Hardware manufacturers never embraced SideShow (with the exception of a handful of laptops) and most consumers probably never heard of it to begin with. It was, too put it mildly, a dismal failure. Those displays were supposed to show you incoming email, upcoming calendar appointments and similar information – all while your computer was in sleep mode. It was supposed to herald the arrival of secondary displays that were going to be built into laptop lids, for example. You see, Microsoft had a similar feature in Vista called SideShow. (We’d be remiss in not acknowledging the fact that some of this comes directly from iOS 5, too.) Sounds pretty great, right? It is if you’re a Mac user but to Windows users, it’s old news. So emails are updated, things get synced to iCloud, system updates are pushed through and even TimeMachine backups are performed in a silent and power efficient manner. Isn’t Power Nap an awesome new feature of OS X In case you missed it earlier today, Power Nap allows your MacBook to keep up to date while in sleep mode.
