so...is Apple ever going to fix this draining battery issue

[wassup121]

Still very annoyed that my 2011 13" MBA with ML battery drains so unbelievable fast.

I was seriously at 70% about 15min ago just browsing the forums and i'm already at 63%

Complete hogwash! Waiting for a patch Apple....

[GGJstudios]

Originally Posted by wassup121

Still very annoyed that my 2011 13" MBA with ML battery drains so unbelievable fast.

I was seriously at 70% about 15min ago just browsing the forums and i'm already at 63%

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

[53x12]

Originally Posted by GGJstudios

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

Wow you sure are quick GGJ!

OP, as GGJ pointed out, there are many factors that influence the battery life of the MBA. I also have a 13in MBA and have no problems getting ~7.5hrs on a charge.

Some factors to think about:

-Do you have bluetooth on?
-Do you have screen set to max brightness?
-Do you have a strong wifi signal or does your computer have to search for a stronger signal?
-Do you frequent websites with a lot of flash?
-Do you download a lot of files while surfing?


There are many factors that go into how long your battery will last.

[Mrbobb]

If ur still on 10.8.0 should immediately update to 10.8.2.

[Maniraja]

Expect to be either ignored or be bombarded with people rushing to Apple's defence stating the bleeding obvious. My battery was rubbish even on the latest 10.8.2 version. First time I've had a problem with Apple since ditching PC's ten years ago. My battery life went from a 7 hour battery life doing the normal things I do to a 2.5 hour battery life doing the same things. This happened exactly the same time I upgraded to 10.8. I tried all the things I could find like those battery reset things. It was just like having a PC, spending more time trying to get the machine to work instead of using the bloody thing. Any way to cut a long story short I did a fresh install by downloading the OS onto a USB drive and installing it from there. This worked. I hope it works for you if you try it. It isn't exactly straight forward so check out some guides on you tube before having a go. Good luck.

[Mrbobb]

Reloading from clean is always a good thing to try. When I was with windows I had a procedure where right after a clean install, I would make an IMAGE out of it, and anything happen after that am able go reload and back to a known-to-be-good state in 15 mins.

[GGJstudios]

Originally Posted by Maniraja

My battery life went from a 7 hour battery life doing the normal things I do to a 2.5 hour battery life doing the same things.

I challenge that. Your battery life dropped because there was an increase in power demands. You simply need to isolate the source of the higher power demand. I've seen too many of these baseless claims that battery life suddenly dropped significantly doing the same thing. Such claims are absolutely false.

[2IS]

Originally Posted by GGJstudios

I challenge that. Your battery life dropped because there was an increase in power demands. You simply need to isolate the source of the higher power demand. I've seen too many of these baseless claims that battery life suddenly dropped significantly doing the same thing. Such claims are absolutely false.

I wonder whats more baseless, these claims or your claim that these claims are baseless?

[racer1441]

Originally Posted by GGJstudios

I challenge that. Your battery life dropped because there was an increase in power demands. You simply need to isolate the source of the higher power demand. I've seen too many of these baseless claims that battery life suddenly dropped significantly doing the same thing. Such claims are absolutely false.

Bingo. Had a similar issue, ended up being a printer software eating CPU cycles like a MoFo.

[Acorn]

my battery life on my 2010 macbook pro now on mountain lion doesnt come close to the battery life it had with snow leopard. it also takes a stupid amount of time just to shut down compared to snow leopard as well.

the battery life on my 2012 macbook air running mountain lion isnt bad. however i run ultra low brightness ( 1 notch) so it has helped alot. im not sure about no 7 hours though.

my 2010 macbook pro running snow leopard was the best. i easily got 8+ hours with wifi on but low brightness.

[Maniraja]

Originally Posted by GGJstudios

I challenge that. Your battery life dropped because there was an increase in power demands. You simply need to isolate the source of the higher power demand. I've seen too many of these baseless claims that battery life suddenly dropped significantly doing the same thing. Such claims are absolutely false.

I was delighted with the battery life of my 9 month old MacBook Air. I was in a library in September no mains lead and I updated to 10.8 when it was released. Fired it up and all worked wonderfully as always. That is until I glanced at the battery %. It was down way below what I was expecting to see. Before my eyes the battery level dropped like a stone and an afternoon session that would end with 50% battery life was cut short as my Air shut down flat as a pancake. My battery life did not return at 10.8.1 or 10.8.2. It did return when I installed 10.8.2 from a USB drive. You can call be a liar all you like but that's what happened.

[Bob Coxner]

Originally Posted by 53x12

Wow you sure are quick GGJ!

OP, as GGJ pointed out, there are many factors that influence the battery life of the MBA. I also have a 13in MBA and have no problems getting ~7.5hrs on a charge.

Some factors to think about:

-Do you have bluetooth on?
-Do you have screen set to max brightness?
-Do you have a strong wifi signal or does your computer have to search for a stronger signal?
-Do you frequent websites with a lot of flash?
-Do you download a lot of files while surfing?


There are many factors that go into how long your battery will last.

MBA 13" 2011. Bluetooth off, located about 5 feet from the router, no downloading while surfing. I do have the screen set to max brightness.

I got 6-7 hours when I first bought it. Now I'm lucky to get 3 hours with ML. The battery itself seems to be in good shape. Coconut Battery says 43 cycles and 93% capacity remaining. Sure looks software related to me.

[TheRealDamager]

Screen brightness is one of the top battery killers - I'm surprised you ever saw 6-7 hours on max brightness.

[krravi]

Originally Posted by GGJstudios

I challenge that. Your battery life dropped because there was an increase in power demands. You simply need to isolate the source of the higher power demand. I've seen too many of these baseless claims that battery life suddenly dropped significantly doing the same thing. Such claims are absolutely false.

Are you implying that no matter what,Apple can make no mistake(Bad battery, software glitch..) and it's *always* the user's fault? How about giving someone the benefit of doubt?

[Mrbobb]

Originally Posted by racer1441

Bingo. Had a similar issue, ended up being a printer software eating CPU cycles like a MoFo.

Exactly.

Many times is not that the user is doing more, is that the user at some point downloaded an app, updated something and that something is spanning a background task that a normal user doesn't know nor care in most circumstances until, uh? how come my battery...

I wish Apple has a built-in power use analyzer by processes, so one can look at at an history and compare before and after.

Not saying THIS is that case, Apple is not perfect <gasp! blasphemy>

[velo]

There's a Mountain Lion bug that has Dock running at over 100% cpu. When I hear or see the fans running up I check activity monitor. That seems to be the culprit for me.

[GGJstudios]

Originally Posted by Bob Coxner

MBA 13" 2011. Bluetooth off, located about 5 feet from the router, no downloading while surfing. I do have the screen set to max brightness.

I got 6-7 hours when I first bought it. Now I'm lucky to get 3 hours with ML. The battery itself seems to be in good shape. Coconut Battery says 43 cycles and 93% capacity remaining. Sure looks software related to me.

Exactly. It's not the OS itself. It's most likely an app or process that is consuming system resources and drawing more power. You just need to troubleshoot to find what it is.

Originally Posted by krravi

Are you implying that no matter what,Apple can make no mistake(Bad battery, software glitch..) and it's *always* the user's fault? How about giving someone the benefit of doubt?

No, I'm not implying that. There have been cases of defective batteries, although such cases represent a very small fraction of Mac notebooks. It's also not the user's fault. It's a matter that something is drawing more power, causing shorter battery life. Rather than blame the OS, it takes a bit of troubleshooting to isolate the issue, which is almost always a case of settings or apps running that the user wasn't aware of. Blindly accusing or defending Apple or the OS isn't going to solve the problem. Launching Activity Monitor and gathering facts is a more prudent approach.

Originally Posted by velo

There's a Mountain Lion bug that has Dock running at over 100% cpu. When I hear or see the fans running up I check activity monitor. That seems to be the culprit for me.

This is a good example of what I'm talking about. There was a specific process that was running amok. Once that is identified and corrected, battery life should return to normal.

[Johnny Alien]

Originally Posted by Bob Coxner

MBA 13" 2011. Bluetooth off, located about 5 feet from the router, no downloading while surfing. I do have the screen set to max brightness.

I got 6-7 hours when I first bought it. Now I'm lucky to get 3 hours with ML. The battery itself seems to be in good shape. Coconut Battery says 43 cycles and 93% capacity remaining. Sure looks software related to me.

Is Coconut battery correct? When did you buy it? It just seems odd that a year old computer only went through 43 cycles.

[Bob Coxner]

Originally Posted by Johnny Alien

Is Coconut battery correct? When did you buy it? It just seems odd that a year old computer only went through 43 cycles.

It's plugged in most of the time.

[JamesJesney]

Originally Posted by Bob Coxner

It's plugged in most of the time.

Got to say leaving it plugged in all the time won't do the battery any favours, I used to leave my windows netbook plugged in and the battery went from 2-3 hours down to 7 minutes xD

[wolfpuppies3]

OP - There is no "issue" for Apple to "fix." It is entirely dependent on you and your usage of your machine.

[wassup121]

Originally Posted by Bob Coxner

MBA 13" 2011. Bluetooth off, located about 5 feet from the router, no downloading while surfing. I do have the screen set to max brightness.

I got 6-7 hours when I first bought it. Now I'm lucky to get 3 hours with ML. The battery itself seems to be in good shape. Coconut Battery says 43 cycles and 93% capacity remaining. Sure looks software related to me.

this is basically me too. except Coconut says i have 80 cycles, 91% capacity, and the mac is only 7 months old.

I haven't changed anything i do on my computer (pre Mountain Lion and post). Just the incredible battery life drop is annoying. Going from 6 hours to 3 of normal web surfing, no downloading or movie watching...

[jknight8907]

Originally Posted by wolfpuppies3

OP - There is no "issue" for Apple to "fix." It is entirely dependent on you and your usage of your machine.

So when I get 5 hours battery life on average, then update to Mountain Lion and now get 3 hours doing the exact same tasks, it's MY fault?

[GGJstudios]

Originally Posted by jknight8907

So when I get 5 hours battery life on average, then update to Mountain Lion and now get 3 hours doing the exact same tasks, it's MY fault?

How exactly did you verify that you're running the exact same tasks?

[jknight8907]

Originally Posted by GGJstudios

How exactly did you verify that you're running the exact same tasks?

If the OS added new or additional processes that run in the background and burn the battery, that is not my fault and in fact is the whole point of complaint. If you mean programs that I have open, well, when Outlook and Chrome are usually all I ever have open, it's not hard to see I'm using it in exactly the same way before & after.