![]() ![]() The why did Apple engineers X question is always a hard one to peg, but the simple answer is that a very small subset of Mac hardware is targeted for the initial Power Nap implementation. Tl dr: likely it's hardware specifically, heat. Power Nap monitors temperature, and if the system gets too hot to run without cooling, Power Nap disengages, but if the processor in earlier MBAs was triggering such an alert too often, that may be why Apple removed them from the list of models that support Power Nap. This seems slightly less likely to me, given the supported models, but it could explain why the 2010 MacBook Air is excluded. The limitation might not be drive-based it could be the processor that can't run silently. Instead, they've made Power Nap work only on those models of computer that they know will have a SSD drive. While SSDs could be installed in any computer, and Apple could perhaps write firmware updates for all their Macs so that Power Nap checks to see if the computer has a SSD drive and if so, runs Power Nap, they haven't chosen to do so. Siracusa suggests that third party SSDs might have a different heat profile. Thus, only devices Apple knows are designed to be able to access their storage without risk of overheating (as a spinning hard drive might) will take advantage of Power Nap. This requires a storage device that can run without a fan and a processor that can run without a fan (sorry notoriously hot G5 - I doubt there would ever be a way to support you for this).Īccording to John Siracusa's epic Mountain Lion review, the Dark Wake mode that Power Nap invokes does not turn on the fans. It also means, of particular relevance to this question, the fan is also kept off. ![]() This means no audio or video is activated. This waking, however, is not noticeable to the user because the computer remains dark and silent. The idea behind Power Nap is that when the computer appears to be asleep, from time to time, it actually wakes up and performs various tasks. In a subsequent firmware update, Apple included Mid 2010 MacBook Air models in Power Nap.Īs far as why they've made that decision, we enter the realm of speculation, but fortunately, we have some good information here. In other words, it's not that Apple runs some exclusion script to keep other models out it takes an active update to the firmware to make a model run Power Nap, and they've chosen to do that for two particular lines of computers. The reason for this is An SMC update is required to gain all the functionality of Power Nap, and these are the only models Apple has chosen to actively write the firmware updates to support the feature. Only the MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer), MacBook Pro with Retina display were originally supported supported for Power Nap. ![]()
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