Add a battery to Mini

[teh_hunterer]

So that the laptop doesn’t have any cables attached to it, or get hot. The headless Mac has the cables attached to it and gets hot, while the laptop stays cool and liberated from cables.

Why is a laptop getting hot worse than a headless desktop getting hot? Apple silicon laptops don't even get that hot in the first place. Intel MacBooks will take off like a jet engine if you dare even look at them, but an Apple silicon MacBook Pro will only give you audible fan noise under the most intense scenarios. I've done 3 hour + raids on World of Warcraft with my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode connected to a monitor and I literally can't hear the fans at all. I was even recording the gameplay at the time.

I plug my MacBook Pro into a thunderbolt dock, and with one single cable it connects to dual monitors, mouse, keyboard, DAC/speakers, Scarlett audio interface, ethernet, and charges the laptop. When I'm done using it at the desk I just unplug the cable and pick up the laptop and go. It's easy. And because it has a battery, it doesn't matter if there's some kind of power loss.

I don't really get this liberation from cables thing. If I'm at my aforementioned desk setup, it's just one cable going into the laptop. If I'm at a coffee shop, there are no cables going into the laptop. If I'm on the couch I might plug in one single cable to charge.

 

[teh_hunterer]

I think it’d be cheaper to get SoC without a screen, and could still be designed to passively cool better than a laptop, with passive heat sink. Purpose is to maximize performance of Pro chips and minimize throttling and be cheaper than a laptop.

But the cooling in a MacBook Pro would be far, far better than a passively cooled desktop that was small enough for you to carry it around and run off a battery. The idea just falls apart right here. Even a MacBook Air would probably run cooler than this thing you're talking about.

 

[Analog Kid]

Apple should really update the Mini for Apple Silicon. It was designed for hot Intel desktop chips that required line power and a cooling fan and a CD ROM drive that are now ancient history.

Skip the battery, put it in an Apple TV housing.

 

[Analog Kid]

Or this:

I could see it being practical to power it over USB C from a display the same way the laptops work

Or that in an Apple TV housing.

 

[Night Spring]

But the cooling in a MacBook Pro would be far, far better than a passively cooled desktop that was small enough for you to carry it around and run off a battery. The idea just falls apart right here. Even a MacBook Air would probably run cooler than this thing you're talking about.

And wouldn't the battery have to be as big as the one in the laptop?

 

[seek3r]

Skip the battery, put it in an Apple TV housing.

I suspect the reason Apple didnt with the AS transition was to leave headroom for more TDP, they painted themselves into a thermal corner with the 2013 Mac Pro once, they likely didnt want to do it again. And I’d bet that’s why we can have a M2 Pro Mini, while I’m sure you can make an M2 Mini in the same chassis as an aTV I doubt you can cram an M2 Pro in there

 

[HowardEv]

Why is a laptop getting hot worse than a headless desktop getting hot?

It is on your lap, or you can hear the fan. If it was being used in clamshell mode as if it was a Mini, at the back of the desk where it is can’t be felt or heard, then a laptop getting hot is not worse than a headless mini at the back of the desk getting hot. You wouldn’t use a headless mini on your lap, or set it up at the front of the desk where you would feel the heat.

 

[teh_hunterer]

It is on your lap, or you can hear the fan. If it was being used in clamshell mode as if it was a Mini, at the back of the desk where it is can’t be felt or heard, then a laptop getting hot is not worse than a headless mini at the back of the desk getting hot. You wouldn’t use a headless mini on your lap, or set it up at the front of the desk where you would feel the heat.

Apple silicon laptops don't even get that hot in the first place. Intel MacBooks will take off like a jet engine if you dare even look at them, but an Apple silicon MacBook Pro will only give you audible fan noise under the most intense scenarios. I've done 3 hour + raids on World of Warcraft with my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode connected to a monitor and I literally can't hear the fans at all. I was even recording the gameplay at the time.

I plug my MacBook Pro into a thunderbolt dock, and with one single cable it connects to dual monitors, mouse, keyboard, DAC/speakers, Scarlett audio interface, ethernet, and charges the laptop. When I'm done using it at the desk I just unplug the cable and pick up the laptop and go. It's easy. And because it has a battery, it doesn't matter if there's some kind of power loss.

I don't really get this liberation from cables thing. If I'm at my aforementioned desk setup, it's just one cable going into the laptop. If I'm at a coffee shop, there are no cables going into the laptop. If I'm on the couch I might plug in one single cable to charge.

 

[HowardEv]

I don't really get this liberation from cables thing. If I'm at my aforementioned desk setup, it's just one cable going into the laptop.

when laptop is plugged in, you aren’t liberated.

If I'm at a coffee shop, there are no cables going into the laptop.

There you are liberated.

If I'm on the couch I might plug in one single cable to charge.

That should be minimized by offloading the processing to the Liberty that stays plugged in to the monitor all the time, so the MacBook stays charged longer and never has to plug in to the dock.

 

[teh_hunterer]

when laptop is plugged in, you aren’t liberated.

The laptop is plugged in when I want to use the desk setup with everything plugged in. How am *I* "not liberated"? If anything, using it on the dock has the side effect of charging it.

There you are liberated.

Exactly - I can just use my laptop like a normal person instead of carrying two computers around with me that I have to make sure are both charged and remote from one on to the other like some sort of insane person. We could rename the MacBook to LibertyBook because it liberates me from that scenario.

That should be minimized by offloading the processing to the Liberty that stays plugged in to the monitor all the time, so the MacBook stays charged longer and never has to plug in to the dock.

Why would I want offload the processing? My laptop is faster than a passively cooled battery operated headless desktop could ever be. What exactly am I gaining here? I also plug a charger into my Switch or my iPad when I'm on the couch. All devices need to be charged? What am I being liberated from?

Apple silicon laptops don't even get that hot in the first place. Intel MacBooks will take off like a jet engine if you dare even look at them, but an Apple silicon MacBook Pro will only give you audible fan noise under the most intense scenarios. I've done 3 hour + raids on World of Warcraft with my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode connected to a monitor and I literally can't hear the fans at all. I was even recording the gameplay at the time.

Also, nobody is mixing over a car stereo while driving. You should know that if you're actually running some sort of serious recording studio. Another completely unrealistic nonsense situation.

You've also failed to understand that any chip that goes in this battery powered desktop device that you're describing is going to have absolutely no advantage over that chip in a laptop. This device you're describing would have worse cooling than it would in a laptop. It is literally nonsense.

 

[teh_hunterer]

To anyone considering getting sucked into this, he's been at this single mindedly for 6 years, and if nobody has gotten through to him in 6 years, nobody is going to get through to him now. Actually just a lost cause, complete waste of time.

 

[adib]

Would making it accept power via USB-C or the regular outlet, and switch without issue solve everything?

• If you need to disconnect the USB, just plug it in.
• If you need to unplug it, connect the USB.
• You can connect to a power-bank with enough wattage when you want to move it.
• You can connect it to a Jackery or similar device to power it longer-term. The low-end ones seem to be USB only, so this would allow you to use the cheapest one available if the Mini truly is all you want to power.
• You can use an external USB-C wall-wart if you just want to move the heat of the power conversion outside of the mini itself, or
• Use a monitor that support charging laptops to power the mini, reducing the cabling requirements.
  • You can power that monitor w/ a UPS if you want both battery power and reduced cabling.

This seems a far more reasonable request than adding batteries to the mini itself. Sure, we're still ignoring all the advanced charging circuitry in the M chips, but this seems far more generic and far more useful to far more people.

A USB-C powered Mac Mini would also reduce Apple's bill of materials. Just bundle a MacBook Pro's power adapter with the mini.

 

[kc9hzn]

I have to get out of here.

Frankly, at this point, I think I’m only following this thread still for pure entertainment value. Personally, I want to see how the thread dies. The OP also keeps on making weird concessions to avoid the obvious solution to this (non-)problem, which is just to buy a laptop and two good Thunderbolt docks (one for home, one for the studio), so I kinda want to see how bizarre they get.

 

[kc9hzn]

when laptop is plugged in, you aren’t liberated.

There you are liberated.

That should be minimized by offloading the processing to the Liberty that stays plugged in to the monitor all the time, so the MacBook stays charged longer and never has to plug in to the dock.

Couldn’t you just use Bluetooth to connect to a desktop Mac and carry your preferred keyboard and mouse between home and the studio? That’s what I do when I have to go to the office (reminds me, I need to pack my keyboard in my bag this morning) then use iCloud to sync your files between the studio computer and your home computer? If you want to have a wireless control surface, that’s a whole heck of a lot more reasonable than using a laptop to remote into a computer two or three feet away. And if what you really want is a large portable display (and that’s why you want the laptop as a remote control surface), get a Vision Pro to go with the keyboard and mouse.

Are you really doing studio work at home or in coffee shops or on the train? Or are you just making up scenarios to justify having a battery in the desktop unit? As an aside, I finally used my work issued laptop on battery power for about an hour yesterday, and it went from 100% to below 25% in less than an hour and a half just from playing a training video. Apple’s current laptops have all day battery life, which is much better than this PC I was issued, despite probably weighing less and being faster! If you’re going to be working on work in these non-home, non-studio locations, you’d be an idiot to carry around a battery powered M2 Pro Mac mini (which would be larger than the current Mac mini, I might add) and a battery powered laptop. The only way this remote desktop laptop for work system makes any sense is if you’re remoting into a Mac Studio with an M2 Max or a Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra.

 

[kc9hzn]

To anyone considering getting sucked into this, he's been at this single mindedly for 6 years, and if nobody has gotten through to him in 6 years, nobody is going to get through to him now. Actually just a lost cause, complete waste of time.

View attachment 2391922

Man, you aren’t kidding! Makes me wonder what the incentive is. Does he legitimately want Apple to make one (never mind that he’s literally the only person, among the nearly 10 billion on earth, that wants a small form factor desktop computer with a battery in it [or alternatively, a headless, keyboardless, mouseless laptop] to be remote controlled by a proper laptop), or does he just want them to make one so he can claim that it was his idea and ??? profit?

 

[YoitsTmac]

Man, you aren’t kidding! Makes me wonder what the incentive is. Does he legitimately want Apple to make one (never mind that he’s literally the only person, among the nearly 10 billion on earth, that wants a small form factor desktop computer with a battery in it [or alternatively, a headless, keyboardless, mouseless laptop] to be remote controlled by a proper laptop), or does he just want them to make one so he can claim that it was his idea and ??? profit?

But aside from the battery, the product already exists. It’s a Mac Mini. And OPs cable management is so crummy that they accidentally unplug their computer when messing with peripherals.

I use a MacBook Pro with the screen removed as a headless server I use from a functional MBP. It’s basically exactly what OPs looking for. OP just doesn’t seem to understand cloud storage, or has an old Intel product that makes them yearn for the ability to offload a CPU elsewhere. I’m not convinced OP has used AS. OP will someday buy an AS MBP, we can only prey accompanied by a thunderbolt dock, and have a world-shattering moment.

 

[minik]

After reading the original post, I'm unsure at this point. I have multiple Mac mini desktops from Intel to M1 since launch. Currently the 'headless' M1 Mac mini is mounted in the closet with a UPS attached. Generally I don't see how the power cord gets in the way. Having a battery doesn't really add any value to it.

Yes Apple re-uses the enclosure practically since the mid-2010 model year, which is ideal for a lot of customers. Didn't Apple show many Mac mini used for colocation or render farm? Those places don't have to re-tool the rack or whatnot when it comes to upgrade.

 

[HowardEv]

laptop is plugged in when I want to use the desk setup with everything plugged in. How am *I* "not liberated"? If anything, using it on the dock has the side effect of charging it.

When the laptop is plugged into the dock you can’t take it to your couch, you can’t bring it to the kitchen or patio. It has to stay plugged in to dock. Unplugging it from the dock means you can’t use the monitors or studio. If you had a Liberty that was connected to the dock, your MacBook would not be connected to anything. It would have to get plugged in to be recharged every so often of course.

Exactly - I can just use my laptop like a normal person instead of carrying two computers around with me that I have to make sure are both charged and remote from one on to the other like some sort of insane person.

Well you wouldn’t have to bring the Liberty with you, you could leave it hooked up at your studio or home, if you just wanted to bring your laptop. Your laptop wouldnt be a $3000 MacBook Pro, it would be a $500 light small Air, like a normal person brings to coffee shop. But if you wanted, and had the physical and mental strength to, you could bring the Liberty with you, weighing less than a pound in your bag, and work on your session, using your Air as a wireless front end. You wouldn’t have to take your $1200 Liberty M2 Pro out of your bag unless it was throttling too much, in which case you’d put it on a cool surface to be a passive heat radiator.

Why would I want offload the processing? My laptop is faster than a passively cooled battery operated headless desktop could ever be. What exactly am I gaining here?

The Liberty should be better at staying cool than a laptop, thats a design requirement. If it needs large radiator fins or a fan to be better than a laptop then give it fins and a fan (fan noise not as much of a problem because it wouldn’t be right in front of you, it’d be at the back of desk, or under it.) The laptop you’d be holding in front of you would be cool because it isn’t doing the heavy processing.

I also plug a charger into my Switch or my iPad when I'm on the couch. All devices need to be charged? What am I being liberated from?

You’d be liberated from the other wires that have to be connected even when laptop is charged, the HDMI cables and USB cables to interface and instruments. You could move your laptop around, sit anywhere with it, no wires, while your desktop stays operating.

Apple silicon laptops don't even get that hot in the first place.

Thats why I suspect that overheating won’t be a problem for Liberty, it won’t need fans or fins.

You've also failed to understand that any chip that goes in this battery powered desktop device that you're describing is going to have absolutely no advantage over that chip in a laptop. This device you're describing would have worse cooling than it would in a laptop. It is literally nonsense.

One of the problems this is intended to solve is the notorious cooling problems of laptops that lead to fans and throttling. The point is to take the hot chip out of the laptop, and put it in a case designed to cool it better than in a laptop. Maybe by placing it on an external heat sink that draws the heat away, or maybe it needs fins or cheese grater heat sink or a fan and won’t be as small or silent as I want. But the whole point is to be an improvement over the throttled chip in a laptop.

 

[YoitsTmac]

When the laptop is plugged into the dock you can’t take it to your couch, you can’t bring it to the kitchen or patio. It has to stay plugged in to dock. Unplugging it from the dock means you can’t use the monitors or studio.

You can’t bring your monitor or studio to the kitchen or patio either 🫠

One of the problems this is intended to solve is the notorious cooling problems of laptops that lead to fans and throttling. The point is to take the hot chip out of the laptop, and put it in a case designed to cool it better than in a laptop.

Okay but this isn’t really a problem with Apple Silicon.

Put your keyboard and mouse on this: https://a.co/d/0htJUWs1

Connect your laptop to this: https://a.co/d/0iloGPb9 connect your laptop to your TV, and two monitors on a desk.

Connect your desk monitors to this: https://a.co/d/09KhtVhN

There. I’ve liberated you. With a switch, your laptop goes from TV monitor with wireless control to back at your desk. No unplugging. No battery.

If you find the caldigit too expensive, you could use this too: https://a.co/d/0iS4FB8Z

Control desktop Mac from laptop: system settings > general > sharing > remote management or screen sharing then on laptop go to finder > command + shift + k, select your desktop and log in. You can have done this for years. Now that you explained it differently, you’re looking for a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (or trackpad), with the tray I have linked above. And now you can easily switch between your desk and TV. And now you can enjoy that setup from your couch, and even connect to all your other macs.

Enjoy liberation!

This still does everything you just described you want.

 

[Night Spring]

$500 light small Air,

You are talking about the MacBook Air, right? They start at $999.

Even the iPad Air start at $599, so not quite $500.

You have some unrealistic expectactions about prices, do you even own any recent Apple products?

 

[HowardEv]

You are talking about the MacBook Air, right? They start at $999.

Even the iPad Air start at $599, so not quite $500.

You have some unrealistic expectactions about prices, do you even own any recent Apple products?

Oh, ok I thought I’d seen the base models cheaper, maybe those were old M1s on sale or something. And yes, I am asking for Apple to lower their prices to what I think people would excitedly snap up and give Apple a resurgence. The idea is, people would buy a $500 laptop and $1000 display and $1000 MPro Liberty and be way better off than if they buy a $2500 MacBookPro, which they don’t buy at all because that’s too much, and they don’t buy the Mini because it’s obsolete design, and don’t buy a display because too expensive. So they don’t buy anything. The last product I bought was i5 iMac, because my Intel Air got hot and loud.
I can’t decide between getting M2 Pro Mini, or M3 Pro MBP, or if I even need the Pro, or maybe I need the Studio. So I have not bought anything. I am waiting for Apple to make a product that I want to buy.

 

[kc9hzn]

Oh, ok I thought I’d seen the base models cheaper, maybe those were old M1s on sale or something. And yes, I am asking for Apple to lower their prices to what I think people would excitedly snap up and give Apple a resurgence. The idea is, people would buy a $500 laptop and $1000 display and $1000 MPro Liberty and be way better off than if they buy a $2500 MacBookPro, which they don’t buy at all because that’s too much, and they don’t buy the Mini because it’s obsolete design, and don’t buy a display because too expensive. So they don’t buy anything. The last product I bought was i5 iMac, because my Intel Air got hot and loud.
I can’t decide between getting M2 Pro Mini, or M3 Pro MBP, or if I even need the Pro, or maybe I need the Studio. So I have not bought anything. I am waiting for Apple to make a product that I want to buy.

Considering that you’ve very clearly got a picture of what you want and you’re absolutely convinced that the solution you need comes in one certain shape and that no one, in 50 years of consumer computers, has ever sold (as a commercial product) a computer satisfying your vision (and that Apple probably wouldn’t find enough of a market for it), you’ll just keep on waiting and waiting and waiting.

 

[YoitsTmac]

Considering that you’ve very clearly got a picture of what you want and you’re absolutely convinced that the solution you need comes in one certain shape and that no one, in 50 years of consumer computers, has ever sold (as a commercial product) a computer satisfying your vision (and that Apple probably wouldn’t find enough of a market for it), you’ll just keep on waiting and waiting and waiting.

OP wants an M3 Pro MBP with an external monitor and probably a thunderbolt dock, but is just price sensitive. In my opinion there’s being thrifty and then there’s recognizing what you want isn’t in your budget. For what it’s worth I got my monitors, caldigit and MBP all used.

OP could probably make their setup with 2.5-3k shopping about (USB C dock, two $400 4K monitors, entry M3 Pro 14”). But like you said, they refuse to get a setup like this so .

 

[Night Spring]

Oh, ok I thought I’d seen the base models cheaper, maybe those were old M1s on sale or something. And yes, I am asking for Apple to lower their prices to what I think people would excitedly snap up and give Apple a resurgence. The idea is, people would buy a $500 laptop and $1000 display and $1000 MPro Liberty and be way better off than if they buy a $2500 MacBookPro, which they don’t buy at all because that’s too much, and they don’t buy the Mini because it’s obsolete design, and don’t buy a display because too expensive. So they don’t buy anything.

If I wanted to do computing on the go, I'd rather have the $2500 MacBook, than have to juggle 2-3 separate devices. And Apple must think more people feel my way than your way, so they keep making $2500 MacBooks.

The last product I bought was i5 iMac, because my Intel Air got hot and loud.
I can’t decide between getting M2 Pro Mini, or M3 Pro MBP, or if I even need the Pro, or maybe I need the Studio. So I have not bought anything. I am waiting for Apple to make a product that I want to buy.

So have you been using the i5 iMac all this time to do your recordings and sound editing? What have you been using when you want to do mobile computing?

Do you live in the US, or are you in one of the countries that don't have a no-questions-asked return policy? If you are in a country with generous return policy, you should just get a M-series MacBook and use it for a few days. You might still want your Mac Liberty, but you'd be talking from the perspective of what modern Apple Silicon chips are actually like, instead of clinging to outdated ideas about how MacBooks work.

 

[Boil]

When the laptop is plugged into the dock you can’t take it to your couch, you can’t bring it to the kitchen or patio. It has to stay plugged in to dock. Unplugging it from the dock means you can’t use the monitors or studio. If you had a Liberty that was connected to the dock, your MacBook would not be connected to anything. It would have to get plugged in to be recharged every so often of course.

Please explain how one can use the monitors or studio when the laptop is being used on the couch or in a coffee shop...?

Well you wouldn’t have to bring the Liberty with you, you could leave it hooked up at your studio or home, if you just wanted to bring your laptop. Your laptop wouldnt be a $3000 MacBook Pro, it would be a $500 light small Air, like a normal person brings to coffee shop. But if you wanted, and had the physical and mental strength to, you could bring the Liberty with you, weighing less than a pound in your bag, and work on your session, using your Air as a wireless front end. You wouldn’t have to take your $1200 Liberty M2 Pro out of your bag unless it was throttling too much, in which case you’d put it on a cool surface to be a passive heat radiator.

The Liberty should be better at staying cool than a laptop, thats a design requirement. If it needs large radiator fins or a fan to be better than a laptop then give it fins and a fan (fan noise not as much of a problem because it wouldn’t be right in front of you, it’d be at the back of desk, or under it.) The laptop you’d be holding in front of you would be cool because it isn’t doing the heavy processing.

You’d be liberated from the other wires that have to be connected even when laptop is charged, the HDMI cables and USB cables to interface and instruments. You could move your laptop around, sit anywhere with it, no wires, while your desktop stays operating.

Thats why I suspect that overheating won’t be a problem for Liberty, it won’t need fans or fins.

One of the problems this is intended to solve is the notorious cooling problems of laptops that lead to fans and throttling. The point is to take the hot chip out of the laptop, and put it in a case designed to cool it better than in a laptop. Maybe by placing it on an external heat sink that draws the heat away, or maybe it needs fins or cheese grater heat sink or a fan and won’t be as small or silent as I want. But the whole point is to be an improvement over the throttled chip in a laptop.

So now you are carrying around a Mac mini (your "Liberty"), a MacBook Air (because a MacBook Pro is too pretentious), and an external heat sink for the Mac mini (your "Liberty"); how does all of that make any sense whatsoever...?

As for the cheesegrater heat sink, those holes on the Mac Pro are not heat sinks in any way, they are designed to minimize sound from the air intake of the fans behind them...

Dude, wake up and realize your "Liberty" idea is in no way viable at all...

Either get a MacBook Pro for all needs, or get a Mac mini to leave at the studio and an iPad Pro for out-and-about; and when you are in the studio, the iPad Pro can also serve as a touchscreen mixing interface...

I know you will not respond to any of this because I am fairly certain that you have blocked my by now, as you have not responded to any of my other posts correcting your illogical thinking and utter lack of any sort of knowledge about modern computers...