Apple stuck the Mac mini power button on the bottom | Hacker News Reader

Apple stuck the Mac mini power button on the bottom

appleinsider.com

36 pointscroes58 comments

Looks like the button is probably accessible without picking the machine up thanks to the outer edges being raised enough to fit a finger underneath. If that's the case, I don't really see an issue, and if anything it's preferable since the old position was easy to accidentally press when plugging things in.

Most people probably leave their macs running all the time anyway, making the button infrequently used.

Only time I touch my macbook power button ... is to switch profiles. So a lot, but never as an actual power button.

Used to be back in the day power and reset were very much needed, to the point that I wished they were on my keyboard.

Now, almost never need them.

> Only time I touch my macbook power button

I almost never use it either, but I don't see how that comparison is relevant. That's a portable computer with a battery. I always turn off my desktop computer at the end of the day.

If I may ask: Why?

The last time I turned on my M1 Mini was when we moved. The previous time was when my desktop UPS kicked the bucket and I had to swap a new one.

It sleeps in a low-power mode and is 100% silent, why would I bother turning it off and waiting for everything to boot up every morning?

> If I may ask: Why?

Because I don't have an UPS. If the power goes down, the desktop computer crashes and there could be file corruption.

I don’t really think I would bother powering off a device like a Mac mini. They seem to sleep just fine.

i believe you can enable “power on with space bar”?

Why do you need the power button to switch profiles?

A single short press locks screen by default. Just a convenient shortcut.

Command+Ctrl+Q will also lock the screen.

The fingerprint sensor is there. One press and depending on what finger I use I switch to a different profile.

>Given the clearance between the main part of the Mac mini and the slight lift that the vents give it, it's most likely that users will have to tip or lift the device to reach the button

For what's it worth - a good cold reboot is a great tool that should be used multiple times a year...

The Mac Mini’s great grandfather, the G4 Mac Cube, had a motion sensing power button placed on top. If “astonishing” is what they were going for, they nailed it. Reaching for a paper on your desk? Astonished. And of course you’d have to fend off jokester friends waving their hands around like madmen.

Edit: searching online I’m seeing that apparently it wasn’t a motion sensor? So maybe it was vibration or light contact (with clothes, etc) that caused it? For context, ours even started having phantom power downs that I assumed were from the power button, so it may have just been a failing component.

I think it was capacitive touch button. There was no physical button movement, and a light came on when touched. I never had issues with mine. I actually still have the cube, including the original speakers, keyboard, and mouse that came with it. I haven't powered it on in years.

I was just reading other accounts online about the power button sensitivity, and I was indeed in a high static environment (extremely cold and dry in winter (Arctic), carpeted floors) which appears to be a common factor in those reports. That seems like a reasonable explanation for what I observed.

Strange design choice. That said, I've used the power button of my existing Mac Mini perhaps once in the past several years.

I think I used it twice this year to turn it back on because of power outages.

But yeah, I just sleep my Mac Mini. I have never needed to turn it off.

macOS can set to reboot on power loss, so I wonder if that's part of the rationale...that most machines are set to reboot when power (from the wall) resumes.

Oh I didn't know that! Found the setting. Now I really don't need to touch the power button.

Seems like reducing power consumption isn’t a thing anymore

When in sleep mode, Macs consume less than 1-3W of power, which is about the margin of error for most plugged-in devices. It draws ~5W idle and awake.

0W of a pulled plug is hard to beat

Are you unplugging your devices when you're not using them?

Yes

I'm old school. I like to shutdown devices. Apparently that's going away on desktop computers too now.

It boggles my mind, really. Anyway, I also love the value for money of the mini. I have had quite a few mac mini and this won't stop me from buying the M4 pro...

I'll just stick some tiny rubber feet to the side of the mac mini and rest it 90 degrees on its side. Done. Thanks Apple.

I mean, you still can shut it off, but it’s really pretty unnecessary nowadays. Sleep mode has gotten very reliable and efficient. In deeper power states devices don’t draw much current at all, and still wake up transparently instantly.

People don’t shut their phone down very much, it’s similar with laptops and desktops nowadays.

I don't like devices that sip on power when I'm not home, or asleep. It makes no sense at all. It's not like fetching emails involves connecting to a landline, ring up a dialing device, get... The mac boots faster than my ass gets in the chair. Stuff loads instantly. I turn off the whole desk at the wall at bed time, so all the "mood lights" go off as well. Simple, safe.

I get the convenience of always on, it's just not my jam.

Shutting down and starting up again can draw more power than sleeping/other low power mode. e.g. airplane mode on a phone is probably better than turning the device off for the night. Old dumb phones used to sip power when switched off so the alarm would work.

No idea with desktops, but I wouldn't be surprised if suspend used less power than stop/start for overnight in some cases.

Microsoft appears to be deprecating sleep in favor of Modern Standby, in which the machine draws enough juice to download and install updates. You know, because Windows is a service, and your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to install the updates. Modern Standby is a low-power variant of S0, the normal "awake", "computer is on" state.

Because what a PC is is defined largely by the needs of Windows, many systems shipping today do not support the deeper power states (S1-S3) at all, just Modern Standby.

Modern Standby is an abomination. Battery almost completely depleted in a couple of days doing "nothing" useful for me happens too often.

Idle state is probably what, a few watts? Maybe leaving it on 24/7/365 costs you like a few dollars at worst annually or something in even most overpriced energy markets.

I remember doing the math on leaving every single LED light bulb on all day in the house until bedtime, and the costs were so low I had to convince family that it's just poverty mentality and that we don't live in the incandescent age anymore.

Reminds me of the apple magic mouse that had to be flipped over on it's back into an unusable position to plug it in.

the resdesigned USB-C magic mouse has the charge port in the same spot.

I've always just shrugged and left the apple mice I've gotten in the box.

I remember trying to play an FPS game with an apple mouse... lol.

You couldn't left click without raising your right finger off your mouse.

(aim and fire? nope)

sorry, right click

My first thought was this button would be harder to reach for people with disabilities. It's probably to save space for the IO at the back but they could have gone with a smaller, iPhone-esque power button.

The truly Apple thing to do is if they figured out a way to use the Touch ID button on the Magic Keyboard as a power button when the Mac mini is off.

That being said, the power button can be redirected to the back or front with 3D printed compliant mechanisms.

I think that's a great idea; having the keyboard power it up. Not a mac buyer here, but you'd probably still want a button on the unit in case you decide to get a different keyboard

> I think that's a great idea; having the keyboard power it up.

Again. The power button has been on the keyboard for Mac for many older generations

Can't get telemetry if the user turns the computer off.

What kind of telemetry do you suppose they're collecting while people have stepped away from their computer for the night? And how does moving the power button on the Mac mini help Apple collect more of that AFK telemetry when users can just as easily (or, indeed, more easily) use the Shut Down prompt via the system menu?

You're kidding but what about find my? I suspect things like location services and find my are reasons apple has gotten in the way of turning off bluetooth and wifi on their devices.

With wifi they get crowdsourced location data. with find my they get crowdsourced device and airtag location and relay.

(and ios nfc can't be turned off afaict)

Isn't Find My E2E encrypted? I don't think Apple can get any useful information out of that beyond "user uses Find My." I'm not an expert though, I could be wrong.

Apple makes money through these crowdsourced services. They depend on connectivity, so apple makes it tougher to turn them off.

to be more clear:

- location services uses wifi to gather information about wifi access points to add to their wifi<->location database

- location services can use wifi to find your location

- location services can use bluetooth in the same two ways with ibeacon

- find my can locate your devices using wifi/bluetooth

- find my can locate other people's devices using your devices

tokenminer trojans on m4 without a power off button. i can hear the web3 pyramid scam equivalent sound of cha-ching

shitting on web3 is equivalent to betting against internet, web, iphone, bitcoin and llm while shilling google and meta

nah it's just common sense

As a parent, this design looks rather beneficial. I don't need the power button to be easily accessible, but little kids love pressing the button that causes the biggest visual change.

They'll still find this one (it glows, right?), but at least it increases the difficulty a bit.

The previous Minis have the power button in the back with pretty much no tactile reference.

They're not computers you shut down every day after work, and why would you. There's no noise, the power usage is a rounding error when sleeping - and even in use.

Love my mac minis... used them since 2006 connected to flat screen TVs (screen resolution set to lowest so it zooms in) and have a wireless mouse as a remote; use Firefox. The entire free un-interuppted Internet from your couch or in your bedroom(s).

Stupid location that will be covered by any sort of mount.

New Mac Mini with M4

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41984519

Flip it 180 degrees? There's nothing on the other side anyway, and the vents ought to be at the top to give it better cooling.

Or 90 degrees. Although it is smaller by about 36% in width and depth than a Mac Studio, I think that the reasons that prompted my to rotate that 90 degrees counter clockwise would still apply to a Mini for many people.

My Studio is to the left of my monitor stand and a little back. My monitor has crappy speakers so I have external desktop speakers. They are also a little behind the left and right sides of the monitor. The speakers get in the way of reaching the ports on front of the Mac.

With the Mac rotated it can be closer in toward the monitor base, and the ports are then easier to each. Also since being rotated reduces the footprint on my desk there is more room for other things, like a hub I have for a USB hub for my non-C peripherals.

i bet the vents on the bottom coordinate with the silent fan direction for convective cooling and may be less efficient if inverted. my 2013 mac pro (the aluminum cylinder) and my powermac g4 cube both used that on purpose and i think my always silent mac studio does too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube

"You're holding the Mac Mini wrong. Just flip it!"

It makes me wonder if they're intended to be rack mounted on their sides with half a dozen others.

That would be a thing Jony Ive would do. Design first.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com