Apple explains why the Mac Mini power button is hidden underneath

Mac Mini doesn’t come with a keyboard. So unless you’ve owned an iMac or bought a keyboard separately, you won’t have that convenience.

That being said, I haven’t touched the power button on my Mac Mini since I got mine on the 8th.

As someone in IT, I loathe non-standard the fuck is the power button designs.

My work computer yes, but I always shutdown my home computer when I am done with it.

With NVMe SSDs, computers boot fast enough that sleep mode doesn't matter.

Not for you, but it's an issue if you're using Mac Minis as unattended service devices that are hard mounted and will occasionally need to be reset by hand (think kiosks and AV systems in conference room).

Isn’t that just the Apple philosophy?

They are like, “this computer uses basically no power while asleep and everyone just puts their computers to sleep anyway and this machine weighs 1.5lbs. It’s not a big deal.”

Damn Lemmy, when did you all get so damn salty? In an Apple community no less.

This is “you’re holding it wrong” all over again

I don’t think it’s lazy, Button placement seems neutral in that regard. No this is most likely form over function. They do this all the time. Remember the charge cable for the mouse? They don’t want the port seen, and they didn’t want their equipment to be seen plugged in. But people are willing to buy form over function for clout. What are you going to do?

Yeah, you become a trillion dollar company by being lazy and not knowing what people want!

I use 3 computers daily. Work. Desktop. And Mac mini. That Mac never needs rebooting. The laptop for work is shut off at night daily. The desktop pc if also often in overnight 🙈 Before you judge me, I offset by buying renewal power (water/solar). Point is. I really do rarely need to use the power button.

Completely playing devils advocate here but by having it on the bottom isint it right there on the same plane of the main board therefore making it easier to manufacture by simply having smt components vs having manual wires routed elsewhere/long plastic stick power button running the entire height of the machine internally. Its may be lazy but could it also not be efficient?

Imo the way to resolve probably like 80% of the complaints for this would be just have the edge of the machine sit just high enough above whatever surface it is on by way of feet or a thicker base. Just enough be able to put a finger under there and press it. Not very unlike monitors and TVs have done for ages at this point

In the same train of thought, BMW and Tesla execs need to find courage and remove turn signals.

Charging port under the mouse is a non issue too, the battery lasts for weeks and even if you need to charge it in a pinch, you can plug it in for less than a minute and you’ll be good for a few hours.

It is however extremely good at making people talk about it, and that’s why they’ve been keeping it this way for 10 years

🥰so cuuute!

To be fair it's power consumption is effectively zero at standby and only 4-5W at idle/light usage.

If you were worried about this amount of power usage you would be better off unplugging your microwave when not in use to avoid running the clock display

My understanding is that M4 is very efficient, and I would imagine that its energy use on sleep is negligible.

And as for affordability, I think the M4 Mac mini is supposed to be a terrific deal, no? As long as you use the base specs.

You put it to sleep, the power draw is almost zero (really, my power meter can not measure it). It wakes up when you press a button on the keyboard or move the mouse. You really do not need the power button…