There is no reason to shut the it off. Unless the user wants to. Why the fuck should anybody care about how someone else uses it? Somebody doesn't want it drawing power that's their business their call. It doesn't concern anybody else.
It's a bad design regardless of how little or how much it may affect any individual user.
No, it's not in the front of the mini. It's in the back on the left side. And no most people won't be slipping their finger under the mini, they'll be tipping it. There will be workarounds simple, involved, innovative even. But they shouldn't be necessary.
So many people whined about the Magic Mouse charging port. A huge nothingburger. This isn't the same thing. It will bother some. Others will be bothered that someone is bothered. WTF. Objectively it's a bad design.That some people aren't bothered by that doesn't mitigate the dumbness of the move.
Apple hasn't had a keyboard that powers-on a Mac in decades, since what, the ADB days? Any keyboard can wake it from Sleep. I sleep my Macs for that instant gratification. My choice. If someone wants to power off their Mac that's their choice. Why should that bother me. Wait. It doesn't.
I have 2018 and 2012 minis and might replace at least one of them with an M4. Despite having large fingers I don’t see this as being a big deal at all. I’m sure the location of the power button is due to engineering constraints, and for people like me a suitably shaped spudger could be all that’s needed to access and press the power button. I might even leave the spudger in place, affixed to the power button with non-adhesive silicone tape and cleverly hidden from view. Or something like that. It may not be the most elegant of placements or solutions, but one of the reasons I get on well in life is that I don’t let insignificant issues become giant obstacles (aka, make mountains out of molehills).
I wonder if Apple put this here to assist those server farms that had to create some wacky setups just to handle the power on with current systems. I'd think you could create a more compact setup for server farms now with the 2024 Mac Mini. Space saved is money saved. Anyhow unlikely to be a deal break for 99.99% of people.
I dunno but now that the mini has shrunk almost to the size of an AppleTV, we might have a nice mount for the rear of a monitor to slip the computer in this making the power button ideally positioned. I could see this working out nicely.
I'm going to 3D print a riser for mine, but for now, I've started building a power button extension. Once it arrives, I'll finalize the design and share it on Tinkercad. For such innovative builders, they sometimes make odd design choices. The position of the button seems like an afterthought. If they intended for it to stay on, they should just say so. At least they are consistent with the plug port location on the Magic Mouse. Another solution I’m considering is to place it upside down.
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.
No one is being ‘excluded’ at all. If you must shut your computer down, mouse click on the Apple menu > Shut Down. To start up, press the button.
Comments
It's a bad design regardless of how little or how much it may affect any individual user.
No, it's not in the front of the mini. It's in the back on the left side. And no most people won't be slipping their finger under the mini, they'll be tipping it. There will be workarounds simple, involved, innovative even. But they shouldn't be necessary.
So many people whined about the Magic Mouse charging port. A huge nothingburger. This isn't the same thing. It will bother some. Others will be bothered that someone is bothered. WTF. Objectively it's a bad design.That some people aren't bothered by that doesn't mitigate the dumbness of the move.
Apple hasn't had a keyboard that powers-on a Mac in decades, since what, the ADB days? Any keyboard can wake it from Sleep. I sleep my Macs for that instant gratification. My choice. If someone wants to power off their Mac that's their choice. Why should that bother me. Wait. It doesn't.
I'd think you could create a more compact setup for server farms now with the 2024 Mac Mini. Space saved is money saved.
Anyhow unlikely to be a deal break for 99.99% of people.
I'm going to 3D print a riser for mine, but for now, I've started building a power button extension. Once it arrives, I'll finalize the design and share it on Tinkercad. For such innovative builders, they sometimes make odd design choices. The position of the button seems like an afterthought. If they intended for it to stay on, they should just say so. At least they are consistent with the plug port location on the Magic Mouse. Another solution I’m considering is to place it upside down.
They should do this, and they should also make the apple logo on the phones the flashlight. Change my mind.