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Comment by ricardobeat | Hacker News Reader

See, Mac users rarely turn the device off. It can stay on for months without issue. Laptops can sleep for weeks before they run out of power. The power button is more like a reset switch, and doesn't need to be front and center.

A lot of these first impressions are just that, first impressions, and can be quite different from feedback coming from daily users.

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I read this comment and realized I don’t even remember the last time I powered down my Mac! You’re right that it’s not something I do very often. Is that not the case with Windows and Linux nowadays? What’s the point in powering down?

Software updates is one reason

For simpler userspace updates a restart of the relevant processes is easy enough, but it can be a bit more difficult when it comes to kernel updates.

(Updating a running kernel has been a thing in Linux for a number of years, but my systems don't do it.)

Software updates require a restart, but that's not what I'm thinking of when I consider a power down. I'm thinking of the scenario where you take explicit action to power down your machine and leave it powered down. I power down my machines before going on vacation, for example.

Even when you power down or restart a Mac it remembers all the applications you had running and all the application windows and it re-opens everything so you come back to everything just the way you left it.

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