Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple: Get rid of battery bar and just do percent!

Custom status icons would make many users happy.

Allowing an as-needed option for smaller icons to automatically occupy two rows is never going to happen, but would be very popular.

On my  Watch my favorite faces are the ones with the most complications.
 
Last edited:
elistan said:
Things I prefer as numbers rather than an analog bar chart:
  • Battery charge.
  • Signal strength.
  • Vehicle speed.
Things I prefer as analog bar charts:
  • Trends over time.
  • Something I want to know the rate of change of.
IMO. YMMV.
Click to expand...
You would like something like "wifi signal: 65% cellular signal: 81% battery: 52%" at the top of your phone?

IMO it would be ridiculously ugly and useless.
 
  • Like
Reactions: haruhiko
Software devs I follow who like to talk shop largely favor providing less granular information, since users tend to obsess over these stats, which translates to more arbitrary support requests. I dislike that reasoning (especially when it comes to getting display resolution on the Mac), but I understand it. As long as the battery percentage can be accessed through Control Center, I can live with it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: that be me and haruhiko
I am not obsessed with battery life/percentage but I would like to have the percentage visible.
I think user should have these two options:
  1. Only percentage (i.e. percentage number inside the current battery indicator
  2. Only a graphical of the remaining battery, as now
 
  • Like
Reactions: Applejuiced
Black Magic said:
I hope Apple going forward will just do away the battery life bar status wise and just do percentage. I think most folks would agree as that is all we really need to see.


Thoughts?
Click to expand...
This was my immediate reaction to the missing number as well. If you have to choose one due to space constraints, pick the more useful one. Battery bar is just some vague estimation. 20% looks the same as 40% on that small icon. But not complaining too hard. My battery has been much better than my 7, so it's not as critical. But when the battery starts degrading, it will be.
 
Battery percent? What relevance does that have as people want to know how long their Apple gadget will still be usable. Tell us how many MINUTES of power it has before we need to recharge it. It's not a hard problem to solve.
 
dogslobber said:
Battery percent? What relevance does that have as people want to know how long their Apple gadget will still be usable. Tell us how many MINUTES of power it has before we need to recharge it. It's not a hard problem to solve.
Click to expand...

My Trek eBike tells me how much distance I can still go when pedaling at different assist levels, and it's never accurate. So the 5/5 bar battery indicator is even less useful.
 
  • Like
Reactions: haruhiko
I also stress less with the percentage gone, although agree that it should be a choice in settings. I wouldn't mind having the battery icon gone as well, replaced perhaps with pop-up reminders when you reach certain battery levels. Tick off in preferences when you'd like to be alerted. It happens at 20% right. Does it happen at 10%? I forget. Anyhow, I'd do 50 and 20% and have less clutter on the main screen. I do like swiping down to see the percentage though, so keep that.
 
Last edited:
Gameboy70 said:
Software devs I follow who like to talk shop largely favor providing less granular information, since users tend to obsess over these stats, which translates to more arbitrary support requests. I dislike that reasoning (especially when it comes to getting display resolution on the Mac), but I understand it. As long as the battery percentage can be accessed through Control Center, I can live with it.
Click to expand...
"Why the battery dropped 3% over 30 minutes? There must be something wrong. I'm exchanging my phone."
 
  • Like
Reactions: SnyG
Glmnet1 said:
You would like something like "wifi signal: 65% cellular signal: 81% battery: 52%" at the top of your phone?

IMO it would be ridiculously ugly and useless.
Click to expand...

I would actually really like something like that.
And to have different options for different peoples preferences.
Unlike having no options as usual and Apple just dictating to us what and how to use our device.
 
  • Like
Reactions: elistan
dogslobber said:
Percentage doesn't mean anything to people. In fact, most people are afraid of percentages but everybody understand time to out of juice.
Click to expand...
You are saying that battery percentages don't mean anything to people? Based on what?
 
dogslobber said:
Battery percent? What relevance does that have as people want to know how long their Apple gadget will still be usable. Tell us how many MINUTES of power it has before we need to recharge it. It's not a hard problem to solve.
Click to expand...

dogslobber said:
Percentage doesn't mean anything to people. In fact, most people are afraid of percentages but everybody understand time to out of juice.
Click to expand...

You can’t go by time because all usage is different. Phone call, local music, streaming music, YouTube, Facebook, games, all different processing power. Heck, even web browsing varies depending on ads and site formats.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Applejuiced
C DM said:
You are saying that battery percentages don't mean anything to people? Based on what?
Click to expand...
Based on people.
[doublepost=1512393204][/doublepost]
DDustiNN said:
You can’t go by time because all usage is different. Phone call, local music, streaming music, YouTube, Facebook, games, all different processing power. Heck, even web browsing varies depending on ads and site formats.
Click to expand...
Sure you can. You just write an algorithm to do it. It’s not hard after all as it’s just software.
 
haruhiko said:
I’m fine for just the icon. The percentage triggers my OCD and I had been constantly charging my previous iPhones, not letting it drop below 90%. Now I don’t feel as bad when the battery drops to 50%. If I need any accurate reading, I can always pull down from the top right.
Click to expand...

This. I never turn my battery percentage on because I know that if I do I’ll fret needlessly.
 
dogslobber said:
Based on people.
[doublepost=1512393204][/doublepost]
Sure you can. You just write an algorithm to do it. It’s not hard after all as it’s just software.
Click to expand...


It was never accurate on a Mac, what makes you think it would be more accurate on a phone? How do you predict future usage patterns?
 
  • Like
Reactions: haruhiko
As someone who normally likes as much information as possible, the transition has revealed something to me.

Turns out, it doesn’t matter.

Even when I had the percentage, there’s not much I could do. These days, either it’s fine (battery mostly full), it’s decent (less than half), or I need to charge (getting low).

Charging is a no brainer with qi . So now I just leave it on my desk, at the charger, when not in use.

This is also good for the battery. Li-ion and Li-poly likes to remain topped up.

Let go of the percentage, it doesn’t really help that much. If you really need to know, just pull down cc.
 
  • Like
Reactions: haruhiko and D.T.
Ryan1524 said:
This is also good for the battery. Li-ion and Li-poly likes to remain topped up.
Click to expand...

I've was actually just wondering about this. I've just received my second Qi charger and have it sitting on my desk but wasn't sure if just leaving my phone sitting on it throughout the day would be harmful to the battery.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back