New Macbook Air takes ages to shut down.

[flynz4]

not arguing with you but what specifically does shutting down do for you in that situation that sleep wouldn't?

I am not 100% sure (or better said... I cannot remember), but when I researched it, I learned two things. In addition to using FV2 (which I was already doing)... I should add a firmware password and do a shutdown when left unattended. BTW: This is not 100% perfect either.

I do not shut down at work or at home... but when left unattended (especially in hotel rooms), I do it religiously.

If the laptop is stollen, losing the device is an inconvenience. I am not particularly worried about losing data... since everything is double backed up. However, losing my identity would be catastrophic.

Shutting down in situations like this is trivial... so I do it.

/Jim

 

[DisplacedMic]

On a machine with removable RAM, there might be some benefit to shutting down so the encryption keys aren't accessible. But that crosses from the realm of probability into the improbable. I don't disagree that FV/ encryption is a good idea, but any thief likely cares about the machine itself and not the data on the drive.

the other side of that coin is once your laptop is stolen if you have software that can monitor it by location in the case of theft, like lojack for example, sleep is beneficial as it may give it one final chance to connect to an open network.

both of these are farfetched to the point that i don't think theft should enter into your decision whether to shutdown or sleep your macbook.

 

[Crazy Badger]

One of the best features of the MBA is the ability to open the lid and get on with whatever you're doing almost immediatley.

Thought I'd check out my 2013 i7/8/512 MBA which is running 10.9 and it took 31 seconds. Didn't have much open (a few tabs in safari, mail, cal, contacts, and maybe 3-4 other applications) either.

Just booted and with maybe 5 seconds to enter filevault password took 39 seconds to get everything back up and running.

 

[jdechko]

One of the best features of the MBA is the ability to open the lid and get on with whatever you're doing almost immediatley.

Thought I'd check out my 2013 i7/8/512 MBA which is running 10.9 and it took 31 seconds. Didn't have much open (a few tabs in safari, mail, cal, contacts, and maybe 3-4 other applications) either.

Just booted and with maybe 5 seconds to enter filevault password took 39 seconds to get everything back up and running.

Lion, with auto-resume, did a lot to remove any barriers to restarting, for sure. And I'm not forgetting the speed of SSDs either.

Still I can't help thinking about where we are going with computing appliances, like smartphones and tablets. Even though my Air isn't quite as immediate as my iPhone, I'm still treating the Air more and more like an appliance. I can use the Air for a few minutes at a time to check emails, watch some videos, pay bills, and do a little work, with breaks in between where the computer is sleeping--just like I do with my phone.