up to date by just running the software update manager while using them.
But of course, being veggie, not having kids, biking or walking has a bigger impact than just turning off your computer.
As I have two lovely kids and my work involves a lot of car travel, I can’t blame you for not turning off your computer though 😇
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. The only time I use the power button is when there is an issue which has been like 4 times in 3 years maybe? I think people complaining about the power button location have never worked with macOS and are used to shittier standby in other operating systems.
On the one hand, I agree. Apple has positioned their power buttons with the assumption that the devices wouldn’t be turned off very often for quite a while now. It was on the backside of the previous mac mini design and also on the backside of the 2013 trashcan mac pro, for example.
That still doesn’t make it less annoying though. We use a lot of macs for work, including aforementioned mac minis and mac pros and we do turn them off regularly because there’s no need for them to use power 24/7. Having to turn them around to find the power button is just stupid. That’s form over function in its finest. But if you’re the type of person who never turns off their computer, obviously it doesn’t really matter.
That’s not to say, that the new mac minis aren’t remarkable machines. The redesign was necessary and is very good in general. It’s a tiny powerhouse. They could’ve just chosen less of afterthought of a power button location.
I've never owned any Crapple stuff and never will, but even I can see from the thumbnail that the circular vent is lifting the whole unit off the desk, so slipping your finger under to switch it off is going to be a bit odd the first time, then you'll instinctively know where the button is.
We've been doing it with monitors for decades