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

[69Mustang]

You say "Sales figures are never released" when the exact opposite is true. Eventually, sales figures are always released to the public although Apple does sometimes group some of their individual products into a major category but rather than talk about something pertaining to the future, check out what Forbes has to say on the matter dealing only with relevant facts that are indisputable even to those adept at spinning rumors into lies:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2016/11/09/apple-macbook-pro-sales-figures/#434f0ec76bf0

Might I suggest reading past the headline. There is not a single sales figure in that article that can be attributed to Apple. There are no relevant facts in the article nor in the source material from Slice Intelligence. Again, I'm going to suggest reading your evidence before presenting it. There are a few things about that Slice article you may have found interesting. 1. It's ostensibly a negative article about the sales of the MB. 2. It only uses 4 PC laptops for it's data points when it proclaims: "Apple's new MBP surpassed the total sales of almost all other notable laptops..." 3. It also says 40% of Apple laptop buyers from 2014 purchased their next laptop from another brand. Pretty sure that's not the evidence you want to present to support your position.

I mean if you do research like that when you day trade, I've got a sweet, sweeeet little tech stock I'd like to sell you. They are definitely on the come up. A little birdie even told me Apple has their eye on them. It's called GTATQ.

 

[Cronbo]

The Russians hacked the results!

 

[coolfactor]

Apple claims that its own internal testing has seen the MacBook Pro performing up to the company's standards, providing up to 10 hours of battery life when watching iTunes movies or browsing the web.

Yah, sorry Apple, but watching movies and browsing the web are generally not "Pro" activities. Inadequate benchmarks.

 

[macbeek]

what would you expect a phone company can do for his "laptops" ?

 

[coolfactor]

Isn't Chrome more of a battery hog than Safari?

It's difficult to make that claim because they are constantly releasing updates, far more often than Safari. And the recent releases of Chrome have had a huge improvement in performance.

Safari is still my primary browser, but I use Chrome and Firefox for certain sites.

 

[carlos916]

I dont blame them...

 

[Marconelly]

Hmm, they did say that Chrome provided a consistently high battery life in all the runs. If that's the case, kind of weird to not recommend the hardware just because the stock browser performs worse on it than a 3rd party one. As far as I can see, that seems to make it pretty clear that whatever was causing the discrepancy, was not actually a hardware issue.

 

[PortableLover]

17' mbp pls, with a huge 12-13 battery with xeon mobile 32gb ram a powerful gpu 4k screen and we will love you again apple.

 

[oliversl]

Its done then: Batterygate! Recall them all, change battery and get the battery remaining time indicator back. Thanks, love.

 

[i.mac]

why? who does that satisfy?

and besides, a true professional would use this computer just fine..
it's the amateur professionals that sit around and worry about whether or not macs are true professional computers.

Agree. Excellent comment.

In the meantime, this one profesional enjoys using his MacBook Pro to its full potential with no complaints.
[doublepost=1482462413][/doublepost]

The Russians hacked the results!

They sure did.

 

[cult hero]

After what, a month or so of using this new machine, I can say a few things:

1. It's the most unstable Mac I've used since the switch from PowerPC to Intel (and that Core 2 MacBook EVENTUALLY became stable as they got the software issues dealt with).

2. The battery life is not terrible but not great.

3. The Touch Bar has a LOT of issues still.

This design was rushed (the recent reporting indicates as such). I imagine some of the issues will go away in time as software issues are dealt with. It lacks the polish consistent with my MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs.

With all that said, I really, really like this machine. It's basically like a MacBook Pro Air (and for me, that's EXACTLY what I wanted). Most of the issues will be solved in time and even with its warts it's the right combination of speed, size, and awesome screen. Touch ID is more useful than the Touch Bar thus far. The mediocre battery life isn't a deal breaker for me, but there is no way I would recommend this machine to someone who honestly needs a lot of battery life.

I have a feeling I'm going to end up selling this machine and replacing it with the next revision though. I don't think it's going to end up being the four year machine I had hoped.

On the upside, I don't know how much thinner they can realistically make these machines. I mean, I realize it's possible but you can't get thinner than the USB-C ports themselves. I have a feeling the thin obsession is coming to an end because it... kinda has to.

 

[lcseds]

Apple will "fix" this. The battery tech will better match the form factor in the next revision....I hope anyway. It's just very disappointing they let the current model loose on the public. It wasn't ready. They are hearing the the users....I hope anyway, they just can't correct it overnight. They best deliver on the next version though or suffer further bleed of the user base. It really is up to them as to whether they value the user base that has contributed to their success. I hope they choose well. They really need to regroup as they are grasping straws and not doing a good job of it.

 

[Woodcrest64]

Yes.... but why did they need the sculpted battery? Because they keep shaving off millimeters no one will actually notice when their macbook is in use.

Beyond that, why do all their products keep getting delayed because of Intel's delays? Because of their absurd obsession that everything they have to do has to be incredibly thin. And absolutely silent. And shaped in a way they can't properly ventilate. Intel has plenty of CPUs everyone else uses, they just don't fit Apple's incredibly stringent design criteria that is a self-imposed penalty.

USB? Ethernet? Audio jacks? Can't have them, we must be thinner.
Upgradeable memory? Of course not, we can't fit an SO-DIMM in our laptops.
Battery life? Nope, you aren't deserving of it, we can't be the Chris Christie of laptops

Heck... who asked for a touch pad so big that people run into palm rejection issues?? They could have put a normal size track pad and larger batteries.

I agree with the movie to USB-C as it is where the industry will be, but everything else? Common, I used to lug around 15lb Dells. I don't care about an extra couple of millimeters. I care about my screen being bright and accurate, my graphics being powerful enough to run applications and games, and my CPU being powerful enough to do anything I can do on the competitor's product.

I'm undecided on Cook, but I think he is listening too much to Ive and Ive has to go. I mean seriously, all product design happening out of his office based on looks, then going back to California to get them to cram the innards in? How many rounded rectangles of glass can he design that are fundamentally different? His obsession with thinness is killing the company. I absolutely hate the new AppleTV remote its thin and has no sense of direction when you pick it up. I constantly hold it backwards to try to use it or trigger the trackpad while just holding it. Every other remote ever invented is built for function, just look at them, usually they have a rounded underside that fits your grip so without looking at it you can tell which direction is front or back.

I used to look up to Ive and respect him, now I think he needs to be tossed aside for the dustbin (or throw him into a Mac Pro)

I agree with you. If you can keep the performance and battery life while making it thinner then great. If not then don't do it at the expense of the user. These machines are meant for those demanding more than what they can get it from the MacBook or Air line. I think one who uses a Pro MacBook would expect an industry standard in battery life among everything else.

 

[usarioclave]

Professionals? Posers? Or hosers?

 

[MarkB786]

Good job Tim.

 

[gugy]

I am a huge Apple fan and pro user and I am sad to say I hope Apple start to feel the heat and fail to wake up. What they are doing with the Mac and the ecosystem (Displays, Airport, etc) is criminal.
Please focus again on desktops and make the MBP a Pro machine and not a dongle hub. Enough of this crap.

 

[Glideslope]

Professionals? Posers? Or hosers?

Posers.

 

[tentales]

You must avoid all the threads I've been reading. MacRumors has always had a split personality. Sure there are fans around, but I don't think there's been a day in the life of MacRumors in the past five years when people were happy about anything. Everything got panned even when Steve Jobs was around. People have very short and selective memories.

MR is a forum not a person, but you probably mean opinions slanted towards your view and against ratio.

There's not a forum anywhere in the world where opinions aren't clashing. In fact, what's the point of even having a forum site if everybody's in agreement ?

Valid concerns of one person is the fly in the ointment of another, is the abhorrent fanboy false argument of another.

At least it shows that people still care. MR will die when no one cares about Apple products.

FYI, crackberry YoY traffic is down 50%+ or roughly 1/10th of MR traffic. While during the same time MR traffic is down 35%, but still roughly 9x interest over BB fanboys.

 

[Mac37122]

Like many have said, I don't need the thinnest, lightest laptop. I want something with performance and power and good battery life. If that requires 4 more ounces, please add it on.

 

[pratikindia]

Why does Apple measures battery life of a Pro laptop with respect to iTunes movie watching and web browsing?

 

[eddfilms]

No issues here, I think it's a great notebook, really happy with it... only annoyance is the hollow tinny sound of the trackpad click. Hardly a deal breaker though.

Agreed. Also, glad you mentioned the tinny sound of trackpad. Worried it was just mine. Like you said, hardly a deal breaker.

 

[Naimfan]

Imagine what they could have done if they kept the 2012-15 design and simply changed a couple of ports.

 

[DavidBoy]

Why does Apple measures battery life of a Pro laptop with respect to iTunes movie watching and web browsing?

That's pretty much how the rest of the industry measures battery life. Most people won't encode video unplugged.

 

[GermanSuplex]

I have to say, I've seen a lot more negative stories about the new MacBook Pro than positive, which is unusual for any Apple PC. So I saved myself a few hundred dollars and bought last-years model last week. I have been using it at home mostly, so can't comment on battery life.

But the reviews weren't my only reason for purchasing a previous gen model. Ever since iOS 7, there have been issues with software that makes a lot of things seem half-baked with Apple (I realize I'm speaking of uOS and Macs run different software, but I'm speaking of Apple in broad terms).

Wifi syncing a few things works ok, but with a large music library, I found that incomplete syncs would wipe out half of my library on my phone. This was when it was first introduced: I re-enabled it for the first time in years and found the same issues persist. I rely on nested playlists that reference other smart-playlists; it doesn't work correctly with iTunes Match or iCloud music library.

On iOS, the push towards iTunes purchases and Apple Music has overwhelmed the app. I like being able to use iTunes Radio and I subscribe to Apple Music solely for being able to listen to stuff before purchasing, but I don't want it to overwhelm my library. A small button at the bottom to take me to Apple Music is enough; I don't need it to permiate the entire music app or force me to select "Downloaded" each time I access the app. Small links at the bottom of a screen to take me to Apple Music or the iTunes Store for a particular album/artist/etc is fine, but I'm already a subscriber and I feel like they still want more from me.

iBooks is a mess; when they were just another part of my iTunes library, things were flawless. Now, things never seem to sync/update across devices correctly. I never lose any books/bookmarks/etc., but iCloud Backup has been backing up my purchased books in their entirety rather than simply 'marking' it and re-downloading it when I restore a device. Purchased items are not usually backed up in their entirety, they usually appear on your device upon restoration and then download from the cloud, but iBooks is my biggest storage hog on backups.

I still like the Apple ecosystem and its devices, but things have been seeming a little half-baked as of late.

 

[Jessica08]

Where's that Michael Jackson popcorn gif when you need it...

Ask and you shall receive... (I didn't bother looking at all the pages to see if someone had already obliged ya and technically this is a meme not a gif)