
Resolving power button issues in Mac OS X Mavericks - madeofpalk
http://binchewer.org/blog/index.php?id=1
======
lmg643
>It always amused me how Apple is capable of producing so quality hardware and
has so bright ideas in design, but makes so awful lot of questionable
decisions in software.

Amen. I recently migrated to iMac/Mavericks from Windows 7 and there are a
number of really useful things you can do in Windows 7 that there aren't good
analogues for in Mavericks. Task-switching, for example, leaves a lot to be
desired. Apparently a third party application, Witch, can fix that - wonderful
(and not really a good fix if you are using windows virtual machines side-by-
side). Launchpad is horribly designed, has phantom stuff on there and you
can't delete them directly. I still like the machine but it's funny to think
that windows had the edge in a number of usability areas.

~~~
lelandbatey
The killer feature that I dearly miss in OS X is decent Window management.

In Windows, I can use Win+left/right keys to make a window take up precisely
half of the screen. I can press Win+up_arrow to fullscreen a window.

On Linux, I can use tiling window managers like Dwm or Xmonad to fullfil all
my tiling needs.

In OS X, I can full screen or have to manually deal with each and every
window. It's awful.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Sizeup:
[http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/](http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/)

~~~
trauco
Apart from resizing/moving windows, one feature I miss dearly from my Linux
desktop is the ability to move windows from one desktop to the other. I use
keyboard maestro to resize windows, and the developer mentions somewhere in
his website that there's no way to move windows from one desktop to the other
with OS X. Does anybody know if that's the case?

~~~
killerpopiller
you can grab a window with your mouse (left click) on its upper panel hold it,
so that you can drag it around your desktop. To drag it to the next desktop
just hold it + CTRL+1 or 2,3,4 (depending on your set desktops).

~~~
trauco
Ah, missed the most important bit in my comment: I could do this in Linux
without the mouse, which is the behavior I want to replicate in OS X if
possible.

Thanks for your answer.

------
ChikkaChiChi
The comments on this article read like the Apple forums, 'I can't replicate
it, so you must be doing it wrong.' Just because it's not happening to me
doesn't mean it's not an issue.

Fact of the matter is that the laws of unintended consequences are at play
here. Apple took a button which was perfectly fine being separate and on its
own and made it part of the standard keyboard. Then they took away a
confirmation dialog that would have prevented it from automatically switching
power modes.

This wasn't a problem, now it is, and Apple refuses to acknowledge the
problem. It doesn't matter if YOU don't have this problem, some people do.

I am really hoping the past week of low quality HN commentary is simply a by-
product of the weekend folks having extended breaks...

------
ansimionescu
Am I the only one who realises (and appreciates) the fact that if you hit
whichever key in the first second after hitting the power button, the computer
doesn't go to sleep? It's actually a very thoughtful feature, it surprises me
that no one at all mentioned it.

~~~
shalalala
What do you mean?

~~~
madeofpalk
When I accidently hit the power button, it's usually followed by a flurry of
furious key strokes to quickly wake the machine up.

It appears that before the machine actually goes to sleep, there is a brief
period of about 5 seconds where it's stil on, but the screen powered off.

~~~
kalleboo
It still disconnects me from IRC though :(

------
userbinator
> It always amused me how Apple is capable of _producing so quality hardware
> and has so bright ideas in design_ , but makes so awful lot of questionable
> decisions in software.

> I have a MacBook Air and delete key is only 3mm apart from power key and I
> mishit it from time to time.

Am I the only one who thinks the first sentence is a bit sarcastic?

~~~
caprad
I don't think he was being sarcastic, and the key has to go somewhere on the
keyboard. You can't just put it anywhere else. And it wasn't a problem before,
when it popped up a menu you could dismiss easily.

And I never hit it on my macbook, so I guess it isn't a probably for
everybody.

~~~
userbinator
I've never used a Macbook Air before, but now that I look at its keyboard...
wow. I think accidentally pressing the _power button_ because it looks and
feels just like the other keys on the keyboard is a bad design. The one on my
laptop is isolated from all the other keys, looks and feels very differenet,
and recessed to prevent accidental activation.

~~~
darkandbrooding
I think it's a terrible, terrible design. I was working on a new Retina
Powerbook last week, and I pushed the power key within my first ten minutes.
It should not be trivially easy to bring your productivity to a screeching
halt.

The soldered RAM is annoying - I'm OK with my computer being a complex tool,
not an appliance. The excuse of the soldered RAM to up-sell if you want 16 GB
of memory is insulting. The power button is idiotic. Apple wants me to pay
three grand for a laptop that can be turned off instantaneously by an overly
curious pet?

Really?

 _Really?_

~~~
Bud
Apple isn't "upselling" you. They're simply charging you for more RAM, and
only more RAM, if you want to buy more RAM. They aren't forcing you to upgrade
anything else (this actually would count as an upsell); the RAM can be
upgraded independently at the time of purchase.

Furthermore, if you want a really thin laptop and you want them to cut weight
from the design and you want the design to be extremely tough (and most of us
do), one thing you run out of space for pretty quickly is multiple RAM
sockets.

I'm frankly ok with paying for the 16 GB now or never.

~~~
madeofpalk
> the RAM can be upgraded independently at the time of purchase.

FWIW, RAM cannot be upgraded on newer Macbook models, incl. the retina
mentioned. The RAM is soldered on.

------
Demiurge
That's weird, I've been using MacBook Air 11 for three years and remember
hitting the power button only once by accident. I also have pretty big hands
and fingers.

~~~
dhruvmittal
Did that have the "new" style power button, replacing the eject button
immediately above the delete key?

~~~
valleyer
All MacBook Airs have had that layout.

~~~
klausa
Not true:
[http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/01/macboo...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/01/macbook-
air-rev-sm-03.jpg)

~~~
valleyer
Huh, you're right. So all but the first generation then?

~~~
stephencanon
First two generations. The power button moved with the third-gen chassis
redesign (squared-off sides) and the introduction of the 11".

------
ricardobeat
Software "fix" for a dumb hardware change. The old button flush with the body
made more sense.

------
beggi
Wow this behavior has annoyed me to no end the one time when I miss the delete
button every 1-2 months.

~~~
m_mueller
While I had the same thought at first, this post delivered on a well
documented reverse engineering case that should be perfect for the intended
audience here. Which is why I think your tone is out of place.

~~~
beggi
In hindsight I see that my post might look like sarcasm, but it's not. I
forgot to mention that for some reason on my MacBook Air when I hit the power
button the computer sleeps and won't wake up so I have to do a hard restart -
so this behavior really is very annoying to me even though it's infrequent.

------
bcj
What I'd really like is to make power a dead key unless function is pressed.

------
mark212
Completely don't understand this post. I'm typing from a MacBook Pro (15"
retina, bought it a month ago) and can't replicate the OP's experience. A
light jab of the power button, like I would hit the delete key, doesn't do
anything. Only a firm, solid press does -- and even then, any other key press
brings it right back up from sleep in an instant.

~~~
kalleboo
On my 2012 rMBP on Mavericks, even a fast light tap on the power button sends
it into sleep. You're right that it wakes up again very quickly, but it very
annoyingly terminates some online connections (e.g. IRC)

~~~
sitharus
Odd, on my Mid 2012 rMBP a quick press does nothing. Doesn't bother me though,
I've never accidentally hit the power button, but my normal typing position
keeps that whole row of keys outside my finger range.

------
nwh
Surely there's a plist you can modify rather than patching stuff in-memory.

------
sigsergv
I'd prefer to disable Power key completely, it's actually totally useless. I
think there is something on ACPI/kernel level could be done to disable that
key, but I haven't found it yet.

When I need to sleep I just close macbook, when I rarely need to reboot I just
press button “Reboot” in some package installation wizard (otherwise reboot
could be done using apple menu). So this button make sense only in one case:
laptop is not responding and you need to “hard-reset” it using loooong press,
and that case is processed by low-level hardware, not high level ACPI driver.

------
DigitalJack
Is the power button different on newer macs? Mine is flush with the metal and
you have to push it much harder than a key press to effect anything.

~~~
muro
[http://images.apple.com/macbook-
air/images/design_multitouch...](http://images.apple.com/macbook-
air/images/design_multitouch.jpg)

~~~
DigitalJack
Wow, that was a bad move. I'd make it a triple press to turn off if it was
demanded that it be a normal key.

That's really too bad it's just a plain key like that. On my windows keyboard,
I miss the backspace key all the time and it has an eject above there which
makes a lot of drive noise even when the slot is empty, but I'd scream bloody
murder if it actually slept. (the crapware my employer puts on my laptop makes
it painfully slow to sleep and wake or do anything else really).

------
dmourati
Happened to me twice today as I was working. Fixed with the binary. How would
I roll back the change? Thanks.

~~~
wazoox
Don't need to. The binary patches the running executable in memory, and
doesn't change the binary on disk. You must run the program at every new login
to patch again the running process.

~~~
dmourati
Realized that after I found his github project.
[https://github.com/binchewer/power_fixer](https://github.com/binchewer/power_fixer)

------
brandonbica
The primary use case of the power button is to power down the machine. Of all
the times that the button is hit, how often is it hit with the intent of
hitting the delete button? For me personally I would guess it's happened maybe
once or twice in the couple of years I've had an Air.

So to me it seems like having to confirm that I want to shutdown after I hit
the shutdown button, by either clicking or waiting, is a hurdle on the primary
way the button is used. I can see that in the scenario posted that it is a
"high impact" if you accidentally hit the power key, but overall the number of
times that that happens must be low enough that bashing Apple's design
decision has to be a little over the top.

~~~
lostlogin
How often do people use the power button versus accidentally hitting it? I'd
say that my primary intentional use of that button is restarting the computer
after hitting the button by mistake. Shutting down and powering up are rare
activities for me. Edit: waking from sleep rather than powering up - however
it is often I restart I am doing as the wake from sleep is flakey for some
reason.

------
adolph
Halfway through I started thinking the punch line would be that he tells all
this to someone else and that person says, "yeah, I hated that too so I put a
little piece of tape on it." No punch line in this though, just patch
downloads.

~~~
kalleboo
Tape wouldn't work, you'd need a bottle cap or something spaced away from the
keyboard.

------
chucklarge
thank you! just ran the binary and hitting the power button on a mbp retina
now brings up the "Are you sure you want to shut your computer down now?"
dialog. This is behavior is by far the worst part of mavericks.

------
terabytest
You have an unintended doge in your first line: "so quality hardware".

------
ScottBurson
Interesting example of how to dig through the guts of the OS and patch a
binary. I've been thinking of trying to do the same thing to permanently
disable display mirroring, which I despise[0]. Maybe this will inspire me to
take a shot at it.

[0] The OS "helpfully" resizes and relocates all my windows so they fit on the
smaller screen. This is no problem on an Air, but on a 17" MBP with seven or
eight virtual desktops full of windows, it's a disaster. I would think it
would be pretty annoying on a 15" as well, but I guess most people don't mind.

------
drwl
I find myself using the delete button less as I use Ctrl+H (when caps is
remapped to control) using Keyremap4macbook, and even when I do use the delete
button I rarely mistakenly press the power button

------
unfamiliar
> Let’s put aside the question why someone would decide to implement such a
> ridiculous feature — it was implemented, everyone is unhappy, and Apple
> seems to have more important tasks to do than to fix it back.

The feature is there to trick people into thinking they have powered off the
machine. People hit the power button and think the machine is shut down so
they are happy. This way they get all the benefits of just sleeping the
machine such as fast startup times, but there is no need to educate the user
that shutting down every day is unnecessary.

~~~
youngtaff
Fast start up times, except for the issue where Mavericks takes ages to
reconnect to WiFi from sleep - it's quicker to turn Wifi off and then on, than
wait for Mavericks to wake the network adapter and reconnect

~~~
lostlogin
Do others get this? I don't. 11 and 13 air, Mavericks and wifi.

------
SmileyKeith
When I saw this change in the beta builds of Mavericks I submitted a bug
report since the ability to change the power button's behavior was also
removed from `pmset`. They responded with a "this was intentional." This is
the biggest thing that angers me about the way Apple handles software changes.
This could have been switched as the default, but having to go to this much
trouble to change it back to the functionality the button has had for years is
just ridiculous.

------
pkamb
I made the utility PowerKey to remap the power key to Forward Delete or
another key of your choosing:

[https://github.com/pkamb/PowerKey](https://github.com/pkamb/PowerKey)

It was pretty broken with the new Sleep behavior of 10.9, but this is hack is
a great step in the right direction.

------
normalocity
How is this not a simple training mistake of the user? The power button is in
the far corner of the keyboard.

~~~
rdatajef
The far corner of the keyboard... millimeters away from the backspace key and
the volume up keys (which aren't uncommon keys to hit).

------
jaseemabid
Isn't this why the world love FOSS?

------
SmileyKeith
Looks like this will hopefully be installable via Homebrew soon:
[https://github.com/binchewer/power_fixer/pull/3](https://github.com/binchewer/power_fixer/pull/3)

------
post_break
I remember the days when there was an eject button there. And any quick press
made your macbook sing the song of its people. In 10.4.9 I believe Apple
created the delay.

------
jbverschoor
Well.. Nothing happens if I press mine. It might have the same delay as
capslock to prevent accidental preses

------
chenster
Damn, that's hard core hacking!

------
woah
Never really been a problem for me.

------
wil421
>The problem is, I have a MacBook Air and delete key is only 3mm apart from
power key and I mishit it from time to time

The problem seems to be with the user not with the Mavericks update. Stop
accidentally pressing the power button, problem solved.

~~~
madeofpalk
I'm sure we don't mean to press it...

