Apple Is Dropping Its Battery Life Estimate On Macs

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Alright all you MacBook Pro owners, how do you feel about this? I don't own one so I am asking you guys if the "time remaining" feature something you use? Will this be an unwelcome change or are you okay with it?

You probably don't trust your laptop's battery life estimates, and that's especially true if you happen to own the latest MacBook Pro. It's supposed to last for up to 10 hours, but the estimated time can vary wildly depending on what's running at any given moment. Apple has a very simple solution to that: get rid of the estimate entirely. The company has released macOS Sierra 10.12.2, which ditches the "time remaining" display from the menu bar.
 
I probably won't miss it. As stated, the estimate at any given instant depends on what you're doing.
MacBooks are now glorified desktops.
This reply is so far removed from reality that it's not even wrong.
 
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Because Windows 10 is a beacon of stability in battery life on laptops ...
So far I have upgraded around 280 laptops from Windows 7 to 10 RS1. On almost every one that still has a working battery, battery life has actually increased. Not significantly, but when even school teachers notice it, it's there.
 
Battery life information in incredibly important, especially when it fluctuates. How would you know if certain tasks are putting a heavier power load your laptop?

Less is more.
Ignorance is freedom.
Courage is marketing.
 
So far I have upgraded around 280 laptops from Windows 7 to 10 RS1. On almost every one that still has a working battery, battery life has actually increased. Not significantly, but when even school teachers notice it, it's there.

I got a noticeable increase on mine going from 8 to 10. Maybe another 15-20mins but when average is about 2hrs, not bad.
 
Apple has gone downhill the past few years. In all honesty, adding too many software features that just aren't needed. Back to the basics. It's an OS, whether on the phone or computer. Give us the whiteboard and let US populate it.
 
Why wonder? I thought it is latest Apple trend to drop stuff from their products. Headphone jack, now this
 
Battery life information in incredibly important, especially when it fluctuates. How would you know if certain tasks are putting a heavier power load your laptop?
"Especially when it fluctuates."

Which estimate do you depend on, then?

Since you appear to not be familiar, the same location in the menu bar is populated with a list showing apps "using significant energy." Cool, there's your 'heavy' tasks. Of course, there's also charge remaining as a percentage.
 
Well that's handy. You just have to time your percentage drops and do some math and hope the drop is linear and you've got your estimated time remaining! Maybe I should make an app for that. :D
Since the estimate changes moment to moment, good luck! :D
 
Since the estimate changes moment to moment, good luck! :D
I could probably add some historic tracking maybe a little AI that reads what time of day it is and apps are being used. Really though. I thought they worked this stuff out 20 years ago? This is like the return of the windows file copy dialogue that was utter shit from 3.1 through xp.
 
I know most wouldn't understand, but couldn't we just show accumulated mAh since running on battery and maybe a graph would be nice. I never really liked percentage for battery capacity tbh. Battery capacity in mAh measured in the last charge/discharge cycles would be nice as well instead of "Battery health: GOOD".
 
It's always better to have more data than less.

I like that my phone tells me exactly which apps / features are draining my battery life the most.

Minimalism is great, but not at the expense of functionality.
 
I know most wouldn't understand, but couldn't we just show accumulated mAh since running on battery and maybe a graph would be nice. I never really liked percentage for battery capacity tbh. Battery capacity in mAh measured in the last charge/discharge cycles would be nice as well instead of "Battery health: GOOD".
That sounds awesome. Very much like how the current win 10 file copy dialogue has much more data and is more accurate than the old dialogue.

Not to mention the nerd cred apple would get with a ridiculous over-informative battery life meter. I feel like they've lost that part of their audience.
 
Obviously you're checking the remaining battery life wrong, so we deleted that much needed feature on our mobile product line.

Glad to see so many Apple apologists in the thread, you guys have been busy of late.

Actually we are all kind of off target with the topic and none fit your comment, did you read the posts here or just assume this is what the thread was full of?
 
I got a noticeable increase on mine going from 8 to 10. Maybe another 15-20mins but when average is about 2hrs, not bad.

The initial release of 10 I think wasn't that optimized for battery life but I think it has improved in the updates.
 
The battery life in most Apple products expired when Steve J's did.
Maybe there's something to people's claims that Apple will die without Steve Jobs. It's like they are going out of their way to piss off their technical base.
 
Consider signal versus noise.

Good thing Mac OS has that very feature!

I hardly think that knowing how much longer I can use my computer before it shuts down is 'noise,' although we will no doubt here it referred to as such by Apple's marketing department.
 
I hardly think that knowing how much longer I can use my computer before it shuts down is 'noise,' although we will no doubt here it referred to as such by Apple's marketing department.
Again, the number isn't terribly descriptive when usage changes moment to moment. Reading a manual, watching a YouTube video, running Mathematica, a VMWare guest to program a system, sometimes individually, perhaps all at once.

I ought to know, since I'm likely the only Mac user that's posted in this discussion.
 
Apple is on the right track but didn't go quite far enough. Removing the remaining battery level completely would have been truly innovative.

It would free the users from constantly worrying about when their laptop would die.

working.....working.....working.....off
 
I don't have a mac, but I do have one of their iPod Shuffles for my audiobooks. Several months ago, an Apple update removed the visual indicator of battery charge from iTunes. Now, the Shuffle itself doesn't show its charge other than as red/yellow/green, which is pretty useless since green can be anything from 40% (not enough for a full workday) to 100% (enough for several workdays). Not only didn't I know when to charge it; I didn't know when to stop charging it either. Last month, the battery indicator suddenly came back. I have not updated iTunes since and don't think I ever will again; that's how afraid I am of the battery charge indicator being taken away again for no reason. That makes me think that, if it were a laptop, I'd probably care for it too.
 
I could probably add some historic tracking maybe a little AI that reads what time of day it is and apps are being used. Really though. I thought they worked this stuff out 20 years ago? This is like the return of the windows file copy dialogue that was utter shit from 3.1 through xp.
I Agree this is straight up lazyness on Apples part.. maybe not as simple as the feature they had before, but it can be done with simple forcasting, based on certain or multiple time frames. Just effing lazy.
 
Apple is on the right track but didn't go quite far enough. Removing the remaining battery level completely would have been truly innovative.

It would free the users from constantly worrying about when their laptop would die.

working.....working.....working.....off


They just aren't that courageous yet.
 
Alright all you MacBook Pro owners, how do you feel about this? I don't own one so I am asking you guys if the "time remaining" feature something you use? Will this be an unwelcome change or are you okay with it?

You probably don't trust your laptop's battery life estimates, and that's especially true if you happen to own the latest MacBook Pro. It's supposed to last for up to 10 hours, but the estimated time can vary wildly depending on what's running at any given moment. Apple has a very simple solution to that: get rid of the estimate entirely. The company has released macOS Sierra 10.12.2, which ditches the "time remaining" display from the menu bar.

Is it that they just can't make it work? Because I find it useful if it works but it rarely seems to work on any of my devices to be honest.
 
This is really some shit, macOS keeps losing stuff, W10 can't be trusted and Linux is still a damn mess.

Fuck it, I'm going back to a damn typewriter.

(Or HaikuOS, assuming it ever goes somewhere)
 
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