This is a rather odd choice for a company that prides itself on usability and user experience. I leave my computers on all of the time plugged into an UPS and just let them sleep as needed so this wouldn’t bother me too much. The only time I have to power them up is when I have a protracted power outage, which is very infrequent.
Where this may be a bigger concern is if you want to use a mounting fixture that allows you to mount the Mac mini on the back of a monitor that has a VESA mount. However, I’m pretty sure that makers of special mounting adapters will find a way to accommodate the strange placement of the power button. I fully expect that third parties will come up with some interesting mounts to get the new mini up off the desktop, which would once and for all suppress some of the “Where’s my new 27” iMac”” grumblings. Who knows, maybe Apple’s next Studio Display will incorporate something to make this happen? I’m not holding my breath.
Personally, the fact that the new Mac mini does not have a big honking external power supply (like the NUC and most Mini PCs have) more than offsets the wonkiness of the power button location. I’m very impressed with the new mini and only wish that it had arrived earlier.
Sorry, how often is that? The articles make it sound like you need the button to get it in and out of sleep mode, or something to be used daily - I think intentionally trying to misinform people for clicks. I literally don't remember the last time I touched the power button on my Mac. Maybe every few months? You don't even need it for a restart. When the hell do you need to turn on/off your Mac? Maybe before you move?
Non-issue. If it makes it cleaner from the front, and more room for ports on the back, its a good tradeoff and has zero negative consequences except for taking maybe 2 extra seconds to reach the button that one time a year you need to.
Easy fix for those who really want it. I’m sure a third party manufacturer will make a mini stand to make the button access easy. Just raise the mini up a little and have a guide for the button. It may be easier to access already. I don’t even look for the button on the back of my 2012 mini when I need to use it. I just feel around and there it is.
Perhaps design and cost cutting over function, but I’d wager that the vast majority of people rarely ever touch the power button on a Mac desktop. Even on my MacBook Pro, I might hit the power button a few times a year.
Where this may be a bigger concern is if you want to use a mounting fixture that allows you to mount the Mac mini on the back of a monitor that has a VESA mount. However, I’m pretty sure that makers of special mounting adapters will find a way to accommodate the strange placement of the power button.
A mount for the mini should probably put the top of it against the mounting surface, making a button on the bottom more accessible, not less. From what I've seen of rackmounted many-mini configurations, this button placement may also be superior than on the back.
Inconvenient from a traditional mindset, but nowadays a power button doesn't get much use..
I hit the power button on my Mini EVERY DAMNED MORNING.
(dear lord why is this forum software STILL BROKEN, wiping out messages with some captcha nonsense?)
It’s raised so a finger can slip under.
But the intended use case is not to power down a Mac every day, you put it to sleep then wake from sleep. Don’t even remember the last time I did otherwise.
Sorry but I’m just going to flat out disagree with you. So you can slip a thin finger I under and feel around for it. (Of course that’s only possible if you have the tiny fingers of a child. For us grownups, we’ll have to lift it up to hit the button). That in and of itself makes this a stupid place for the power button. It should be visible so you aren’t fishing around in the dark. I maintained servers that had their power switch on the front. On a home machine this is inexcusable. You put the power switch on the side where you can see it. Secondly you should be powering down your system when you aren’t using it. Both for security, for the safety of the equipment, don’t know when a line surge will come down, and to save energy. All of our systems go down at night.
I know I sound angry, and you know what, this pisses me off. Apple is better than this. This is just stupid.
Remember - this is the company that put the charging port at the bottom of the Magic Mouse.
it's interesting to see all the sycophants try to justify and explain away this saying 'you rarely need it' and 'there's work arounds,' completely ignoring the fact that this was completely unnecessary. There is no reason they had to do this and no advantage to doing so. No reason, no advantage = Bad design. there is no other explanation or conclusion to be made.
For powering down, I'm pretty sure most users will just yank the power cord. For starting up, putting the power-on button on the bottom is better protection than a password.
"Vampire power" is actually a huge environmental issue. (See, e.g. https://paylesspower.com/blog/vampire-energy/ or Wikipedia.) At some point, it makes sense to power down or unplug the machine, either for environmental or security reasons.
I think it's really amusing that so many people who don't have the unit and have never seen the unit in person are so upset at the power button location. Everything else must be right with their world right now.
As far as being "sycophantic" (and I don't think it means what that poster thinks it means), no one has an idea what the internal conformation of the unit might have made that location the best option of all possible locations. Maybe it was a good idea, maybe not, but packing everything into a 5" square means compromises likely have to be made, when all the other available configurations are also considered.
The keyboard power button was a hack that did not conform to USB standards, so they took it away. I recall when that happened because we manufactured computer trolleys for a medical application and the powermac was enclosed. We had to hot-wire a power switch somewhere else as it took screws to open the cart to get to the power button. PIA.
Inconvenient from a traditional mindset, but nowadays a power button doesn't get much use..
I hit the power button on my Mini EVERY DAMNED MORNING.
And EVERY DAMNED MORNING you're sending an unnecessary power surge through your Mac.
That hasn’t been true since the early ‘90s.
Incorrect. The amount of PCs I saw when I worked in IT have issues because of power being turned off at night and on in the morning was more than you'd think.
It's actually standard practice in IT these days to NOT turn off the PC/Mac. Energy Star ratings make energy use when in sleep mode a negligible thing these days and allows for updates etc to be pushed out overnight instead of at boot up right when you need to use it.
I don’t believe that this was a decision to prioritise form over function. Placing the power button, either on the back, or on the front, would look perfectly fine, in keeping with the Apple minimalist aesthetic. It appears that Apple are deliberately encouraging behavioural change: “Leave it on.” And there may be good technical reasons to leave the machine on rather than turning it on and off every day.
Plenty of use cases (mobile cart for example) where the computer needs to be powered on/off routinely. Not the most common application, but to exclude large chunk of users because they want to focus on one use-case is not good design.
Comments
Admittedly I rarely use a power button on my Mac, but this is just beyond stupid.
Where this may be a bigger concern is if you want to use a mounting fixture that allows you to mount the Mac mini on the back of a monitor that has a VESA mount. However, I’m pretty sure that makers of special mounting adapters will find a way to accommodate the strange placement of the power button. I fully expect that third parties will come up with some interesting mounts to get the new mini up off the desktop, which would once and for all suppress some of the “Where’s my new 27” iMac”” grumblings. Who knows, maybe Apple’s next Studio Display will incorporate something to make this happen? I’m not holding my breath.
Personally, the fact that the new Mac mini does not have a big honking external power supply (like the NUC and most Mini PCs have) more than offsets the wonkiness of the power button location. I’m very impressed with the new mini and only wish that it had arrived earlier.
Sorry, how often is that? The articles make it sound like you need the button to get it in and out of sleep mode, or something to be used daily - I think intentionally trying to misinform people for clicks. I literally don't remember the last time I touched the power button on my Mac. Maybe every few months? You don't even need it for a restart. When the hell do you need to turn on/off your Mac? Maybe before you move?
Non-issue. If it makes it cleaner from the front, and more room for ports on the back, its a good tradeoff and has zero negative consequences except for taking maybe 2 extra seconds to reach the button that one time a year you need to.
For starting up, putting the power-on button on the bottom is better protection than a password.
As far as being "sycophantic" (and I don't think it means what that poster thinks it means), no one has an idea what the internal conformation of the unit might have made that location the best option of all possible locations. Maybe it was a good idea, maybe not, but packing everything into a 5" square means compromises likely have to be made, when all the other available configurations are also considered.
It's actually standard practice in IT these days to NOT turn off the PC/Mac. Energy Star ratings make energy use when in sleep mode a negligible thing these days and allows for updates etc to be pushed out overnight instead of at boot up right when you need to use it.