Apple Releases Firmware to Activate PowerNap on 2011 MacBook Airs
One of the new features found in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is PowerNap. PowerNap was introduced at WWDC 2012 and allows your Mac to continue to perform tasks such as receiving email and updating software even when it's sleeping.
Apple lists the full capabilities in this
Knowledge Base document. Capabilities include getting new Mail, syncing Calendar, Contact and Reminder changes, and more. When plugged into power, your Mac can download software updates and make backups with Time Capsule.
Apple only supports PowerNap on 2011 MacBook Airs and beyond as well as the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. The capability should move over to more of Apple's laptops as Apple makes a full transition to SSD. Built-in flash storage is listed as one of the requirements of the technology. Apple just released a firmware update that enables this functionality in the 2011 MacBook Airs, while support for the Retina MacBook Pro is said to be "coming soon".
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Top Rated Comments
You don't have a Powerbook. Stop trying to be funny.
1. Power Nap doesn't support regular SSDs because the power requirements differ compared to on-board flash storage.
-Not sure about the excl of 2010 MBAs though. Maybe the Nvidia chipset lacks key features or iSeries chips are needed as some have pointed out. *shrug*
2. No Airplay support for pre-2011 Macs because Apple leverages Intel's QuickSync (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video) which is only found on Sandy Bridge chips or newer
3. Lack of installation support for older Macs is because Mountain Lion's Kernel is exclusively 64-bit top to bottom. If your Mac can't boot the 64-bit kernel and/or doesn't have 64-bit GPU drivers then you're SOL.
Interesting. So essentially PowerNap only works on Macs with built-in flash storage?
2009 called. They said it's time to leave. :D