Looks ok, but Apple really doesn’t seem to want to sell it since their announcement video was only 108 seconds long!
[ EDIT: my bad - theres also a 12 minute video. ]
Still starts at $599 but a maxed out one with the M4 Pro will set you back $2900 (I only bumped the SSD to 2 GB since the higher options are even more outrageously priced):
Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
64GB unified memory
2TB SSD storage
10 Gigabit Ethernet
Three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI port, two USB‑C ports, headphone jack
Those power button extenders look like disasters waiting to happen. Unintentionally turning off a computer can be really, really bad. There is a good reason power switches generally have some sort of guard around them to keep them from being operated inadvertently. The ones I saw in the links didn’t seem to have dealt with that.
I’m disappointed there wasn’t more care taken, maybe a second switch, but placing it on the bottom?
My mini hasn’t shut down except for a long weekend while we were away, or maybe the earlier PG&E power failure, but with the UPS, it’s at least a graceful shutdown… Mini sensor shows it running at 93° so really just idling along…
I haven’t convinced my DW to leave her iMac on overnight but… The old Mac Pro, and earlier Macs also were on 24/7…
Need to go see if the Apple boards have been stirred…
You have to wonder what thought process was going on in the minds of the engineers. Was this decision deliberate? Was there really NO WAY to put the power button on the side where almost every other power button in the world is? This seems almost as stupid a decision as having to charge one version of the magic mouse by plugging in the charging cable ON THE BOTTOM of it!
Also, didn’t some server farms have racks of Mac Minis? Having the power buttons on the bottom is gonna make this more difficult.
The power button on a modern computer is only there as a failsafe. Most computers are powered down via a command in the UI. And that is usually the proper way to power down because it is generally safer in that it will properly shut down processes in the correct order. (I know that the power buttons are connected similarly, but they are failsafe in the sense that if you hold them down for some period of time, they do a “hardware” power down abruptly).
And I’m not ruling out that when I finally caress a new Mac mini, the location , shape, and feel of the power button will seem natural, finally coming home, how did I ever live without it, even Steve Jobs would be impressed
Simplest fix is to just lay the M4 Mac Mini on your desk upside down!
Readily available switch, whether you leave it on 24/7 or not!
Or on its side, no problem!
Another suggestion was an external line cord switch, power down via the menu. but the restart on power return will bring it back up…
…“Bad idea. That would gimp the cooling air flow. Unless you put the mini on a stand (four 1/2 inch high rubber bumper-type feet should do it) to give the top - now on the bottom - an air outlet path.”…
… Is what I was going to say until I realized there were no air vents on the top! Who knows, perhaps turning it upside down would actually improve the air flow!
That’s a good question. And the reason I didn’t consider it is because I’ve only had to do it twice in the last 12+ years. I got my first macbook pro in 2012 and turned it on. Then after that, I never ever turned it off, every month or two I would allow it do to an update and it would reboot by itself after the update. In fact, that macbook is still right here on my desk. I replaced it in 2022 with a new macbook pro (with the new M1 Pro chip in it) and now I use that one regularly. And I’ve only turned it on once so far. the day I got it. After that, again, just updates every month or two and it reboots on its own. I assume the same can be true on a mini. After you stop using it, it’ll go to sleep after 5 or 10 minutes, and then when you want to use it again, you tap on a key or jiggle the mouse or swipe the trackpad or whatever and it’ll wake up for you.
My M2 Mini has both a DVD R/W on top as well as the multi-hub for additional ports, and my Watch charger stans on one corner, if anything it added more mass to the topside to dissipate maybe a little more heat… There’s no way to hide the cables, I do have some small cable troughs on the backside of my desk, but if you have to chase a maybe bad cable, the neatness factor is gone.
BIL came over yesterday with his iPad, we wanted to show his recent trip to Greece pics on the big screen (65" LG), but my attempts to transfer them to my Mac were not so simple, in the end, Airdropped to my iPhone and from there I managed to slip them into the AppleTV, and much later did get them onto my Mini, into Photos/iCloud, but had no direct way to download to my mini… Now, in Photos, I edited, cropped, used Clean Up to clear away other tourists in many of the pics… Pleasantly surprised at the ease of Clean Up. BIL is a near complete luddite, fights even the iPad, but did take a lot of good pics with his iPhone & Nikon…
I try to do a full power dow, cold reboot once a month or at least a restart once a week if i remember… It’s a chance for the OS to do a cleanup, clear caches, etc… I imagine there are background routines to handle some of it, but if I can help it out at little lost time, why not…
Watching the Console, seeing message like this:
fault 10:27:46.180907-0800 searchpartyuseragent CoreData: Unable to create token NSXPCConnection. NSXPCStoreServerEndpointFactory 0x8843c2b10 -newEndpoint returned nil
Makes me curious, but since I don’t seem to have a problem, most can be ignored…
