Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.1 Improves Battery Life Somewhat

[MacRumors]

Earlier this month, Arstechnica had reported that many users had found a significant decrease in battery life after upgrading to OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

Ars writer Chris Foresman, after extended testing, discovered that the battery life of his Retina MacBook Pro review unit dropped 38% from its previous 8-hours.

The same findings were reported by many others in Apple's own support forums, and there were some reports that the development versions of OS X 10.8.1 may have addressed this issue.

MacObserver has conducted battery life tests on the final release build of OS X 10.8.1 to see if there had indeed been any improvement. Their testing process included using an Automator script that launched several apps and navigated to websites. The script would cycle this process continuously. The tests were run on a 2011 Macbook Pro. Here are their findings:

First, they were able to confirm the drop in battery life when going from OS X 10.7.4 to OS X 10.8. The drop they measured was 33% (2 hours and 10 minutes) just from upgrading OS X to 10.8. The "No WiFi Icon" was a "fix" of suggested by one of their readers, but showed no appreciable effect. They did find that OS X 10.8.1 (beta and release) builds did improve the battery life stats, adding as much as 52 minutes in their testing. The overall numbers, however, are still well under their battery life measurements in OS X 10.7.4 (Lion).

Apple is currently testing OS X 10.8.2, but there's been no word if that build helps further improve battery times back towards OS X Lion levels.

Article Link: Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.1 Improves Battery Life Somewhat

 

[DJJAZZYJET]

Thats still a big drop. There needs to be some major improvements

 

[alent1234]

i'll just wait until 10.8.11 or so to upgrade, if ever

but good work for all you beta testers

 

[uaaerospace]

Maybe the OS is doing more things behind the scenes now? There are quite a few things that may be happening with iCloud that were not occurring in 10.7.

 

[lilsoccakid74]

Not sure MBP users were looking for a half-hour improvement.

 

[LorPGDL]

considering this i'd rather spend the 16 € on a few beers tonight than upgrade

 

[MagicWok]

So I can't think of a single reason to upgrade to Mountain Lion as of yet. But a good reason not to already.

I'll pop on along on 10.8.11 too

 

[Krazy Bill]

That "Up to 7 Hours" flag Apple claims is starting to look like a Dell advertisement with an asterisk accompanied by 4 paragraphs of disclaimers.

I'll keep plodding along in ancient Snow Leopard with 8+ hours.

 

[mattopotamus]

So I can't think of a single reason to upgrade to Mountain Lion as of yet. But a good reason not to already.

I'll pop on along on 10.8.11 too

airplay is that single reason for me =/. I am always by a dock though if need be

 

[Westyfield2]

LOL Mountain Lion .

 

[AFPoster]

My 2011 MBP high-end has the worst battery life, and for some odd reason Apple Genius bar keeps saying it's perfect. If you ask me when all I use is Safari - zero flash and Excel and Word I should get my 7 hours or at least darn near close. I get less than 2.5 hours before I'm at 10%. Something is fishy...

 

[angrynstupid]

Too many bells and whistles

Too many bells and whistles. The OS is being dumbed down for non-pro users who need useless eye candy to keep their attention.

 

[DaveLG526]

How did this happen?

Forget about the details but focus on how this got out into the users hands with an obvious and significant flaw.

Apple has long been known for good battery life yet the new OS shipped with significant flaw that was found by users quickly. What happened to quality control and customer satisfaction watchdogs within Apple.

The tech press needs to focus less on the "tech" in this story and discover what went very wrong within Apple.

 

[ctcampbell]

How many times was each of these tests performed? The graph shown there is meaningless without the ability to inspect the methods employed to gather the data. Do each test 10 times then graph it and I'll believe the results.

 

[payers]

I will go out on a limb. It's MacRumors that drains the battery! Before you go off half cocked, look at what Flash is doing when you load MacRumors. at one point it was using 136% of my cpu. All the ads between the articles are in Flash! If you force quit the plug-in it will extend your battery. Freakn why doesn't MacRumor require HTML 5?

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Earlier this month, Arstechnica had reported that many users had found a significant decrease in battery life after upgrading to OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion).The same findings were reported by many others in Apple's own support forums, and there were some reports that the development versions of OS X 10.8.1 may have addressed this issue.

MacObserver has conducted battery life tests on the final release build of OS X 10.8.1 to see if there had indeed been any improvement. Their testing process included using an Automator script that launched several apps and navigated to websites. The script would cycle this process continuously. The tests were run on a 2011 Macbook Pro. Here are their findings:

Image


First, they were able to confirm the drop in battery life when going from OS X 10.7.4 to OS X 10.8. The drop they measured was 33% (2 hours and 10 minutes) just from upgrading OS X to 10.8. The "No WiFi Icon" was a "fix" of suggested by one of their readers, but showed no appreciable effect. They did find that OS X 10.8.1 (beta and release) builds did improve the battery life stats, adding as much as 52 minutes in their testing. The overall numbers, however, are still well under their battery life measurements in OS X 10.7.4 (Lion).

Apple is currently testing OS X 10.8.2, but there's been no word if that build helps further improve battery times back towards OS X Lion levels.

Article Link: Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.1 Improves Battery Life Somewhat

 

[moepstar]

IMO they miss something significant:

Battery-Life on Snow Leopard.

The 17" MBP (mid-2009) i'm writing this from used to get ~2hrs more than 10.7.x ever got - and, being on 10.8.1 now, haven't yet got them back

 

[Mikey7c8]

Maybe the OS is doing more things behind the scenes now? There are quite a few things that may be happening with iCloud that were not occurring in 10.7.

IMHO It's likely that this is exactly what it is.

 

[AngerDanger]

They should've also conducted a test with notifications disabled. Seems like checking for push notifications could drain the battery.

 

[Squuiid]

I may be in the minority here but 10.8.1 has decimated battery life on my MBPr. I can literally watch the percentage go down several points per minute. I didn't see any issues with 10.8.0.

 

[spb3]

come on apple. you can do this!

 

[nagromme]

I will go out on a limb. It's MacRumors that drains the battery! Before you go off half cocked, look at what Flash is doing when you load MacRumors. at one point it was using 136% of my cpu. All the ads between the articles are in Flash! If you force quit the plug-in it will extend your battery. Freakn why doesn't MacRumor require HTML 5?

Flash ads are miserable for battery life, but rather than force-quit or uninstall the (sometimes useful) plugin, just use the ClickToFlash extension (which also does some nice things with video delivery). Or an equivalent Flash “blocker” (more like Flash “wrangler”).

 

[jonnysods]

So frustrating.

 

[jrswizzle]

Thank God for my iMac and iPad!

 

[saud0488]

The update absolutely killed my battery life. I have an early 2011 13inch pro and at 98% right now it says I have 3:45 min left.

 

[Gelfin]

I may be in the minority here but 10.8.1 has decimated battery life on my MBPr. I can literally watch the percentage go down several points per minute. I didn't see any issues with 10.8.0.

Likewise. I was fine with my MBPR's battery life on 10.8.0, installed 10.8.1, and couldn't even get through my afternoon meetings yesterday without running back for my power brick. Something seems to have gone brutally wrong with this update.