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Desktops (Apple) Apple IT

Apple Moves the M4 Mac Mini's Power Button To the Bottom (appleinsider.com) 115

Posted by msmash from the oops-they-did-it-again dept.
Apple has moved the power button on its new M4 Mac mini to an awkward spot underneath the device, requiring users to lift or tip the computer to turn it on. The button now sits near the left rear corner, raised slightly by cooling vents, instead of its previous accessible position on the back panel. The change, absent from Apple's marketing materials, complicates basic operations like power-cycling the machine - especially with cables attached.

Further reading: Apple's New Mouse Retains Flawed Charging Design.

Apple Moves the M4 Mac Mini's Power Button To the Bottom More | Reply

Apple Moves the M4 Mac Mini's Power Button To the Bottom

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  • Never turn an Apple product off (Score:4, Funny)

    by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @02:51PM (#64903895)
    It is an Apple device. You donâ(TM)t need to turn it off and on again.

    • Turning it off and back on is pretty much the first troubleshooting step when "it just works" turns into "it just doesn't work." If that doesn't fix it, then you factory reset the damn thing (hope you had a backup). If it's still broken, then you bring it to an Apple Genius so they can helpfully direct you to where the new ones are sold.

      • You bought AppleCare, right? /s

        Seriously, though, as expensive as that shit is it has saved me thousands.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Bahbus ( 1180627 )
          Congratulations on paying for a scam.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

            Seriously, though, as expensive as that shit is it has saved me thousands.

            It seems to have helped them. I guess from their perspective it isn't a scam.

            • Or, they needed AppleCare because parts and repairs are so overpriced. That makes it a scam.

              With that said, I still always buy it.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                parts and repairs are so overpriced.

                While also true, not what I'm getting at.

                A manufacturer that also sells extra insurance to "help" you against accidental damages on their own products is then further inclined to design and build their products in such ways to maximize the possibilities that such accidental damage is likely to occur. And this is very true, specifically, of iPhones - of which the screens (hell, just iPhones in general) break remarkably easily, because it was designed to. Thus, a scam that you already half buy into anytime yo

                • I get the concept you’re arguing here, but my wife has owned four iPhones and I’ve had two. The only problem we have had is that her 8 Plus had one of the haptic vibrators break loose a little inside, so every vibration turned into a buzzing noise from the case. It was about four years old.

                  By contrast, my Nexus 6P I had before switching had its battery go from great to worthless literally overnight when it was not yet two years old. And her dumbphones before the first iPhone she had were pract

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                    Of course. Personal experiences will vary. They can't all "accidentally" break all the time otherwise the ruse would be too obvious. But my personal experience is that Apple's batteries (5+ years ago) were prone to ballooning. Watched it happen separately to a MacBook and an iPhone. I've also watched as screens shattered from very low velocity 2ft falls. All of my Android's going back to the original Motorola Droid have worked flawlessly for as long as I had them. Admittedly I was a bit of an upgrade-aholic

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

              People who fall for scams often think they aren't being scammed, even when faced with mounds of evidence to the contrary.

              Oftentimes, they will even double down and buy/give more money to the scamming company/person.

              So I don't take this as any indication that this isn't a scam.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              That perspective is exactly why this type of scam works so well.

          • Congratulations on paying for a scam.

            It's not a scam if you buy it for the right reasons. It does not save you money, on average, compared to paying for your own repairs if something goes wrong. What I buy the fast warranty repair for is just because it is fast. The last time I had my laptop keyboard die late one afternoon (Dell not Apple) I had the tech in my house at 9am the next day to replace it. That's what I buy the extended warranty for - speedy repairs on a machine I need for work, not because I think it will save me money on repairs.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              The last time I had my laptop keyboard die late one afternoon (Dell not Apple) I had the tech in my house at 9am the next day to replace it.

              Yeah, I had a Dell with that level of warranty as well, but it was the included default warranty. My GPU died, got the customer support rep to skip the scripts, told them all the steps I took to confirm the GPU just up and died, and boom, tech at the house the following day to swap it out.

              Assuming it's a defect with the device itself, there should be no need of AppleCare, because the default warranty should be just as good and speedy, because it's their fault in the first place.

              The scam is, Apple sells you

        • Tip: the repair prices for apple products is egregiously inflated, so those "thousands" should have not existed in the first place.

          • Apple doesn't repair.

            It's not a secret. It's part of the deal if you want an Apple. That's why they offer AppleCare. It doesn't matter how inflated anything is. The prices are what the prices are when you buy in, if you don't want to deal with that, you buy something else.

            Hey guess what, when you buy a Ferrari it costs more to repair than a Civic. Weird......

      • I've owned 7 apple computers over the years... have never had to hard reboot one.
        • that's amazing, Russ.
          Welcome to Unix.... BSD I think.

        • I've owned 7 apple computers over the years... have never had to hard reboot one.

          That is nothing. I have owned 30 Apple computers over the decades and have never even had to touch the keyboard. It has always just known what I wanted to do, and has done it.

          It is like

          Magic

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        You're power cycling it wrong.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Cinder6 ( 894572 )

        It’s rare that I ever need to power cycle my Mac. About 90% of the time I do, it’s through the restart menu. But there definitely are times I have to hard-reboot. I need the power button maybe 3-4 times a year, if I had to guess.

        I’m looking at the Mac Mini promo shots right now. It’s 5cm tall, so I zoomed on my display until it was actual size (using a ruler). Looking at it that way, I can definitely squeeze my finger under it to reach the power button, but it would be a squeeze.

        I

        • I suspect itâ(TM)s number 1, and the why is aesthetics. If you donâ(TM)t need real power, optimizing for size is a valid design choice.

          Also, itâ(TM)s not like you canâ(TM)t just situate it upside down if your uses require frequent power button use.

    • I used an iPad for the first time yesterday. Its Apple account registration screen got stuck after asking for an email address and required a reboot fairly quickly.

      • I’m impressed that in fourteen years since introduction you’ve managed somehow to never use the most popular single tablet brand on the market. Or is this just the first you have set up?

    • Apple Silicon machines (our district has hundreds of them deployed) are great because they *do* have pretty good uptime. But they develop weird quirks that a reboot does cure. 9/10 times if a teacher says something is acting up that isn't a crash or file corruption, and it's something I've never heard of, a reboot fixes it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by teg ( 97890 )

      It is an Apple device. You don't(TM) need to turn it off and on again.

      To be fair, you usually don't. Sleep works well, and if you want to reboot - just do that. It's not going to be an "all the time" problem, but it's certainly inconvenient those few times you need it - e.g. if you've removed the power due to a thunderstorm, it has crashed really hard (can't remember the last time it happened, but it certainly has) etc.

      Same with the newly updated Magic Mouse - sure, the port for charging is below the mouse. That's impractical and you can't charge while you use it, but you

    • You're using it wrong! Turn the Mac Mini upside down! This will leave the power button and the vents on top, for better operation and cooling. With the bonus that you hide the Apple logo.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mendax ( 114116 )

      It is an Apple device. You donâ(TM)t need to turn it off and on again.

      Uh, there are times when you need to turn off a computer, like when it becomes non-responsive. My M1 iMac is in this category on occasion as there are times when there is a hard crash. It's not a kernel panic and it doesn't happen very often but when it happens it needs a hard reset. Sometimes the plug needs to be pulled it's so unresponsive.

  • Should just leave your machine on 24/7. If you think that's a waste of money you must be a Poor and should just get a Dell.

    More seriously I'm sure Apple's excuse will be just to cite how little power sleep mode uses. The fact it's still unnecessary to leave the machine on all the time for many consumer won't be addressed.

    • Sleep mode keeps you last session.
      Which is actually the current session.

      Switching off: does not.

      You are an idiot.

      • Sleep mode isn't off, and still uses power. Way to miss the point.

      • > Sleep mode keeps you[sic] last session.
        > Which is actually the current session.

        > Switching off: does not.

        Hibernate/suspended to disk absolutely does. It takes seconds to resume on nvme

        > You are an idiot.

        *your

        > "Unite Behind the Science", Greta Thunberg

        She gonna whip your ass for burning coal to save a few seconds.

        • > You are an idiot.

          *your

          Maybe Thunberg can swing by your place for correcting somebody with a completely flummoxed spelling correction. It's "you're" to replace "you are." Not to mention, it's still perfectly valid English to write "you are" all spelled out. You're (<--See?) just shortening it with an apostrophe. So, you're (<--OMG, ANOTHER ONE!) not even able to get the lazy approach right.

          Good grief, grammar Nazis with bad corrections make my skin crawl.

          I can't wait for the pile-up to correct me to start! This should be a

        • Hibernate/suspended to disk absolutely does. It takes seconds to resume on nvme

          That is not switching off.
          Hibernate and sleep mode are only two different levels of sleep.

          You are seriously an idiot.

          If you switch the machine off: it has to reload all windows, and for Chrome: that means he simply reloads the URLs from the internet. Because Google is to stupid to reload from cash, or do it the proper Apple way.

          My computers never get switched off, and they only reboot, if a system upgrade requires it.

          She gonna wh

    • My 2012 Mac Minis running OSX server run 24/7

      Yeah, they are 12 years old, but later Mac minis do not run the last useful version of OSX server.

      I think it is time to halt put the Raspberry Pi's that I was given and learn how to use these (DHCP, DNS,Print server,VPN server, TimeMachine, Webserver, FTP Server, etc.)

      And Yeah, I have a 16" M3 MBP as well as a lot of other Apple gear, but seriously , they have simply become an iPhone company (I own an iPhone)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by teg ( 97890 )

      Should just leave your machine on 24/7. If you think that's a waste of money you must be a Poor and should just get a Dell.

      More seriously I'm sure Apple's excuse will be just to cite how little power sleep mode uses. The fact it's still unnecessary to leave the machine on all the time for many consumer won't be addressed.

      It uses 0.5 W in sleep mode [apple.com]. That's 4 kWh for sleeping a full year. It uses 4 W (without display, obviously) when on and idle, and not much using the efficiency cores. All things considered, it's going to be one of the most power efficient machines you can get.

      Interestingly, it also uses 0.1 W when off.

    • Seriously I leave my PC on 24/7 and it goes to sleep when I am not using it. A Mac doing the exact same thing is not an Earth revelation. I will have to say Windows 10 has gotten better over the years at remembering the settings when it went to sleep. The early days of Windows 10, it would forget things like I have a mouse and a network card periodically. The last little bit of progress is that only once in a while now, Windows forgets I have 5.1 sound and defaults to stereo.

  • Facepalm Moment (Score:3)

    by jpatters ( 883 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @03:03PM (#64903935)

    Ug that's so stupid. So if you have it in a bracket on the wall you will have to unplug all the cords and then remove it from the bracket to power cycle it? That's super annoying and a bad design.

    • Yep. I have two 2012 Mac Minis I run as servers at home and they occasionally need to be shut down and powered on.
      These Mac new Minis will not work. I do not have the space to reach under them.

      At work I have my screen sitting on TOP of the Mac Mini.

      Please fire the moron who came up with idea, and the other morons who decided it was a good idea.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lsllll ( 830002 )

        With Apple it's been form over function for a very long time. Just yesterday we were talking about the USB charging port on the Mac mouse being on the bottom. I guess they just don't want to see anything but bezel around all their products.

      • The new model is so small that you will not be able to put your monitor on top of it. It's only 5" by 5" — almost 3" x 3" smaller than the older ones. I don't know what your home servers are connected to, but you'd have to rearrange your whole setup for the radically smaller form factor anyway.

        • Yes, I agree, I would need to rearrange, BUT RPi are cheaper, OSX server is unsupported
          My home system is being forced away from all Apple products, and I have been a user since '86 when I moved up from an Amstrad PCW8256 CPM machine.

          • Iâ(TM)m also a lifetime Apple user, and I used MacOS X Server on a box back in 2013 and used it for a couple of years ⦠that said, Iâ(TM)m not sure it offers anything so special that I canâ(TM)t just homebrew the rest.

            • True, but it was just easier at the time and has worked well for me with practically zero maintenance for 10+ years.

              But that is why I am plating with RPi's now

    • Yes. Apple devices aren't for every person or every use case.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Cinder6 ( 894572 )

      It’s thin enough most can squeeze their finger under there, but it will probably be tight. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they, you know, tested the design and found it acceptable. It’s definitely a head-scratcher, though.

    • That's super annoying and a bad design.

      Ubuntu user here. I thought the point about paying the Apple tax willingly was to get ultra-refined user-friendly design everywhere, including the shipping container. I'm sorry, but unless the power button is on the front of the device, or easily accessible with a single finger, (like a monitor power switch is often at the bottom), the product designer flat out fails at their job. This is an unforgivable UX/UI failure. It only adds cost for the user and brings no benefit.

    • Meh, prior art [herokuapp.com].
  • The charge port of the Magic Mouse is on the bottom. So it makes sense that the power button of the Mac Mini is also on the bottom. To extend the design, it only makes sense that the next generation of all Apple products will have their ports, power cords, and power buttons, on the bottom of the device.

  • Sounds like an opportunity (Score:3)

    by zawarski ( 1381571 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @03:10PM (#64903967)
    For first person to design device that clips on side to push button on bottom. You are welcome.

  • Courage (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Megane ( 129182 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @03:19PM (#64903995)

    “It really comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on, do something new, that betters all of us. And our team has tremendous courage.” - Phil Schiller - Sep 7, 2016

    Why remove the iPhone 7 heaphone jack? Courage!

    Why put the M4 Mac Mini power button on the bottom side? Courage!

    Don't worry, I'm sure that in less than a week we'll see 3-D printable Rube Goldberg widgets that grip around the side so that you can push the power button from the top.

    • Why remove the iPhone 7 heaphone jack? Courage!

      Well this one actually has a reason. Firstly the use of cabled headphones was in decline, secondly there was a need to push the new Beats wireless earphones Apple spent a fortune on. This decision makes perfect sense.

      The rest of these fucked up decisions don't.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by teg ( 97890 )

      “It really comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on, do something new, that betters all of us. And our team has tremendous courage.” - Phil Schiller - Sep 7, 2016

      Why remove the iPhone 7 heaphone jack? Courage!

      Why put the M4 Mac Mini power button on the bottom side? Courage!

      Don't worry, I'm sure that in less than a week we'll see 3-D printable Rube Goldberg widgets that grip around the side so that you can push the power button from the top.

      When the headphone jack was removed, I hadn't used wired headphones with my phone for years. I was not alone, which is why it worked. But can you guess what Apple just launched with a headphone jack? This Mac mini....

      • But can you guess what Apple just launched with a headphone jack? This Mac mini....

        Courage is already at Apple - it's just not evenly distributed.

  • Magic Mouse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @03:31PM (#64904033)

    The other thing they fucked up on was putting the charging port underneath the mouse so it can't really be used while charging (unless you jury-rig or hack it or something). The old Magic Mouse had the same issue and nobody liked it, this seems like it would have been an easy fix. Then again they need to have a reason for you to buy the next one and the follow on (wireless charging). If that's not the motive, either the Magic Mouse team is oblivious to criticism, or they're dumb.

    • ... either the Magic Mouse team is oblivious to criticism, or they're dumb.

      Please note that obliviousness and dumbness are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I hear that the two get along famously.

    • 5 minutes of charging the mouse gets several days of usage. Plus it gives you plenty of warning as to the battery level. It’s really not an issue.

  • Jony? (Score:3)

    by swsuehr ( 612400 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @03:32PM (#64904037) Homepage
    I thought we got rid of all that junk that Jony Ive was producing. Is this is special consultant contribution to unusability?
  • Is it a slow day or are we just big Apple fan boys that the position of the power button is newsworthy

    • Is it a slow day or are we just big Apple fan boys that the position of the power button is newsworthy

      It may not be newsworthy, but it is definitely bitchworthy. Eliminating bitchworthiness might be the final nail in Slashdot's coffin.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Dumb apple stories get lots of comments. Political stories get more, but maybe the Slashdot editors thought they better cool it on those for a bit.

  • Does this *really* matter much? (Score:3)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @03:43PM (#64904091) Journal

    Seriously, I've been using Macs a LONG time now and the power button in the back on the Mac Mini, Mac Studio and the iMacs was always kind of awkward to reach. Most people have the machines close to a wall or stuffed under of some kind of monitor stand on a desk, or against cubicle dividers in an office location -- so you have to find the button by touch, or drag the machine out far enough to flip it around to see it.

    I'd say putting it along the front edge is an improvement, even if you have to tip it up slightly to get to it. Am I missing something here?

    • Even more people have their computer sitting on something. But you're right, the could also have positioned the power button at the rear edge, so it is a good idea. Sort of.

      • Maybe this is too novel of an idea, but perhaps they could have put the power button on the front of the device. I know that it's not frequently used, but it's not as though the front of the device is completely filled with ports or indicator lights that would make it difficult to place it there. I'm sure someone at Apple could design a visually pleasurable button that could be placed on the front of their computer without ruining the aesthetic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bongo ( 13261 )

      Yeah, sleep is great, and maybe resetting the PMU (if it has that) is the last real need for a button.

    • On my 2011 mini, I hit the power button twice that I can remember by accident and turned it on when I didn't want to after shutting it down. I shut it down to move some cables and then hit the power button since it is in the back corner in just the perfect place where you'll hit it.

  • IPad, often rotated, power button constantly pressed if resting on your stomach.
    Not a very practical idea.

    • IPad, often rotated, power button constantly pressed if resting on your stomach.
      Not a very practical idea.

      At the risk of sounding like Steve Jobs "you're holding it wrong"... since the display rotates, the power button does not need to be on the bottom.

  • Apple have a tendency to place form over function, to the point that the function is awkward, at best. So this isn't really all that shocking. I'm still surprised they haven't put the charging port for the magic keyboard under a removal enter key...

  • this may be a step up from the announcement last week that they would make an annoucement this week.
    It was reported here, look it up.
    Maybe this is the announcement that they announced previously?

  • I haven't used the power button on my M2 Mac Mini since I installed it. These are very low power draw devices and you power cycle it from the apple menu.

    Is it really a problem to place a button you use once a year in an awkward position? If anything, that helps prevent it from being pressed accidentally.

    • Ditto. And I mean how snowflakey are we all that we can't lift the corner of this thing up 1/4" and press and hold a power button when we need to? Jeez, we're becoming like the bloated entitled passengers on the spaceship in Pixar's Eve who can barely lift a finger. (Now quiet all of you and someone pass me my Haribo gummy bears, they're just out of my reach.)

  • 2026 Apple announcements (Score:4, Funny)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @04:22PM (#64904275)

    Living up to our motto of thinking different we decided the 2026 Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboards will have the buttons on the bottom. This will create a new paradigm in computing whereby people will learn to cup their Apple products giving them the love and care they deserve. Market research has shown that this will also improve touch typing proficiency by 137.45% as people learn to use the devices without seeing the buttons. Additionally we have noted a 57% increase in emotional attachment to all Magic accessories, especially among women of child bearing age who have an evolved desire to hold and rock something in their arms.

    We realise a change like this takes courage, but understand that this is the result of years of thinking different, something we like to call Apple Intelligence.

  • Crapple (Score:2, Insightful)

    by labnet ( 457441 )

    My wife uses Apple phone/Mac and I use Android/PC.
    The running joke is to call her stuff Crapple because of all the issues She seems to have that I don’t.
    I fail to understand why Apple has this golden glow.

    • I've been calling them (cr)Apple for years. I've used loads of different computer operating systems over the years e.g. Windows, Apple, Android, Atari's, VME & IBM mainframes, VAX etc. etc. etc. and I just don't get why people think Apple's interfaces are good.

      More often than not I find them annoyingly "you only need to do what we think you should do". e.g. we have MacBooks issued by work and I wanted to save a plain ASCII text file the other day. So I pasted some text into "TextEdit" which then onl

      • format menu > make plain text

        or just use the keyboard shortcut shift-cmd-T

        it was saving as rtf (rich text format) because thatâ(TM)s the default format. this is similar behavior to wordpad, the analogous app in windows.

        you can also just run nano from the command line, if you want. (shrug)

      • if you want, you can do this

        touch mytextfile.txt
        open -e mytextfile.txt

        if textedit opens a .txt file, it will open as plain text by default. also, just saying, the mac "open" command really is beautiful once you get used to it. i really wish linux had something similar, especially with the weird-ass names for simple things. i mean ffs the text editor in xfce is called "mousepad". WHY?!

  • 3 years from now, someone asks you "Where's my power button?" You look. It's missing. WTF? Then you remember, "Wait, back in 2024, wasn't there a story about .. aha!"

  • It's patently clear that the previous power button location - on the back right side - was still convenient enough for people to restart their computers occasionally. So they had to move it to the bottom rear to prevent that.

  • I don't care Apple does these consumer-unfriendly things. It is just that every other company follows suit.

    Non-iPhones used to be user utility centered. Easily replaceable battery with removable back cover, Micro-sd card slots (sometimes even two of them), 3.5mm headset jack.

    Now, it's all iPhone clones that you have to buy a case right away with and have no ports.

    They've done the same with laptops and now all laptops have the same designs. Even workstation replacement Dells have batteries that are not easil

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