Re: Cancel Sleep
Re: Cancel Sleep
- Subject: Re: Cancel Sleep
- From: Steve Checkoway <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 18:28:40 -0800
On Jan 1, 2008, at 5:22 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
On Jan 1, 2008, at 2:55 PM, David Elliott wrote:
What exactly is the reason for requiring the system to go to sleep
and then be woken up again?
Closing the clamshell is an explicit instruction from the user to
sleep the system.
I don't buy this. Other laptops running other operating systems
(Windows and Linux are the two that I've seen) can handle closing the
laptop without sleeping. It certainly wasn't an instruction from the
user to sleep when I've seen it. In the cases I've seen, there was no
external power connected. It was simply, close the laptop, move from
one room to another, open the laptop and continue working.
Your scenario is indistinguishable at the software level from my
daily routine, where I close the lid on my MBP, pull all the cables
from it and stuff it into my backpack. I don't stop to wait for it
to sleep, or manually sleep it; I expect that when I close the lid,
it will go to sleep and stay asleep.
Then presumably, you would not enable this mode of operation since you
don't want it.
You can't trust the OS to do it, and in fact the system doesn't; the
SMC will shut the system down hard if it is headed for a thermal
emergency.
So what is the problem? If the user screws up and overheats his
machine, you're saying that it will shut down, hard, in order to
protect the machine.
You mentioned class action lawsuits (are you a lawyer? I am not) but
if this mode of operation is something that has to be explicitly
enabled by the user with a clear warning of the consequences and there
is no way an application (other than say System Preferences) can
enable it, then it is pretty clearly the users' fault and not Apple's.
The point here being that an x86 Macintosh portable without airflow
is almost certain to do this; a mode of operation that encourages
the user to put the system into an enclosed space (bag, pile of
stuff, etc.) is just not a viable thing.
Nothing stops me from blocking the airflow to any of my computers. I
expect (and you have confirmed above) that the machine will save
itself if it overheats. Adding additional constraints in one specific
situation seems pointless. That aside, which part of the design of the
x86 Macintosh portables is so poor that it cannot do what other x86
portables can do? Just a guess, but I'd suspect nothing.
The system is designed to deal with being overheated occasionally
and accidentally, but not as a routine matter of course, which is
what your new mode of operation will facilitate.
Facilitate is not the same as cause. I just tried plugging in a
monitor, keyboard, and power into my laptop while it was closed,
pressing a key woke it, unplugging either the power or the monitor
caused it to sleep. Why is it that the system has to sleep first and
then be reawakened? Even in the case you mentioned, "close the lid on
my MBP, pull all the cables from it and stuff it into my backpack"
would work just fine. It wouldn't sleep until you pulled one of those
two cables.
On Dec 31, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Michael Smith wrote:
It might be reasonable to ask Apple for a preference which
dissociates closing the lid from the act of putting the system to
sleep, although I would strongly expect that this would be refused
for several sensible reasons, but it is *not* reasonable to ask for
a programmatic way to subvert the user's intent in the fashion the
OP desires.
p.s. If you wonder why such a preference would probably be refused,
examine the Apple support forums and other web archives for
complaints from users relating to systems that fail (due to bugs or
hardware issues) to sleep when expected, and add the likely
incidence of user error and malicious/incompetent/well-meaning-but-
wrong-headed programmatic manipulation of the preference to the
number you encounter. The result would not be pretty.
It is reasonable to ask for such a preference. Your "sensible reason"
is pretty poor. Don't let the preference be set programatically,
similar to how display rotation does not seem to be settable
programatically (although, it would be very handy if I am incorrect
and I could set it programatically).
--
Steve Checkoway
"Anyone who says that the solution is to educate the users
hasn't ever met an actual user." -- Bruce Schneier
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