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2016 MacBook Pro Denied Recommendation From Consumer Reports Due to Battery Life Inconsistencies

junkstory said:
The irony is that not a single person on this planet complained the 2015 was too thick. I haven't met anybody online or offline who said they wished it was thinner. Yet they trimmed it down along with the battery.
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I am a person who wished the 2015 MBP was thinner, closer to the light portability of the MB. So now you've met a person online on the planet or wished the machine was thinner, and I'm afraid to tell you, there are many others who feel the same.

Now yes, I and many do not wish for paper thin and light at the cost of significant decrease in performance or battery life. But people who say no one wanted x feature on the planet, I always find funny since it's more the author saying they don't want x feature and they can't comprehend that others who want something different than their own use case.

I've had the MBP with touch bar (and nearly every MBP / Powerbook since then), and so far haven't experienced any battery issues. Yes, my computer gets no where near 10 hours, but as a pro user, real life battery life has never been near those numbers except when on a plane simply watching a downloaded iTunes movie. So perhaps the battery issue is a quality control issue, affecting some but not all users. Hopefully Apple is able to offer a repair program for anyone affected.
 
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Even Longer said:
Well... After they've dissolved the dedicated macOS / mac team as well as the automation management (incl. long time veteran Sal Soghoian) - I better wish you luck.

From my own professional perspective I can truly say: today's Apple is not that Apple 10 years ago, which made me switch and convinced me to accept living under all those constraints of the "benevolent dictatorship".

Thankfully, not anymore.
Still a bit sad, though. Especially, if counting all my investments in their products during those years.


Ok. Sorry. I got sentimental and need to wrap up this optimistic post. ;)

Cheers!
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Sad indeed. Along with a lot of long-timers here. I'm seriously hoping for someone to kick someone's butt in management. Not sure this is *all* on Tim's head, but the board needs to exert some pressure.

No one here wants Apple to fail, but we want the "old" Apple back.

So to those incorrigible fanboys: if you're truly an Apple fan, you'll support the criticism.
We don't need Apple bashing, but constructive criticism to get the company to regain its reputation.

I've also invested too much in that walled garden to see it overgrown with weeds and barb wire at the edges.

I've recently tried out the XPS 13 that switchers here often talk about, but returned it due to a number of issues (coil whine, slow SSD, stupid webcam, etc.) I'm still keeping my 2015 MBA, but the jury is out in the future.
 
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Yr Blues said:
They did revise the antenna because of it. Consumer reports looks after the consumer. We need that to keep Apple from screwing us over. They're also independent.

But CR do have their faults, esp the vehicle division that used to be pretty corrupt in the 1980s.
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The idea of CR is to purchase products at retail, and evaluate them independently.

If they obtained manufacturer samples, a company could tweak a sample to obtain a better review.

So, by purchasing from the same sources as consumers, they get the same product we would, and evaluate that.

Since they are independent, they have little reason to be biased.

Now human factors mean that any person will have bias. So using a consistent scoring method helps to balance product comparisons. And the data from those tests is reported.

A written review may contain some bias in the sense of these bucket seats were my favorite. But the technical data is where I scan for comparisons.

Having favorable reviews of most Apple products in their publications would tend to prove that the latest review is more likely to be unbiased. If they simply didn't like Apple, then their other reviews would always be negative.
 
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I feel like I'm stuck with my 2010 15" completely maxed out MacBook Pro forever. But look at that battery. That ONE piece of exchangeable, solid battery. Still working, still accurate. What the hell was wrong with that?

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Count Blah said:
Good luck finding one in the refurb store - all sold out.
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Actually no. There's plenty today in US/Canada. Not sure which country you're looking at.

However, either they keep selling out, but I've noticed that some days ALL MacBook Airs & Pros disappear from the Refurb site in the US/Canada. Could be Apple using scarcity sales tactics.
 
Do they run these tests until it dies, or are they just looking at the battery monitor for a while? Same thing for people who are complaining about the battery life: do they run it until it stops, or are they just looking at the monitor?

Even with my old 2011 MBP, the battery monitor was never all that accurate and would jump around like crazy depending on what I'd be doing. It would often last at least a half hour to an hour longer than it stated.
 
So I think the issue is the promise not the machine. The promise is a lie. The reality is the machine is a great machine. The issue is the promise was to lofty for this box. The promise should have dropped back to the old 8 hours of battery life and we can all say we can see how you can get any of these new machines to get 8 hours of light use.

The 2 hour difference is the sticking point. I know some people get longer I know some get less. the moving avg is 6~8. so 8 is doable. The 10 is lofty I am not seeing many folks getting 10 hours of promised life.

Apple PR worked off the old eng design or we can call it design prime. This design prime failed to met safety I guarantee. This critical test was something with safety. They went with a safe backup design. Design beta we can call it. Design beta was not ideal it could only eek out 10 under sweet heart conditions. So here we are with great machines but not living up to the promises made by Tim and co.

So what does apple do. I think a apple gift card for the App Store would be a smart move right now. Revise the estimates down to say 8 or 9 hours of light use.

Fix the issue in the update. Then just move on.

They need to some clean up PR.

I for one like the machine. I know I would like it even more if it had the declared 10 hour of light use life that it is advertised to have.



The vitriol needs to simmer down on the forums. I know we all feel like we just got stood up on a date. That pain needs to ease back a bit. The issue is well know the fix is known return or live with it. This is a dead horse we beat into the ground all the way to china and back.

I hope we see some improvements as things move forward I am not holding out much hope though.


I am strongly considering just trading this 15 2016 in for the 13 base model and limping along for the next year or so.

I let my 2012 go already to fund this purchase.
 
My 13" 2016 13" non TB is a great machine, but the battery from day one was not as good as my outgoing 2013 13" MB.

I don't know why? I don't do anything differently.
 
Does it really make you feel superior to "speak" even though you have no idea what you are "talking" about? Unless you work for Apple, you are clueless as to how long they've been working on this product from its initial conception to its relatively recent release, one that according to the latest numbers has them still struggling to keep up with the high demand. But don't take my word for that. Visit their online store and look at how long you'll have to wait to get something that you falsely claim was a "product rushed to market." You make it sound like they super-glued some old scrap metal parts together in their basement, scotch-taped a new strip of fancy lights across the top and hired hungry pigeons from Amazon to start dropping them at local markets across the globe. Rather than try to denigrate Apple's team of expert engineers, perhaps you should consider dropping your jaw in awe as you contemplate the collective magical genius that makes its way into everything that bears the Apple logo. That's assuming you are actually familiar with any of Apple's products as opposed to joining the merry gang of Apple-bashing critics.
 
Meh, it's a software issue probably. Something funny in the code.

Just seems too weird for a hardware issue. If it is a hardware issue, it's defective and maybe even dangerous :D
 
lcseds said:
A product rushed to market. No surprise. They really dropped the ball on this. They may as well not released anything "new".
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Does it really make you feel superior to "speak" even though you have no idea what you are "talking" about? Unless you work for Apple, you are clueless as to how long they've been working on this product from its initial conception to its relatively recent release, one that according to the latest numbers has them still struggling to keep up with the high demand. But don't take my word for that. Visit their online store and look at how long you'll have to wait to get something that you falsely claim was a "product rushed to market." You make it sound like they super-glued some old scrap metal parts together in their basement, scotch-taped a new strip of fancy lights across the top and hired hungry pigeons from Amazon to start dropping them at local markets across the globe. Rather than try to denigrate Apple's team of expert engineers, perhaps you should consider dropping your jaw in awe as you contemplate the collective magical genius that makes its way into everything that bears the Apple logo. That's assuming you are actually familiar with any of Apple's products as opposed to joining the merry gang of Apple-bashing critics.
 
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AAPL_DayTrader said:
Anyone who still relies on Consumer Reports for reliable input designed to assist in purchasing modern devices should probably consider trading in their diapers for free potty training lessons. This is the same company that gave high ratings to Samsung's subsequently-recalled grenade-phone. So whereas they apparently do have a problem with something they portray as a bad batch of Apple's allegedly inconsistent batteries, they don't seem to have a problem with exploding batteries that weaponize from time to time. Such hypocrisy exists somewhere between ridiculous and absurd. I bet if they tested Apple's batteries and Samsung's batteries by replacing their rectal thermometers with them for a few weeks, Apple's brand would win their unanimous approval and highest recommendation especially since they'd be looking for the charred remains of the other guys long after they've been declared the legal equivalent of burnt toast by their Consumer Reports recommended proctologists.
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People who use consumer reports and the like are precisely who the current Mac market is targeted at.
 
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Lucifer666 said:
Meh, it's a software issue probably. Something funny in the code.

Just seems too weird for a hardware issue. If it is a hardware issue, it's defective and maybe even dangerous :D
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If it was software, they wouldn't have killed the remaning indicator but acknowledged it was software and announcing a fix for that. So it's probably Hardware. And it seems random as they told CR that (affected) customers should contact AppleCare.
 
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DaPizzaMan said:
Good. I hope this will teach Apple not to mess with battery life for the sake of thinness in the future.
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Doesn't seem like the desire for thinness was the root of the problem here. As seen in the article, tests resulted in battery life as high as fourteen hours. It's clearly not a problem with the battery capacity. More likely, it's a problem with software and battery management; hopefully something that can be rectified through software updates.
 
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CR: "And the numbers for the 15-inch laptop ranged from 18.5 down to 8 hours."

Why of course. Doesn't everyone get 18 1/2 hours? For sure it's a trustworthy test.
 
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