Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Yes add the option to System Preferences. Let us have the options to control the computer as we want easily, or not if we don't want to. Besides more battery power daily it would also probably extend the overall battery life since less charging cycles would happen.

I use low power mode every day on my iPhone pretty much all day long. It makes it so the phone seems like the battery is sufficiently sized.
 
If you want to allow your mac to run longer, switch off Chrome (or close all unused tabs, or use Safari, Firefox), stop letting Spotify and other similar software turn on at star-up. Disable wifi when not using it. Any more suggestions?
Close all running apps. Turn the screen brightness to darkness. Switch on airplane mode. Disable the keyboard and trackpad. Turn the speaker volume to zero. Close the laptop lid. Place the laptop close to a warm radiator.
 
While you're at it Apple, make a cell radio an option. Yeah, I know I can tether but I don't always have access to my phone since I have my watch.
 
I have for years used App Tamer (https://www.stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/). This application stops or simply limits the CPU usage of non-foreground processes. You can control what it does for each (by default it knows how to leave important system processes alone). There's quite a bit of sophistication (e.g., it knows that all the Safari and Chrome processes are part of a single group and has appropriate actions for them) that's been developed over years of experience.

Not quite the same use case as playing around with the CPU speed - complementary, in some ways. (The two together would be more powerful than either one alone.)

No connection to the developer, just a satisfied customer.
 
My iphone X has been stuck in "Low Data Mode" (beta) since i got it, multiple reports to apple and no response. I hope Low Power Mode can be turned on and off.
 
...and while they are at it can we please configure SLEEP modes in some other fashion than from the Command Line.
 
If you want to allow your mac to run longer, switch off Chrome (or close all unused tabs, or use Safari, Firefox), stop letting Spotify and other similar software turn on at star-up. Disable wifi when not using it. Any more suggestions?

Isn't that the same with iOS? If you want your phone to run longer, disable background refresh, reduce polling, etc? Letting Apple create a low power mode makes it easier for people do do all these. Same thing here. I much prefer a low power mode, where the CPU runs at a lower clock speed, *EVEN* if I have gadzillion tabs open.
 
Options are good. Everyone has different needs and different environments. I don’t see any good reason not to give users the option to easily tweak what priorities they want their machines to focus on, be it temperature, fan speed, performance or battery usage.
 
Components automatically scale. Disabling Turbo is just silly. Low power mode is silly (unless it’s actually just a script that kills low priority applications.

Energy = Power * Time

If your processor temporarily uses more power over less time then total energy is lower. It’s called “race to the finish” and it’s actually an interesting read.

Umm... The Turbo Boost Switcher users seem to get more battery time, so total energy available over time seems to be lower, which is what we want.

For those that disable Turboboost, you’re lowering the power but increasing the time it takes to complete tasks, potentially increasing Energy use. To illustrate component scaling, download Intel Power Gadget and observe how during non-use the processor scales all the way down.

tl;dr Can Apple make a low power mode, yes. Should it? No. Should it be better at power management under the hood? Yes.

Why not both?
 
Honestly I'd just like a mode that lets me turn off turbo boost.
I use TBS. But I'd rather be able to limit the Max Turbo frequency instead of it being ON / OFF.

I'd also like the ability to tweak NVRAM values for PL1, PL2, and Tau.

And the core temperature at which thermal throttling kicks in. I'd like to lower it significantly.
 
Last edited:
I've tested out the free version on my 2019 15 inch 2.3GHz i9. It is remarkable how much cooler it runs with no apparent reduction in performance running general computing tasks. I suspect this will really show off it's effectiveness while running in clamshell mode. As for battery life, I'm not able to offer comment at this point.
 
Last edited:
Marco Arment is a poseur, however, he is right on re: lower power mode. This was low hanging fruit Apple should have added long ago, at least for laptop users.

More like a weasel, comsidering his previous shenanigans with his ad blocker and his podcast player. fool me once...
 
those that disable Turboboost, you’re lowering the power but increasing the time it takes to complete tasks, potentially increasing Energy use
You're oversimplifying it.

Work done, over a given time, scales linearly with CPU frequency. Power consumption is not linear with CPU frequency.

On a 9900K, a frequency increase of 30% from base frequency (3.6G to 4.7G) nearly doubles power consumed. That's not how you extend battery life.
 
Last edited:
More like a weasel, comsidering his previous shenanigans with his ad blocker and his podcast player. fool me once...
That’s what I was referring to—-you had a much better word for it!
[automerge]1579109714[/automerge]
I've tested out the free version on my 2019 15 inch 2.3GHz i9. It is remarkable how much cooler it runs with no apparent reduction in performance running general computing tasks. I suspect this will really show off it's effectiveness while running in clamshell mode. As for battery life, I'm not able to offer comment at this point.
Tested what?
 
No. I don’t want Pro Mode or Low Power mode.

The reason I’ve been a Mac user rather than a Windows user for the past 20 years was because a Mac historically “just worked.” They were computers to do work on.

I want my computer to intelligently adapt itself to what I’m doing. I want it to manage its own updates. I just don’t want it to bother me and I don’t want to have to spend any time configuring or maintaining it.
That always sacrifices efficiency for comfort. Feel free to stick with your comfort, but if you want to squeeze out the maximum, you can't rely on the machine to guess how you want it to behave.
I.e. with Boost OFF the thing might just feel a little slower (which some people might complain about), but use less energy for the same task. Also, when you have 2 GPUs in the system, sometimes you don't need max performance, but batterylife. The even gaming on the integrated GPU can greatly improve battery life. This is a decision the user has to make. Do I want the thing go fast or efficient. Think of it as the sports mode in a car. In Eco the gearbox will shift early to keep RPM down (saves fuel). On sport mode it will shift only at much higher RPM giving you better acceleration.
The problem with CPUs and GPUs these days is that Boost technology (i.e. overclocking single or many cores until a certain thermal threshold is reached) has become the norm (and there's nothing wrong with that). While AI can control the performance, it can only guess your epectations. As such a switch "Efficiency <-> Performance" isn't a bad thing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Glockworkorange
Honestly, with how bad my 2016 13in MBP is with battery after 3 years, a low power mode would actually be appreciated considering I don't do anything strenuous on the machine aside from stream video.
 
I see almost everyone has missed that the article was NOT about battery life. It was about usability factors, like temperature and noise. Battery life only got a passing mention. If disabling Turbo Boost results in a much more comfortable computing experience, then the option should be provided in the OS.
 
That Turbo Boost should be disabled is a generalized statement. It depends on whether you need the processing power or not. I am doing a lot of stuff in VMs, setting up entire labs and customer demos, I definitely need every inch of processing that I get from a mobile platform. Similar is probably true for people who work on video, photo processing, technical drawings and such. Heavier workloads, I put on an ESXi server under my desk, I do not want the fans to run all the time at high speed, but when I use the Turbo Boost, I really need it, and I am not bothered by the fans.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.