I wasn’t expecting one of the bigger reactions to my Mac Studio review to be my aside about the power strip I’ve been using for more than a decade, but that’s what happened! Here’s what I wrote:

Funny thing about Apple silicon: Apple’s not kidding about power consumption. For 15 years, I’ve used an auto-switching power strip in conjunction with my desktop computers. When the computer turns off, the power strip automatically turns off many other devices—powered speakers, USB hubs, you name it.

The Mac Studio, even with its powerful M1 Max processor, freaked the power strip out. It kept clicking between on and off states because the Mac Studio uses so little power compared to a traditional computer that it dips below the power strip’s threshold. (I just ordered a new power strip with an adjustable threshold.)

The power strip in question was the APC Power-Saving SurgeArrest, which Amazon tells me I bought in April 2008, right after I read about it in a David Pogue New York Times column. APC doesn’t make it anymore, but they do make larger and smaller follow-on versions. Those new power strips have a feature mine did not: a switch to change the auto-switching threshold to a much lower level, “for Chromebooks.”…