Why Power Nap?

Letsjet said:

There has been a lot of talk about Power Nap. Even some people upset that it isn't available on some older machines.

My question is this..... Why would you want it / need it?

I'm not trolling, I'm trying to understand the real value.

Off the cuff, I'd say I wouldn't want processes working while I put my Mac to sleep. That's the point of putting it to sleep I thought.

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Just like the iPhone backing up to iCloud when is the best time for your mac to back itself up? When it's idle/sleeping and plugged in.

It's a no brainer.

Letsjet said:

There has been a lot of talk about Power Nap. Even some people upset that it isn't available on some older machines.

My question is this..... Why would you want it / need it?

I'm not trolling, I'm trying to understand the real value.

Off the cuff, I'd say I wouldn't want processes working while I put my Mac to sleep. That's the point of putting it to sleep I thought.

Click to expand...

What's the downside? Minimal battery consumption, and if plugged in, no downside.

What's the upside? System is backed up, and everything is up to date. Seems like a no brainer.

It would've been nice my computer had it I would love to use this feature to backup my data. This message written by dictation.

Also, are you not a little concerned that your data could be breached in the "cloud"

Click to expand...

What does this have to do with Power Nap? Your data is already in the cloud anyways. If you are truly worried about this, don't use the internet. Ever.

Powernap is where it updates itself while in sleep-mode, right?

i dont use my mac all that often... actually i feel like, whenver i do, theres an update.
i can skip updating now, and just use my mac instead of updating, rebooting and so on.

But yes.. if i used it every day, i wouldnt see the need

windows pc's have settings to update automatically too, not during sleep/standby though, but just automatically at night, if the pc is turned on or something.

Letsjet said:

I just think it's a little odd to have processes running with the machine in a sleep mode. Makes you wonder what else it could be doing while you think it's asleep.

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Not really. I often have to leave my computer on but not in "sleep" to finish a backup, finish downloading something, etc. So I quit everything else and turn the brightness on my screen to 0 to let that happen. This just makes it much easier. I can just close my MacBook and not even worry about it.

Nioxic said:

Powernap is where it updates itself while in sleep-mode, right?

i dont use my mac all that often... actually i feel like, whenver i do, theres an update.
i can skip updating now, and just use my mac instead of updating, rebooting and so on.

But yes.. if i used it every day, i wouldnt see the need

windows pc's have settings to update automatically too, not during sleep/standby though, but just automatically at night, if the pc is turned on or something.

Click to expand...

It's not about automatically updating the software. It's about checking for mail and such while asleep. It'll also download the updates during that time, but installation is for when it's awake and you click the button.

Letsjet said:

There has been a lot of talk about Power Nap. Even some people upset that it isn't available on some older machines.

My question is this..... Why would you want it / need it?

I'm not trolling, I'm trying to understand the real value.

Off the cuff, I'd say I wouldn't want processes working while I put my Mac to sleep. That's the point of putting it to sleep I thought.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you get when you divide "want it" by "need it," but it means a lot. It means that you won't have the wondrous joy that Windows users have when they wake up their computer and have to wait a long time while it "puts its face on." By default, it is on when the computer is plugged in and off when it is on battery, but you can change that.

If you don't want this stuff going on while the computer is sleeping, you can turn it off altogether, unplug the power cord, or disconnect it from the internet before putting it to bed.

Powernap requires a firmware upgrade that is only possible with 2011 and 2012 MacBook Airs and the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro.

The neat thing is that Microsoft cannot easily copy this feature, because it requires low-level interaction between the operating system and the firmware, over which Microsoft has no control.

Just a bump of this old thread. I forgot to turn off Power Nap on my rMacBook Pro and while in my bag it got very hot. No obvious injury to my machine but from now on I will be shutting her down.

case2001 said:

I forgot to turn off Power Nap on my rMacBook Pro and while in my bag it got very hot. No obvious injury to my machine but from now on I will be shutting her down.

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I'm not sure the two things are necessarily connected.

I can't use Power Nap, because I do instant messenging on Yahoo's services (Messenger). During power nap, the client I use for it (Adium) logs in, and because Yahoo is ancient, I get disconnected from the other computer I'm using for Yahoo messenging.

benwiggy
Quote:
Originally Posted by case2001
I forgot to turn off Power Nap on my rMacBook Pro and while in my bag it got very hot. No obvious injury to my machine but from now on I will be shutting her down.
I'm not sure the two things are necessarily connected

Possibly not. However, this occurred while I left my machine in my bag and plugged it in to charge. I only found out because I looked back on iStat over the previous weeks temperatures and found a very high temp recorded then an apparent shut down. I later found my machine warm while sitting on my desk with lid closed. Since, disabling Power Nap and Wake on Wifi completely. There have been no issues. I had Power Nap disabled on Battery but not while plugged in.

I am sure Power Nap is a great feature. I just do not require it right now. I usually shut my machine down before she goes into her bag, but I do not want to take a chance on her waking again while in a bag or confined space. I should point out Apple has set Power Nap to shut the Machine down if she reaches a predefined Temperature or Battery level.

Thanks.