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It’s not a burden. I consider it a typical Tim Cook decision, in that the man led the company that made one of the fastest CPUs in the world, makes it draw as

It’s not a burden. I consider it a typical Tim Cook decision, in that the man led the company that made one of the fastest CPUs in the world, makes it draw as much as a Raspberry Pi. Absolutely crazy feats of engineering, design, manufacturing… and - There is that ONE detail that would’ve made it perfected but it’s botched! I don’t mind it too much, since it’s still 99% close to perfect. But, but…

AcerbicZero 2y ago
Hah, Tim Cook decision pretty much sums it up; its the kind of thing that wouldn't have lasted 5 seconds when placed in front of Jobs (although there is a strong chance Jobs would have demanded his own nonsensical addition/subtraction to the design).
- kranke155 2y ago
  Yeah he likely would have said no ports, or lets have only one port, or he would have demanded that the Mac mini has the dimensions of some multiple of pi… Nobody’s perfect.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  Jobs would've thrown it out the window, and verbally abused the intern who brought it in, because it has ports in the front. He would've kept the power button on the bottom, though.
  - kranke155 2y ago
    Ports on the front are 100% the right decision though. Thats the thing. You're right, he would've, but also he stopped a lot of good decisions from happening because it just wasn't to his taste. So like, power button on the bottom isn't the end of the world.
- marshray 2y ago
  Jobs would have removed the power button entirely. And then when there's a fault requiring a hard reset to fix you have to insert a bent paperclip into a tiny unlabeled hole on the bottom, or spell out a message in morse code by unplugging and re-plugging the power cord with some special timing. (This is not sarcasm)
- vunderba 2y ago
  Was Jobs in charge when they decide to place the power connector on the bottom of the "magic mouse"? But it's fine because it can fit in a manila envelope.
- alcidesfonseca 2y ago
  Jobs would have kept the button on the bottom, as it's not the proper way to use a computer. Instead, he would have put motion/light sensors on the screen, so it would automatically wake up when you are sitting in front of it. Macs don't shutdown, they just go to sleep and wake up when you need them.
whartung 2y ago
Shame they got rid of the ability to power the computer on and off from the keyboard. I know its been that way for some time, I'm sure there's good reason for it (maybe it doesn't work well over BT or something, or simply few generic keyboards offered the power button).
- ricardobeat 2y ago
  It does work like that in practice though. There’s is absolutely no reason to fully shut down instead of standby.
soheil 2y ago
1. Given millions of things that are perfect it takes one of them for HN to lose its mind, power button happened to be it this time, Cook didn't decide that. 2. How often do people exactly have to turn off and on a mac that consumes less than a pi for them to constantly be reaching out to that power button? 3. Standby, hibernate exist.
- BoorishBears 2y ago
  It's not like Tim Cook personally decided to put the button there, but saying over many years he's aligned the company to be one that would leave the button there rather than bite the cost of putting it somewhere more ergonomic is something I can buy into. Seems like a way to improve margins generation over generation, which is the kind of thing he's obsessed with. This is also the same Apple that made the G4 Cube: that felt like this in reverse, with Jobs driving them to make a capacitive touch button because of an obsession with a seamless surface.
  - seec 2y ago
    Yes that's it. Jobs's annoyances were always about achieving a better product, a higher level of refinement or something of the sort. It was mostly about, "it can be better this way" and he was very often right even though sometimes not. On the other hand, with Cook, it's always about cost cutting and corner cutting and the likes. It feels cheap (especially considering the pricing and brand aspirations) but also primitive and unrefined. Which is why their price escalation was unjustified, if you want to charge a lot you need to figure out a no compromise product and, in my opinion, they have not been there a lot recently...
latexr 2y ago
> I consider it a typical Tim Cook decision Tim Cook cares about money and efficiency of building and moving product. That’s it. I highly doubt there’s been any important design detail about any product that he made himself.
7thpower 2y ago
It could be worse, they could’ve located it in the center of the bottom. Do people really use the physical button that often? 99% of the time I just let it go to sleep.
devnullbrain 2y ago
>makes it draw as much as a Raspberry Pi That's a funny comparison. They don't have power buttons at all. Without mounting, you need to pick it up to be able to remove the power supply. And the power supply I bought with my Pi 4, at the Cambridge store, doesn't even work.

AcerbicZero 2y ago

Hah, Tim Cook decision pretty much sums it up; its the kind of thing that wouldn't have lasted 5 seconds when placed in front of Jobs (although there is a strong chance Jobs would have demanded his own nonsensical addition/subtraction to the design).

kranke155 2y ago
Yeah he likely would have said no ports, or lets have only one port, or he would have demanded that the Mac mini has the dimensions of some multiple of pi… Nobody’s perfect.
mullingitover 2y ago
Jobs would've thrown it out the window, and verbally abused the intern who brought it in, because it has ports in the front. He would've kept the power button on the bottom, though.
- kranke155 2y ago
  Ports on the front are 100% the right decision though. Thats the thing. You're right, he would've, but also he stopped a lot of good decisions from happening because it just wasn't to his taste. So like, power button on the bottom isn't the end of the world.
marshray 2y ago
Jobs would have removed the power button entirely. And then when there's a fault requiring a hard reset to fix you have to insert a bent paperclip into a tiny unlabeled hole on the bottom, or spell out a message in morse code by unplugging and re-plugging the power cord with some special timing. (This is not sarcasm)
vunderba 2y ago
Was Jobs in charge when they decide to place the power connector on the bottom of the "magic mouse"? But it's fine because it can fit in a manila envelope.
alcidesfonseca 2y ago
Jobs would have kept the button on the bottom, as it's not the proper way to use a computer. Instead, he would have put motion/light sensors on the screen, so it would automatically wake up when you are sitting in front of it. Macs don't shutdown, they just go to sleep and wake up when you need them.

whartung 2y ago

Shame they got rid of the ability to power the computer on and off from the keyboard. I know its been that way for some time, I'm sure there's good reason for it (maybe it doesn't work well over BT or something, or simply few generic keyboards offered the power button).

ricardobeat 2y ago
It does work like that in practice though. There’s is absolutely no reason to fully shut down instead of standby.

soheil 2y ago

1. Given millions of things that are perfect it takes one of them for HN to lose its mind, power button happened to be it this time, Cook didn't decide that. 2. How often do people exactly have to turn off and on a mac that consumes less than a pi for them to constantly be reaching out to that power button? 3. Standby, hibernate exist.

BoorishBears 2y ago
It's not like Tim Cook personally decided to put the button there, but saying over many years he's aligned the company to be one that would leave the button there rather than bite the cost of putting it somewhere more ergonomic is something I can buy into. Seems like a way to improve margins generation over generation, which is the kind of thing he's obsessed with. This is also the same Apple that made the G4 Cube: that felt like this in reverse, with Jobs driving them to make a capacitive touch button because of an obsession with a seamless surface.
- seec 2y ago
  Yes that's it. Jobs's annoyances were always about achieving a better product, a higher level of refinement or something of the sort. It was mostly about, "it can be better this way" and he was very often right even though sometimes not. On the other hand, with Cook, it's always about cost cutting and corner cutting and the likes. It feels cheap (especially considering the pricing and brand aspirations) but also primitive and unrefined. Which is why their price escalation was unjustified, if you want to charge a lot you need to figure out a no compromise product and, in my opinion, they have not been there a lot recently...

latexr 2y ago

> I consider it a typical Tim Cook decision Tim Cook cares about money and efficiency of building and moving product. That’s it. I highly doubt there’s been any important design detail about any product that he made himself.

7thpower 2y ago

It could be worse, they could’ve located it in the center of the bottom. Do people really use the physical button that often? 99% of the time I just let it go to sleep.

devnullbrain 2y ago

>makes it draw as much as a Raspberry Pi That's a funny comparison. They don't have power buttons at all. Without mounting, you need to pick it up to be able to remove the power supply. And the power supply I bought with my Pi 4, at the Cambridge store, doesn't even work.