This is ridiclous
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I guess you could flip it around and make the bottom the top 🙃
You’re thinking of a powerbottom, but that’s a totally different concept
Might make the thermal dissipation stop working properly
As long as no vents are blocked, should work fine. Anything with a fan is orientation agnostic.
I thought Apple did away with fans years ago
How is this newsworthy… smh
Hahaha I thought this was the onion and the button was the big fugly thing that covers the whole bottom
This is fake right
okay, I was gonna say that it’s not that big of a deal because you can just slightly lift it when you want to turn it on (or just slide your finder under it, if they’re small enough) but judging by that photo, it seems like the power button is at the back of the computer? whyyyy??
anyways, im more impressed by the fact that their new shiny mouse who finally uses USB-C still has the charging port at the bottom. im starting to think they think it’s a good design???
I just think it’s weird that people are complaining about the power button and the mouse charging situation, but no one is complaining that this DESKTOP computer does not have any USB-A ports. If you want to use any wired keyboard or a Logitech mouse with the adapter you’ll need to attach a dongle. Crazy.
I’m not an Apple fanboy, nor have I ever purchased one of their products (and I don’t plan to), but I’m actually fine with this because there are lots of USB-C mice and keyboards on the market these days in every price range. At the very most, you might have to buy a different cable because the ones I’ve bought tend to come with USB-C to USB-A cables instead of C to C. But eventually that will change as USB-A is inevitably phased out.
I actually do buy Apple products and I can accept your logic for a laptop because I use a docking station. The point of the Mac Mini is to be the cheap Mac and adding extra cords or dongles just increases the cost and creates a mess behind the machine.
A hub costs $10 if you really need all those ports.
Most people buying these machines don’t, which is why it lacks the ports.
It’s a desktop, so you will obviously need an external monitor. Most of the new monitors these days also work as USB hubs - you just run a USB C cable from the computer to the monitor and you get both display and additional ports.
I personally use a dock that has three Thunderbolt downstream ports with my MacBook and run USB-C to DisplayPort cables connect two screens. If you have one monitor then you can ignore 90% of what I’m griping about. I just think it’s interesting what people notice. The old high end Mac Mini had 4 Thunderbolt USB-C and 2 USB-A. All ports including headphones were on the back. I don’t mind a front audio jack but prefer it on the back since I use it for speakers. This machine is still a major upgrade no matter what. Thunderbolt 4 is bandwidth limited if you want 3 hi-dpi screens or two 4K 60, so Thunderbolt 5 is a big deal on the Mini Pro.
USB-C has been out for years. The only issue IMO is that since USB-C negotiates power delivery, it might not be as easy to split out a USB-C port into multiple USB-C ports. Spitting USB-A ports is easy since they only do 5V, and spitting USB-C into multiple USB-A ports should be fine. But if your peripherals all become USB-C, you might find yourself running out of ports fast.
I am not an expert. I probably got something wrong there, but that’s my understanding.
The things that I would plug into a computer are generally peripherals, webcam, printers, scanner, etc. They generally come with USB A plugs. Also nearly every useful USB-C hub is designed for a laptop and has a built in short cord. The new Mac Mini has three Thunderbolt 4 ports which is more than adequate for high speed applications and video. TB4 allows for hubs like the CalDigit Element Hub which has 4 USB-A and 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports but costs $180.
My MacBook has just two USB-C sockets. When I bought it I picked up a couple of A adapters on Amazon for a few quid each. It’s never been an issue. Even less so with a desktop, as you’re able to leave the adapters in all the time.
Yes but we are bitching about trivial things and the lack of USB-A is far worse than the location of the power button on a desktop. I don’t accept the mouse criticism because it’s not required to buy a Magic Mouse. I have a MacBook but I use a Thunderbolt dock so in my use case the usb-c port increases convenience.
Apple doesn’t want people using the mouse with the cable attached because it would cost them a fortune due to failed charging ports within the warranty period. It’s a wireless mouse. Using it plugged in will fuck it up.
I fix computers and an apple mouse with a bad charge port is just a throwaway.
My theory is: free publicity. Just like the fashion industry comes up with ridiculous clothes that no one would ever wear, attention whores will constantly do outrageous things so that people will talk about them. The number of electrons spilled over this stupid mouse port placement over the years is uncountable. But the repeated conversations keep Apple in the public consciousness as a fashionista.
I think it’s more just their minimal design combined with the fact that a normal user will never press the power button. Most people don’t shut down their computers, and if they do, a key on the keyboard turns it on.
The only argument I’ve seen to this being bad is in a server rack environment.
I read someone else musing that they must have thought that keeping it plugged in all the time would be bad, so the made it impossible to use the mouse while plugged in. Seems plausible. I suppose it would degrade the battery? Or the cord drag would be bad?
On the battery, they should have been able to do whatever they thought best in the battery management system, in that case.
Simple answer is easiest, that they are obsessed with the “clean” minimalist look and want to abolish every visible port and buttin they can.
Surprised though that the mouse didn’t do the magsafe thing.
“But it looks bad and could be bad for the battery!”
Every other wireless mouse has it in the front, Apple has no valid reason to leave it at the bottom.
The fact that everyone hasn’t taken on this design trend just shows how stupid it is.
They also take on stupid design trends, like removing the headphone jack.
This one is just several degrees more stupid.
There’s the unsolvable problem - to prevent companies doing stupid things.
And there’s the solvable problem - have enough competition so that companies doing stupid things would become or remain small.
Which is why all the stupidity in computer industry in our days is a result of patent laws and protectionism.
The design forces the user to use it wirelessly. Apple just wants their products to look better, meaning NO CORDS EVER. It’s entirely about aesthetic.
It’s literally just the same body as the OG Magic Mouse, which had a bay for a pair of AAs underneath. All they did was remove the bay, put a rechargeable battery in there, and a socket to charge it. It takes a couple of minutes to give it 9 hours of juice.
There’s no grand conspiracy.
I’ve said too much they’re coming for me they know they know they know
If that’s the case, then why does the wireless keyboard have the port on the back?
They should have just released a mouse pad that can charge the mouse wirelessly then.
im surprised they haven’t done this tbh
Apparently Logitech does have this out now, so I wonder if they patented the “concept” and it will be another 20 years before anyone can do it. Assuming that someone else didn’t already do it 20 years ago and that patented already ran out.
Ive seen one at least 10 years ago already. But that didn’t exactly charge the mouse, instead the mouse relied on always being on the pad to work.
That’s not true. It charges very slowly, about 12 hours to charge a completely dead battery, but it does charge
The bigger problem is that it’s expensive af, and since current gen Logitech mice have months of battery life and charge in an hour with the usb cord it’s really pointless.
$7.000
If I worked at Apple, I’d hire you right here, right now.
I think Sun made mice that didn’t work without their metallic mouse pad, that had some sort of grid on it.
Apple’s problem is in following:
There are industrial designers, fashion designers, managers and engineers.
Apple doesn’t have industrial designers. Only fashion designers pretending.
In a normal company managers consult designers and engineers back and forth, both figuring out some compromise and also asking the other group whether there is a better way.
Not in Apple. Their designers are clearly superior hierarchically to engineers.
And in the end their products are of inferior quality (for that price).
Apple’s idea of how things should look and work, when expressed in words, is absolutely fine! It’s actually wonderful. And perfectly possible, it’s actually the same goal as with industrial ergonomics.
Except they don’t have the process they need to fulfill that. They only have the PR to pretend.
Their trackpad can and does work via USB so ???
I have one of their trackpads and it works great with Ubuntu over USB but not over Bluetooth for some reason. (It connects, but Ubuntu doesn’t handle it well.)
As someone who has to use heavy/taped-on little toys to cover the power buttons on my PCs or else my cat invariably opens a shutdown dialog in the middle of something… Thank you.
I don’t know how to windows, but in Linux I just disable the power button on my laptop. Long press still works, this was to avoid accidentally putting the laptop to sleep when accidentally pressing the power button
I’ll just stick with covering it up. Without fail, if I leave it uncovered my cat will press it. She’s even held it long enough for a forced shutdown twice that I can think of.
That is hilarious.
I spent a while trying to figure out how a cat could possibly long press a power button, even pressing it at all should be a challenge…
Then I remembered that most people use laptops.
I would be impressed if a cat could hold the power button in for several seconds on my tower, you have to depress the button about a 1/4 inch.
They’re all towers. But the buttons are all pretty shallow with very light actuation force required.
And they all happen to be situated such that the corner which has the button is the corner furthest away from the desk, so when she jumps up onto the PC as a platform to get ready to jump onto the desk, her feet are all grouped up right in that corner.
And you can imagine that if she’s crouched down ready to jump, and I put my arm out to prevent her from jumping from the tower to the desk, that’s a lot of pressure all applied to her little toe beans.
It’s an unfortunate coincidence. But that experience, together with seeing this Mac Mini design, has made me wonder why we tend to put a button with such drastic effects right out in the open like this.
I would be impressed if a cat could hold the power button in for several seconds on my tower, you have to depress the button about a 1/4 inch.
My friends cats do this all the time. Their paws are small enough to be able to push the button down easily.
You can set the power button in Windows to either, do nothing, make the computer sleep, hibernate the computer, shut down, or turn off the display.
Don’t you have to hold the power button in to force to shut down?
Yes, but even pushing it will bring up a prompt, which is annoying. And also my cat has held it down long enough to force a shutdown on my media server before, as well as on my wife’s PC during Overwatch.
And you can disable it in the options.
At least in Windows.
After seeing the mouse with ports on the bottom. I’m convinced that there’s a disgruntled designer on their team and this is a cry for help.
Apparently there is a button on the keyboard, so you get to buy an Apple keyboard (I guess that is bundled?) and don’t get to use your own keyboard with it.
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Why am I buying a machine that small if I need to make space for two separate keyboards? I can just buy a different thing instead.
Sounds like you should buy a different thing. I bought one, though. None of this keyboard stuff matters to me, since I won’t even be using a keyboard with it
Sure, but my keyboard doesn’t have a power button.
How often do you use the power button to turn on your computer? These days I might use it once a year, at most!
Literally every single time I use it. I only need it to be on when I’m using it, and I don’t use it every day.
Why? This isn’t 1998 anymore.
Well unless you have my shitty ass Thinkpad that can’t reliably go into S0 standby to save it’s life.
I have a desktop and there’s no reason for it to constantly be drawing power. It boots fast enough even with fast boot disabled that it’s not an issue for me.
I leave my work laptop on, but it lives on my desk at work. Not my power bill not my problem. I still have to regularly reboot it because windows can’t update without reboots.
How often do you use it, if not every day? Once a week? Once a month?
I use my laptop every day so it makes sense that I don’t use the power button even though it’s right there. I also have a raspberry pi set up to run Retropie that I only turn on once or twice a year when I have an old friend in from out of town. In that case I use the power button every single time but I don’t mind that it’s kind of finicky (I have to turn on several other devices with it as well as a power strip to power them all) because I don’t use it that often.
I could see the new Mac Mini being a bit annoying with its bottom side power button if you’re using it every other day. But honestly I would be more annoyed at the boot time taking 30s than the 2s it takes to reach under the case and power it up. If I had one I would probably just get the keyboard with built in power button and finger print reader though. I use the finger print reader on my laptop all the time because it unlocks my password manager.
I think the special button on the keyboard is a fingerprint/lock button. Not sure if the computer supports powering on by pressing any key like the MacBooks, but it certainly will wake from sleep with any key. I don’t think you’re supposed to fully power it down as part of regular use, so they can get by with a less accessible power button
Oh, I had one of theses keyboards!
Pushing the snooze button insta crashed the PC.
We went full circle.
Doesn’t look like it, or at least, they’ve not included one before (you just got a power cord), so it’s doubtful they would start including one now. Either that, or they’re about to release a power-button/TouchID dongle specifically to use as a separate power switch.
Like a Windows key?
So they created more vertical space on the case, which would be a perfect spot for a power button - or even more ports… and then didn’t use it.
True to form, if I’m honest.
That aside, I love that they’re getting rid of the idiotic 8GB baseline spec.
I’m not going to get a mac anytime soon, but at least it would stop my cat from powering down everything spontaneously
Just put it on its side.
Warranty voided.
Steve Jobs roided
Tried to order pizza but it got Noided
The electrons would flow in the wrong direction.
To be fair, aren’t those mini PCs meant for HTPCs/home servers? You’re not really supposed to turn them off, and if you really want easy power button access you can just set it upside down. I’d say it’s a good idea if you take into account that it’s aimed at Apple customers who care more about “design” over usability. They truly “think different” over there.
Honestly as infrequently as I turn my machines off this really doesn’t bother me. The mouse on the other hand….
Yeah, fuck that mouse, there’s no excuse for that one.
“different” is just another word for “weird”
ThInK DiFfErEnT
I had to check if this was an Onion article…
I really hope this is one of those tactile hit it from the top and it’ll trigger from the bottom designs. But more likely they just never expect you to use it.
Just be thankful they didn’t put the power cord there like they did with the mouse.
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I think they call that Windows.
