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mi7chy

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2014
10,625
11,296
False for MBA M1. Not only significantly longer boot time but also not all services are running at login screen so no fingerprint login, no tap to click, etc. compared to a $400 Lenovo Yoga 6 that boots much faster and has all services at login screen. And, it looks like the memory leak is back so the only sure way to prevent memory usage from growing during sleep and putting wear on SSD is to turn it off.
 

fourthtunz

macrumors 68000
Jul 23, 2002
1,735
1,210
Maine
I think it should, and apparently Steve Jobs agreed with me. To the question of what direction the Mac should take, he once showed an iPad switching on, and he said, make this (pointing to a Mac), do that (pointing to the iPad).

Its about the overall computing experience, the friction that’s involved in doing the actual creative work we do. Every time the computer makes something difficult for you, it gets you out of the flow of being productive, and it’s the designers task to make that experience as smooth as it can be.
Guess like everything its opinion but I love it! My MacBook m1 air comes to live when you lift the cover!
I love it! It absolutely does make a difference! Also I sold my 11 pro and bought the 12 pro max and
from being shut down it takes about 10 seconds for the screen to come up!
The 11 pro took forever!
Yeah this is a good thing! One more reason to love Apple silicon!
 
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fourthtunz

macrumors 68000
Jul 23, 2002
1,735
1,210
Maine
False for MBA M1. Not only significantly longer boot time but also not all services are running at login screen so no fingerprint login, no tap to click, etc. compared to a $400 Lenovo Yoga 6 that boots much faster and has all services at login screen. And, it looks like the memory leak is back so the only sure way to prevent memory usage from growing during sleep and putting wear on SSD is to turn it off.
Looks like your experience with PCs and the MBA M1 is quite different from mine!
Don't blame you if you sell it!
 

BeefCake 15

macrumors 68020
May 15, 2015
2,050
3,123
Once a week for shutting down Windows hasn't been typical for quite some time. I very rarely reboot either my Macs or my Windows PC's for anything other than updates. I've had more crashes with my M1 MBA though...(V1 hardware, not unexpected)
Tell that to my work HP laptop...
 

Bandaman

Cancelled
Aug 28, 2019
2,005
4,091
Windows has a penalty with performance that increases with how long you have it on, I have to shut down at least once a week so things don't go haywire. I restart my Mac once or twice a year if that...
You only install updates once or twice a year?
 

tothemoonsands

macrumors 6502a
Jun 14, 2018
586
1,279
You only install updates once or twice a year?

I would assume that doesn't count updates. I'm the same way, I always leave my iMac on and just use sleep. I also have a hot corner that can shut off the display without sleeping for certain use-cases. Aside from updates, I only reboot 1-2 per year when something is off or if an application tells me to etc.
 

jz0309

Contributor
Sep 25, 2018
11,390
30,063
SoCal
WHY are people so obsessed over boot time? According to some Windows users here, they do it maybe once/week or less, and a lot of Mac users like myself reboot when an OS update comes along ... I can appreciate if older HW struggles more with the latest OSs, but come on
 

BeefCake 15

macrumors 68020
May 15, 2015
2,050
3,123
WHY are people so obsessed over boot time? According to some Windows users here, they do it maybe once/week or less, and a lot of Mac users like myself reboot when an OS update comes along ... I can appreciate if older HW struggles more with the latest OSs, but come on
Windows acts up even more if you put it to sleep long enough too
 
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zarathu

macrumors 6502a
May 14, 2003
652
362
My boot time is about 1/4 sec. I only restart the mac every 2-3 weeks or so.

People discuss this because in PC world sleeping is dangerous because the machine crashes. So they have to booted and shut down when using them.
 

jonblatho

macrumors 68030
Jan 20, 2014
2,529
6,241
Oklahoma
not all services are running at login screen so no fingerprint login
That’s very much on purpose. Apple, as a matter of policy, doesn’t allow biometric authentication on boot for any devices that support it, and it’s not optional, either. That’s a good policy given that, if you get into it with police in the United States (and probably other jurisdictions), case law suggests that you can be compelled to provide the biometrics to unlock the device, while that’s generally not the case for passwords.

They’d rather be safe than sorry, and it’s much easier for cops to gain access to something you have than something you know.
 

JKAussieSkater

macrumors 6502
Mar 13, 2009
263
392
Tokyo, Japan
I have to say, one of the most transformative things of my 24" iMac has been the short boot time … With my M1 iMac, all that time has just disappeared, its now just 5 seconds from boot to login.
I tremendously had the opposite experience. It makes me think you really mean “wake from sleep” as opposed to “cold boot from shutdown”.

My brand new 24” M1 iMac was almost maxed out, full 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Touch ID numeric keyboard, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. With zero 3rd party software, and all OS and software updates completed out of the box, it takes a good 50 seconds to cold boot.

I was really excited about all the hype but what I received was no faster than normal computers. A part of me wonders if lower end specs boot faster? Perhaps having double the RAM means the boot process has to secure encrypt double the RAM? (is that even a thing?). But seriously, out of the box, best specs, fully updated, no software downloaded, 50 second boot. I don’t know why.
 

Bandaman

Cancelled
Aug 28, 2019
2,005
4,091
I would assume that doesn't count updates. I'm the same way, I always leave my iMac on and just use sleep. I also have a hot corner that can shut off the display without sleeping for certain use-cases. Aside from updates, I only reboot 1-2 per year when something is off or if an application tells me to etc.
I almost never shut down either. The instant awake is nice.
 

zidarko

macrumors member
Sep 30, 2020
69
90
My M1 MacBook Pro is always on and I'd reboot only to install OS updates/upgrades, which translates to about ten reboots per year. When I do a reboot, I don't particularly care how long does it take back to come to its senses.
 

Bodhitree

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 5, 2021
2,085
2,217
Netherlands
But seriously, out of the box, best specs, fully updated, no software downloaded, 50 second boot. I don’t know why.

My 24” iMac is a 16 GB ram / 512 GB hard disk spec. The first time I booted it up it was slower, there was a whole setup process to go through. But since then it’s been 5-7 seconds to cold boot, and near instant to wake with Touch ID. The OS is Big Sur 11.6.1.

But I have the machine in my bedroom, so in order to get rid of the hum of external hard disks I shut everything down before I go to sleep, so I cold boot once a day.

i guess if you have a lot of libraries and os extensions installed, that might affect it. Not sure.
 

apparatchik

macrumors 6502a
Mar 6, 2008
883
2,689
My 24” iMac is a 16 GB ram / 512 GB hard disk spec. The first time I booted it up it was slower, there was a whole setup process to go through. But since then it’s been 5-7 seconds to cold boot, and near instant to wake with Touch ID. The OS is Big Sur 11.6.1.

But I have the machine in my bedroom, so in order to get rid of the hum of external hard disks I shut everything down before I go to sleep, so I cold boot once a day.

i guess if you have a lot of libraries and os extensions installed, that might affect it. Not sure.

I believe that model has no spinning hard drive but solid state drives, the only moving part being the fans (can't remember if it has 1 or 2 of them) which actually just turn on under very heavy load. This is to say that if you put it to sleep, it should be exactly as silent as if you turn it fully off.

On a quantum scale, there might be some electrons flowing through the AC cable keeping the RAM alive, not that we're able to detect that. I do understand though, the "peace of mind" of having the appliances in a bedroom fully turned off. But no part would move or make any noice on an M1 machine if its asleep, even with the Smart Sleep or whatever is called turned on where it updates your email while asleep.

Edit: just re read you have external HDDs hooked up. I think there might be a setting to quit power to external devices while asleep.
 

Stratus Fear

macrumors 6502a
Jan 21, 2008
696
433
Atlanta, GA
False for MBA M1. Not only significantly longer boot time but also not all services are running at login screen so no fingerprint login, no tap to click, etc. compared to a $400 Lenovo Yoga 6 that boots much faster and has all services at login screen. And, it looks like the memory leak is back so the only sure way to prevent memory usage from growing during sleep and putting wear on SSD is to turn it off.
Biometric auth has never been available after fresh boot for any Apple device as a matter of security, and tap to click is off by default and something that needs to be turned on per user profile (and rightly so because tap to click sucks and only current and former PC users seem to be used to it anyway). Why do you think it would work at the login screen, given those things? This isn't a matter of "not all services are running at login." Anything that is a system LaunchAgent or LaunchDaemon has already loaded by the time the login screen appears.

Edit: looks like I had already been beaten to this
 

mi7chy

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2014
10,625
11,296
Biometric auth has never been available after fresh boot for any Apple device as a matter of security, and tap to click is off by default and something that needs to be turned on per user profile (and rightly so because tap to click sucks and only current and former PC users seem to be used to it anyway). Why do you think it would work at the login screen, given those things? This isn't a matter of "not all services are running at login." Anything that is a system LaunchAgent or LaunchDaemon has already loaded by the time the login screen appears.

It's a work smart not hard idea that first time users don't understand. It's called a touchpad for a reason and not a clickpad. MacOS implementation of the double-tap to drag doesn't automatically release so not as smart as Windows implementation and MBA M1 touchpad isn't sensitive enough so often it's more of a slap to tap rather than touch to tap but still better than archaic click to drag.
 
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Stratus Fear

macrumors 6502a
Jan 21, 2008
696
433
Atlanta, GA
It's a work smart not hard idea that first time users don't understand. It's called a touchpad for a reason and not a clickpad. MacOS implementation of the double-tap to drag doesn't automatically release so not as smart as Windows implementation.
lol, I've been using computers, including laptops, for the better part of 30 years. I am not a first time user. You have a thumb (for clicking) and an index finger (for dragging), and the usage of both at the same time is quicker and more efficient than double-tap to drag on any platform, but you do you.
 

Bodhitree

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 5, 2021
2,085
2,217
Netherlands
Edit: just re read you have external HDDs hooked up. I think there might be a setting to quit power to external devices while asleep.

I was a little surprised also, but when I hooked up my spinning 500 GB hard disk on which I keep my media library, I noticed that while the iMac is asleep it spins up the drive about once an hour for a quick check. I might replace it with an SSD eventually, that drive is quite old and I wouldn’t want it to fail.
 
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Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
16,263
11,764
Does boot time really matter that much? M1 can't even be truly shut down anymore (anytime you open the lid the computer turns on, which is not the case for my old Intel MacBook Air). I'd argue M1 is plenty fast even if the boot time is long, which is rarely the case anyways. If hardware becomes powerful enough, under the same set of software, the boot time will likely increase anyway, right?
 
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