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Consumer Reports Retesting MacBook Pro Battery Life After Apple Says Safari Bug to Blame

While I have been following the battery issues intermittently, I have a new 13" tbMBP and the battery life has been okay, roughly around 6 hours with a few things running at once.

After I read this article and saw that the safari bug had been fixed in the new beta I went and downloaded it and WOW there was definitely a bug haha. As I sit here typing this my MBP is on 77% battery with 10 hours and 13 mins of battery remaining (stats provided by coconut battery).

Obviously I know isn't 100% accurate, but from the short period of time I've been on my machine since downloading the beta, I really think they might have fixed the battery issue.
 
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Abazigal said:
It's a bug that simply won't apply to the majority of MacBook Pro users who won't run their browsers in that way ever. So maybe Consumer Reports should rename themselves to "0.1% of consumers who use their computers in the same idiosyncratic way we do" Reports.

You are right - it sounds logical, except it wasn't. They assumed Safari would work in a certain manner (except that Apple wasn't obligated to make Safari work the run they felt it ought to run). So the fault is on CR here for making an erroneous assumption, not bothering to verifying their hypothesis, and running with it.
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Are you saying that assuming Safari would run correctly with caching off by using Safaris feature to turn caching off is a ridiculous assumption?
 
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ocnitsa said:
Are you saying that assuming Safari would run correctly with caching off by using Safaris feature to turn caching off is a ridiculous assumption?
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As it turned out, CR was already getting wildly differing battery life estimates from their tests, which indicated that something was amiss somewhere, but they opted to proceed with their findings regardless instead of digging deeper to find out what the problem may have been.

It turned out to be the wrong assumption to make in the end, and that's really all it boils down to. Not whether that assumption was reasonable or ridiculous, but right or wrong.
 
Abazigal said:
As it turned out, CR was already getting wildly differing battery life estimates from their tests, which indicated that something was amiss somewhere, but they opted to proceed with their findings regardless instead of digging deeper to find out what the problem may have been.

It turned out to be the wrong assumption to make in the end, and that's really all it boils down to. Not whether that assumption was reasonable or ridiculous, but right or wrong.
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What do you mean by digging deeper?
 
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You make the hardware and the software, your software breaks the hardware, you spend time on testing, customer finds the bug on the first week.

We don´t know what "our best laptop" means for Apple.
 
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ocnitsa said:
What do you mean by digging deeper?
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Well, for one, if they couldn't get consistent results, that might suggest that their testing methodology was faulty to begin with. As such, perhaps CR should have resorted to testing the battery life of the MacBook Pros the old-fashioned way, by manually loading different websites until the battery died, instead of relying on an automated process.

It would take more time and effort, but nobody said the job of a tester was easy.
 
For the first time ever on this MacBook Pro, I'm getting over 10 hours estimated based on the activity monitor after installing the latest beta. Same apps opened would yield 3 hours tops for previously. Looks like they did fix a bug here!
 
I'm a heavy user, and I've always gotten at least 10 hours on my new MBP. Just my anecdote...
 
Abazigal said:
It's a bug that simply won't apply to the majority of MacBook Pro users who won't run their browsers in that way ever. So maybe Consumer Reports should rename themselves to "0.1% of consumers who use their computers in the same idiosyncratic way we do" Reports.

You are right - it sounds logical, except it wasn't. They assumed Safari would work in a certain manner (except that Apple wasn't obligated to make Safari work the run they felt it ought to run). So the fault is on CR here for making an erroneous assumption, not bothering to verifying their hypothesis, and running with it.
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Always there to defend Apple at every turn, I see.

In performing the same test(continuous browsing with caching disabled) with other browsers, CR got the expected results. So to claim the test was illogical is being disingenuous. As I said, the alternative to providing an unbound, continuous, unique browsing experience, would be to acquire hundreds of thousands/millions of unique links, all guaranteed to be active. Perhaps you do not like the methods - you know, using the actual application provided by Apple for web browsing, WITH the provided settings - but the intent behind the test seems to be valid real world metric for a consumer-centric organization - amount of continuous browsing. You know, consumer consumption.
 
Abazigal said:
Well, for one, if they couldn't get consistent results, that might suggest that their testing methodology was faulty to begin with. As such, perhaps CR should have resorted to testing the battery life of the MacBook Pros the old-fashioned way, by manually loading different websites until the battery died, instead of relying on an automated process.

It would take more time and effort, but nobody said the job of a tester was easy.
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I see...you are saying that even if this methodology worked for every other MBP they tested over the years and showed no problems with dodgy battery levels, they should have assumed their methodology was what was wrong when they found fluctuations, rather than come to the conclusion that it could be some kind of software bug.
 
We can call the test terrible but it got applemto fix the issue. Put the company's toes to the fire and results follow. Should be good enough for most consumers, no? Isn't this actual tangible evidence that a site like consumer reports can produce positive change?

Meanwhile it take us actual consumers months or years to prove a fault or issue within hardware sometimes.

At the risk of sounding like many before me on this site, if you don't trust consumer reports data, don't use them. Can't deny they got expedient results though.
 
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Count Blah said:
Always there to defend Apple, I see.

In performing the same test, caching disabled, in other browsers, CR got the expected results. So to claim the test was illogical is being disingenuous. As I said, the alternative to providing an unbound, continuous, unique browsing experience, would be to acquire hundreds of thousands/millions of unique links, all guaranteed to be active. Perhaps you do not like the methods - you know, using the actual application provided by Apple for web browsing, WITH the provided settings - but the intent behind the test seems to be valid real world metric for a consumer-centric organization - amount of continuous browsing. You know, consumer consumption.
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I never said it was illogical. It simply turned out to not be accurate, that's all. But what amazes me is that it's still somehow Apple's fault here.

You are a large scale for-profit company, not a self-opinionated personal blog. If that's what it takes to ensure the accuracy of your test results, then you do it, not complain that it's impractical.
 
This is good. Mine had some battery issues in the beginning but since 10.12.2 and the recent betas, I get 7-10 hours consistently depending on the apps I run. Parallels eats way more power so if I don't use it, I get closer to 10. Anyway, glad they are retesting. I've owned a lot of Mac laptops and this is my favorite so far. Love the screen, the speakers and the keyboard and the overall small size and weight for a machine with this much power.
 
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RangerOne said:
As usual, few people commenting here actually read the article:

#1: The browser was configured wrong, to disable cache so it constantly has to re-transfer data from the server. Even as a developer, I almost never use this feature. Why CR decided to set this is beyond me.

#2: The little-used feature illustrated a bug which caused icons to continuously download...because they weren't cached. So this escaped Apple's QA, but an easy software fix.

I've owned just about every Mac since 1989. There are a few minor nits with the late-2016 MBP15 machine I'm now typing this on, but I have no question that it's a fantastic machine. Sure, the keyboard is a little louder (but I find myself typing faster). Yes, some people wanted the new Intel processors (but that would have meant waiting at least half a year more). Yes, the lack of ports and MagSafe are a little irritating (but the whole world is moving to USB-C). Lower battery life under heavy load while sitting in a coffee shop editing 4k video or playing graphics-intensive games might be an issue for some (but just plug in - problem solved).

As an open-minded power user, I absolutely love my new machine and wouldn't give it up for the world. Nothing is ever perfect, but easy workarounds exist.
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I do web development using a CDN, cache clearing is a daily routine. Depending on the content it can expire very quickly.
 
Crosscreek said:
I guess this means Consumer Reports doesn't know what their doing. lol ok
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Consumer Reports has never known what they were doing. They are not experts and even a minimal knowledge of the subject of a review reveals major issues and always has. I still remember with early analogue HDTVs when they criticised RCA for their use of VGA... never calling it VGA but instead a "proprietary" connection instead of component RCA connectors that everyone else was using. VGA was the (very slightly) better option and in no way proprietary. They just had no understanding. That's when I gave up on Consumer Reports forever. I was a pre-teen. And I knew the tech better than they did. And who can forget the infamous "review" of the Suzuki Samurai where they destroyed Suzuki's reputation in the US despite their own test being crafted to create a result.. it was essentially fake. .

CR is and always has been an uneducated racket. I'm not saying the new Macbook Pro has the battery life it needs. I haven't used one. But I know CR is the last source I would trust to find out!
 
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Consumer Reports or not, the only thing I know is that the battery life on my MacBook Pro 2016 sucks balls. It drains super quickly with just browsing the web and watching some youtube movies.

People can test whatever they want, this is my experience and is happening.
 
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Abazigal said:
I never said it was illogical. It simply turned out to not be accurate, that's all. But what amazes me is that it's still somehow Apple's fault here.
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That's completely asinine. It was proven, in Apple's own words, that what CR assumed to be true was in fact true. Safari was not working properly, again by Apple's own words, and that was Apple's fault.
 
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So if there was a bug in the software, are we going to see that bug fixed? I would have thought something that caused that much of a problem they would have pushed out a prompt update so then MacBook Pro users can experience the battery life that Apple promised.
 
Apple has since learned that Consumer Reports was using a "hidden Safari setting" which trigged an "obscure and intermittent bug reloading icons" that led to inconsistent battery life results. With "normal user settings" enabled, Consumer Reports said it "consistently" achieved expected battery life.

After this new I buy two new MBP 2016... :cool:
 
manhattanboy said:
The bigger story here is that Apple's software appears buggy as hell. They need to do a couple snow leopard like releases where they just focus on cleaning up garbage code instead of pumping out new features.
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Windows 10 is doing the same thing. I find that SO buggy lately. The RTM version was more stable than the 1607. I am extremely disappointed. I have had more issues on Windows 10 than I have ever had on OS X the last 6 years.
 
anzio said:
Definitely the best MacBook Pro I have owned. Not saying the last generations weren't good either, but these are great machines. Wonder when that Safari fix will make it to us.
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Dude, it's not a bug nor will there be fix. The fix is just keeping you from using that developer feature.
 
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