Someone got me one of those blankets with sleeves for Christmas one year, and while it's very secure and warm when I put my arms in the sleeves, getting out of them is a hassle when I want to get up. Result is I hardly ever use the sleeves, just use the thing like a regular blanket. I suspect a battery in a mini would similarly go mostly unused.
The Liberty, being a MacBook without a screen, would use a MacBook power brick, smaller because it doesn’t power a screen.
And though it would come with a small power brick same size as MBP, when it was at your desk it could be getting charged from the display, and not need a power cable or a brick. Just one power cord from wall to the display, and just one thunderbolt cable to the Liberty (or MBP) to keep it charged.
Randomly pulling the power can result in corruption of the SSD and data loss. Having a way to ensure a safe shutdown in the event of power loss does have an important benefit.
And way to completely ignore where was saying that if loss of power to the house then the rest of the equipment also loses power.
The post made an unqualified assertion there was no benefit to having a battery. My snippet quoted the relevant part of that sentence:
If you are just concerned about saving work/system state in case of a power outage, why isn't an UPS good enough? In fact, how is this external battery you describe different from existing UPS devices?
What I found interesting in this discussion was a power path through a TB port in addition to the built in power supply. That way, you could add an external USB PD battery and use it as a UPS.
it stated that there was no point having the Mini have a BATTERY if the rest of the house lost power.
firstly I am not only aware of the power management in Mac OS I even used it in the past. When you use a compatible UPS and connect via USB (or other compatible data connection from UPS to Mac) then the UPS option appears under energy saver. Under that then can the Mac to shutdown either based on time or battery within the UPS.
to make use of the Mac power management then this would be appearing as a UPS to Mac OS. You are describing a UPS not a battery.
I agree with you on this point. The OP was suggesting a battery inside the mini. As I pointed out earlier I would prefer to see a TB port that can be used to power the mini from an external USB PD power source in addition to the existing AC power supply. This would allow the user to use the AC power by default and switch over to the USB PD power source in the event of a power fail of the AC power. USB PD sink would allow the user to power the mini from a DC source where you do not have an AC source available.
That’s covered by a different idea that’s popped up here, changing the power connector to USB C. Upon reflection, I’m not as fond of the idea as I was.
...or you could get a UPS (or a generic power bank with a mains A/C inverter) and use it as, well, a UPS - with the advantage that it would also keep key components like displays, external storage, network switches running in an outage.
Why would removing the internal PSU be bad? The USB C power port would also be the display port. Ideally, the AC powered plug-in display would charge the computer, so only one outlet is used, and only one cable comes out of the computer. (Two cables would come out of the monitor still, AC to the wall and Thunderbolt to the computer.) In a power outage, the monitor would shut off but the laptop or liberty would stay on. Make some tea, and when the power comes back, turn the display on and get back to work.
I wouldn't be surprised if they remove it from a future Mac Mini. They did it with the iMac. It's that way with the laptops. ...maybe their use in server farms affect this decision.
I’m looking to get Apple to make a new product, by describing it through honest discussion. I didn’t ask anyone for information.
It doesn’t make much sense with the iMac because it is a display, and big displays still need more wattage than thunderbolt can provide, and are not supposed to be portable, so could easily fit an internal PSU. But in spite of that, 70% of this Reddit poll said they were fine with Apple removing the PSU and using a power brick. Even though it still has no battery.
Yes... if you use a USB-C PD display with sufficient power to drive it (I guess a Studio Display has a beefy enough PSU, but many other USB-C displays offer less). According to the Apple specs the "maximum continuous power" is 150W for the M2 and 185W for the M2 Pro. I actually do have a display with USB PD, but its only rated at 65W.
