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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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Mac Mini's are cool, and I appreciate that Apple has some of the most experienced and talented designers in the world... But they put the power switch on the bottom. You have to lift it up and turn it over to turn it on and off.
Power Bottom
I assume that the plinth lifts it high enough for your finger to comfortably fit under.
who let the magic mouse engineers loose
Remember these are the same engineers who put the Magic Mouse charging port on the bottom, making the mouse unusable while you charge it
People treat it like a mistake but not be able to use the mouse while it’s plugged in is the entire point of the design. Right or wrong the Apple designers thought a cord drag was a bad experience and designed to prevent it.
They probably looked at their target audience and realized there was a certain percentage of folks that would just leave the mouse on the cord 24/7 and wanted to prevent that.
They also know their target audience has plenty of people who gobble up every bad design decision and even defend it online years later.
I don't understand what was wrong with the original version that just took 2 AA batteries. Reaching for the AA charger and swapping cells not awkward enough or something?
Smart and elegant design would be hiding a battery charger in the iMac it self (maybe even use something smaller than AA), not expect you to flip and plug in your mouse every time ya leave it. The Nintendo Switch, while a completely different form factor, is a great example of an elegant (you could even say "wireless") charging solution.
I'm getting really sick of the Apple esthetic of sticking out wires, be it the mouse or the dozen dongles for every portable device they now make. Uh! Can't forget the world's only pen that needs charging, for seemingly no reason.
They can fit a bigger rechargeable battery in the same space as a battery bay for replaceable batteries. Plus it eliminates the waste of throwing away batteries, and has longer battery life than similarly sized alkalines.
Honestly don't feel like a slight reduction on a month long battery life is of much concern. As for waste, I'd say being able to replace a dead battery should reduce waste if anything, also nobody said it must be a AA (on a side note, you seem to imply the use of non-rechargeable AA, which holy shit, if they're still a thing, must be purged, sweet jesus...who's dumb enough to waste money on em???). Personally, I'd much prefer having a second battery charging separately somewhere, ready to swap, as opposed to being forced to stop using my computer. Or like the Nintendo Switch I mentioned before, have some spot I can put it away for charing, that way the mouse is also cleaned up and not fucking dangling and wobbling around freely on the table.
You should probably educate yourself on the advantages of rechargeable and single use AA batteries before calling other people dumb for still using Alkaline batteries.
Rechargeable NiMH batteries are great for most usecases, but even the ones that are designed to have a low self-discharge rate still are much worse in that regard than Alkaline batteries. There are simply use cases where rechargeable AA batteries make no sense and you are much better off with regular Alkaline batteries.
Thanks for not providing even a single example... I tried looking around and only found relatively niche use cases, like them being more reliable and resistant (while also being lighter) for extreme environments or infrequent use, for example emergency equipment. And then some people choosing em because they don't feel like investing more into it, when they have only a couple devices that drain the batteries slowly, let's say a clock that lasts a year. That could be easily fixed if you could exchange empty batteries for full ones like with gass tanks and similar, and the prior examples aren't a good enough reason to have such batteries in the convenience store.
Anything that has a very low power draw. You already listed one of the common examples: a clock. Due to rechargeable NiMH batteries having a high self-discharge rate you would have to replace the battery every year, whilst an Alkaline battery would last 5 to 10 years. Other common household items that are a good example would be TV remotes, smoke alarms, or smart home devices like light switches.
IT here. They were terrible.
Very insightful comment Mr. IT of lemmy.
I don't understand why this is so hard to understand. You're supposed to stop using the mouse while it is charging, and use the mouse unplugged. That's the purpose. It's not a stupid decision, it just prevents some user's preferred operation of using the mouse while it is charging
...
It’s not a stupid decision, but a stubborn one.
I’m 100% OK with that; Apple is heavy on design aesthetics. If a user doesn’t like that, they can just use their own preferred mouse - wired or otherwise.
Yes. Disagree with their decision, fine. But it was thought out and purposefully done.
I used to buy Macs when I was a teenager and young adult, but finally grew tired of the "my way or the highway" approach to design.
Windows is guilty of this too, but it's more subtle, but getting worse all the time with w11.
Linux has more of a "you break it, you buy it" approach to design lol
Why? Says who? There's been a few times where I've booted my work laptop up in the morning and my mouse is dead and I've had to plug it in. Once it's charged I unplug it. What's the harm in that? I'd be way more furstrated if I had to open up my laptop (I keep it closed with an external monitor) and use the trackpad instead.
Says the designer or design team, backed by whoever is over them who approved the decision.
As for why? For design reasons. To make it prettier so it sells more units. To fit in with the brand's minimalist theme they've got going on.
Honestly, the mouse charger screams marketing or management. Apple's brand is partially form over function.
It was very likely a designers decision. It forces the use the use case they wanted; wireless mice should be used wirelessly. I would bet they fought marketing and management to get this on the final product.
Marketing would want the mouse they can advertise as being useable with and wireless. Female ports are easier to mount and manufacture with they have depth to set the socket. So a plug on the front is much cheaper and easier to manufacture.
The fact the charging cable doesn’t get used in motion means it will last longer and you wouldn’t have people useing fraying cables on the front of their mouse.
But WHY??
The previous model has it in the back, you can’t even feel it properly because it’s not recessed.
On the other hand the last time I turned off my M1 mini was when we moved. It’s 100% silent and takes less power than a lightbulb when it sleeps, so why would I bother powering it off.
Why would you run a lightbulb 24/7?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest-lasting_light_bulbs#:~:text=The%20world's%20longest%2Dlasting%20light,off%20a%20handful%20of%20times.
so you don't have to turn it on when you enter a room
A prior model Mac Mini uses 7W at idle.
What.
The fuck.
So how do you figure the designers are that good?
In case it wasn't a joke, I imagine it would be high enough for your finger to just poke under it to push the button, like you would a monitor with buttons on the bottom of the screen.
A reporter at the Verge just had a hands on with it and confirmed that you do, unfortunately, have to lift it up.
Doesn't look like it is.
You're using it wrong: Just place the whole computer upside down on your desk.
The new design seems more lifted, I think it should be fine to fit your finger below there without having to lift it up yourself. At least for most people.
But once its on why would you ever turn it off? /s
This but non-sarcastically. I have a Mac mini and I don’t think I’ve ever touched the power button (except after plugging in of course, but then you’re already fiddling)
I bought my iMac in March 2020... since then it's been powered down maybe half a dozen times (a couple of those were power cuts) and rebooted (outside of macOS updates) maybe ten times.
It just sits there reliably doing its thing and sucks little juice in power saving so 🤷🏻♂️
We used to have racks of these things for automated testing …. And eventually they stop responding, so someone needs to power cycle them. In the computer room. In a rack
I seriously don't understand why Apple won't make server macs, with proper server features like IPMI, rack mounting support, virtualization. As a software developer, macs are horrible to work with.
Beyond the nightmare that is code signing and certificates (required even for debug builds), the physical devices are special snowflakes. Getting them to play nicely in a CI/CD system is really difficult. They often freeze or misbehave requiring physical access to fix. Also, if you want to target older OS X or iOS versions, you need to use an older version of XCode (that Apple makes really difficult to find) and an older version of MacOS.
There are many other use cases beyond software development, such as render farms, network storage, backup etc.
It looks to me like the center part is thicker than the edge so the corner might not be flat against the desk. But I'm completely sure if it's enough.
I'd just get two toothpicks and make a seesaw to press it, although I pretty much never turn off my computers so I still wouldn't mind too much
Don't worry, there will be suitable USB accessories, for just 99$.
That's trippy. Try following the cable from end to end.