Consumer Reports Reverses Course, Recommends MacBook Pro Following New Testing After Apple Bug Fix

[leman]

Yet it appears that people with a 2015 and 2016 MacBook notice a difference - less battery life for similar tasks.

There are enough people who got better battery life with the 2016 model (youth truly included — the 2016 machine gets approx 2 hours more during a real workday). And there are plenty of objective comparisons to between the generations — check out the arstechnica review for example, where they provide battery test figures for different laptops.

Apple sacrificed battery and also performance improvements to unecesarily shave a little more off the thickness.

This is simply factually wrong. Again, independent reviewers agree that the battery life has IMPROVED. My battery life has clearly improved. Many users on these forums say that they don't have problems with the battery life. What this means is that the reduced battery capacity DID NOT diminish the battery performance. If some people experience battery problems, the issue must lie somewhere else. And of course it needs to be investigated further and fixed ASAP (some reports seem to converge on a possible issue with GPU power states). As to the performance improvements — we got GPUs that are twice as fast and CPUs which are 15% faster. I don't really know what more you can expect...

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

"The 13-inch model without a Touch Bar had an average battery life of 18.75 hours, the 13-inch model with a Touch Bar lasted for 15.25 hours on average, and the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar had an average battery life of 17.25 hours."

They are some massive numbers right there.

But not out of line with the "High-end" numbers they got in SOME of their initial test-runs.

 

[MH01]

Consumer Reports is a joke.

Yeah, cause it was thier fault ....the consumers fault....well everyone else's fault that it was apples bug. Let's completely ignore the fact that apple "fixed" the issue to pass these tests.

You are the guy that would blame the anti doping tests in sports, when you favourite athelete returned for the second test and passed.

Zero objectively.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Even more interesting is getting battery life times of 12, 14, 16, 18 1/2, and 19 1/2 hours in some trials under a test procedure that's much more rigorous than Apple's, where Apple's published spec was up to 10 hours of battery lifetime.

Makes me wonder if CR actually did any kind of observation, monitoring, and supervision in their test protocols.

This is why some, more likely engineers, have little respect for CR's test procedures.

Why do you automatically come to the conclusion that CR's testing is "much more rigorous than Apple's"?

If you read their initial Report, they actually achieved those same numbers SOMETIMES (like when they didn't trip Safari's INTERMITTENT, battery-sucking bug). So, why is it so amazing that they would get similar results UNDER THE SAME TEST CONDITIONS as their "good runs" AFTER the battery-sucking bug was squashed?

 

[MH01]

There are enough people who got better battery life with the 2016 model (youth truly included — the 2016 machine gets approx 2 hours more during a real workday). And there are plenty of objective comparisons to between the generations — check out the arstechnica review for example, where they provide battery test figures for different laptops.



This is simply factually wrong. Again, independent reviewers agree that the battery life has IMPROVED. My battery life has clearly improved. Many users on these forums say that they don't have problems with the battery life. What this means is that the reduced battery capacity DID NOT diminish the battery performance. If some people experience battery problems, the issue must lie somewhere else. And of course it needs to be investigated further and fixed ASAP (some reports seem to converge on a possible issue with GPU power states). As to the performance improvements — we got GPUs that are twice as fast and CPUs which are 15% faster. I don't really know what more you can expect...

I tested 2015 and 2016 side by side doing heavy CPU tasks, the 2015 won by about 30% .

With the 2016 screen dimmed, you can get good battery life. With the screen at 80% or more brightness , battery drops fast. That was my experience, the 2016 can get good battery life if your take advantage of the efficiency and use the right settings.

With intensive CPU work, it cannot make the 2015 machine. And that is backed up by the simple facts of how much power both CPUs use at full load.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

WHat was that bug? I dont need to look at the source code... It's common for the fixes to be included in the release notes

Apple already said a few days ago.

When Safari's caching was disabled, it INTERMITTENTLY triggered a condition wherein Safari would CONTINOUSLY RELOAD certain Assets from the same Page, even AFTER the Page had (re)loaded. This is akin to a "runaway process" sucking down massive amounts of CPU. Ask any Developer that has experience in these matters, and they will quickly tell you that such a condition is a SURE-FIRE battery-eater.

 

[Soccertess]

All new products have bugs, so let's hope this is just growing pains. If it's fixed, it really does have amazing battery life.

However, too bad there is no fix for crappy 4 ports and dongles.

 

[nofear1az]

I'm 60 years old.

As an embedded developer (hardware and software) with several decades of experience, and several industrial embedded products under my belt, and several dozen (at least!) product spec-testing sessions I have conducted and/or participated in, I know bad test methodology when I see it, and I definitely saw it when CR got insanely disparate results in the testing, and then even suspected that Safari was involved; but STILL just "ran with it", rather than asking Apple if that seemed odd to them.

As for your "Prove it!" challenge, I offer this anecdote: The only person I know who actually owns a 2016 MBP, has a tb 15" model. He hadn't been following any battery complaints, and I hadn't discussed same with him. He is a degreed Electrical Engineer, BTW. So, when I casually inquired as to the battery-life he was getting, here is the snippet of the email exchange (the rest of the conversation was about GarageBand and Logic Pro X) :

ME: BTW, on an unrelated subject, how has your MBP's battery life been?

FRIEND: I can sit and read/write/surf for a couple of hours and it drops to around 85%. Of course, that's not heavy use, but it does keep the display lit full time - which is probably a bigger drain on the battery than some things. It charges very slowly if you use an adapter not rated for the MBP - no surprise there

Then, in my Reply to that email, I explained a bit why I was asking, and asked a couple of other things, and he subsequently responded:

ME: But you're not seeing sh** like run times of just a couple of hours TOTAL, right?

FRIEND: No, I've never pushed it past a couple of hours, but it has never acted up at all. In fact, I'll usually make it sleep instead of powering down, and 8-10 hours later I'll wake it to show about the same power level as when I put it down and I'll get even more time out of it before I set it aside and plug it in to recharge. I know you're supposed to run it low about once a month, but I haven't gotten around to trying that yet. When I do, I'll probably see just how long a charge lasts.

ME: 2 hours for 15% battery usage is right on-track for Apple's 10 hours for that sort of activity.

ME: What Browser?

FRIEND: Firefox - which, incidentally HATES being put to sleep and crashes. No data loss, but ouch.

And that was the end of that. I agree it is anecdotal "evidence"; but that's all we're getting from these other "I only get [x] hours" posts, anyway, right?

And at least I have tried to actually "Prove it". Not scientific; but at least I have tried...
[doublepost=1484289750][/doublepost]
Crappy test that is still not "real-world" enough for a highly power-optimized CPU like Skylake, coupled with a highly power-optimized OS like macOS Sierra. I suspect that, even with Caching turned off on Safari, the repetitive and predictive nature of CR's testing was being predicted by macOS, and it was actually able to take measures to "sleep" some parts of the CPU, etc. that Apple's test did not allow (or allow as much).

Congrats to your accomplishments and my respects to your age. However, you do come across as someone who has had their cheerios pissed in all the time.

that doesn't prove anything but I tend to take people's words for things so I have no reason to dispute what your friend is getting. My point was only a reference to you telling someone else to 'prove it'.

Point is, everyone has a different experience and just because yours or your friends is a positive one while someone elses is not doesn't mean they are wrong, a troll, or deserve a personal beating by you (in good humor as I type that).

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

This doesn't get me any closer to buying this machine and I really, really want a new Mac. At the end of the day it's still not a Pro machine.

You couldn't be more wrong.

 

[lowkey]

By professional I mean not shrinking the battery and making other compromises for the sake of making it thinner.

Oh, ok. So TB3 throughput, and the highest speed SSD is not required for professionals, but somehow thicker computers and heavier batteries are required, despite 17 hour battery life? LOL.

Probably time you get a new definition. Calling a top spec mobile machine unprofessional because it's not heavy or thick enough is just typical apple hate.

 

[leman]

With intensive CPU work, it cannot make the 2015 machine. And that is backed up by the simple facts of how much power both CPUs use at full load.

For me, its exactly an opposite. I was doing a mixture of heavy and light tasks. Heavy tasks included software compilation and some data analysis (loads all cores to 100% for about 5 minutes at a time). The 2016 won by a healthy margin, but I didn't quantity the results really, this is just based on an impressionistic tracking of the battery life through the day. If I start at 100% in the morning around 8:00, I have approx 40% left around 3:00. This includes a total of 1-1.5 hour breaks where the computer is in sleep mode. With the 2015 model, I was usually running out of battery at that point.

If you totally load up the CPU and/or GPU though, sure, the new models won't last as long as the old one (its simple arithmetics). But frankly, whether your computer runs 50 or 60 minutes doesn't make that much of a difference. If you need a lot of performance, you should be using the charger in the first place. IMO, it doesn't make much sense to look at the battery life in such a scenario.

 

[gijoeinla]

how much did Phil Schiller pay them?

Gee I don't know. Do you?

Right.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

All new products have bugs, so let's hope this is just growing pains. If it's fixed, it really does have amazing battery life.

However, too bad there is no fix for crappy 4 ports and dongles.

Four "crappy" ports with a whopping 80 Gbps of RAW I/O power, and which can EACH SIMULTANEOUSLY supply:

• Thunderbolt 3

• (5) USB 3.0 Ports

• FireWire 800

• Gigabit Ethernet

• mini DisplayPort

• SD Card reader

• Audio combo port (headphones or microphones)

• S/PDIF digital audio

So, that's something like THIRTEEN "legacy" Ports (plus TB3) from just ONE of those "crappy" Ports. So, taken to its logical conclusion, you could theoretically "break-out" FOUR of those ports into, (drumroll, please) FIFTY-TWO I/O Ports.

Source: The soon-to-be-released Thunderbolt 3 Dock by OWC:

http://blog.macsales.com/38562-owc-...-3-dock-with-13-ports-available-for-pre-order

And in case you think they are being overly-optimistic, OWC already has a TB 2 version, that "only" has TWELVE legacy Ports for a TB2-based computer. Keep in mind that TB2 has HALF the I/O bandwidth as TB3; so both products seem QUITE plausible:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thu...=thunderbolt&gclid=CMHElMvJvtECFUK4wAodDlAIAQ

And a company called "Henge" is showing a TB3 "Tethered" dock with similar I/O capabilities to the OWC dock:

https://hengedocks.com/pages/tethered-docks

So, no. Not so "Crappy" after all, eh?

 

[gijoeinla]

They were testing it wrong, after all

Um yea that's possible. Consumer Reports own lab is like a set out of a ride from Disneyland's Tomorrowland. Suddenly there's a chorus here of pro Consumer Reports and a plethora of "Apple haters". Something's not right.

How about ALL you people claiming serious issues with your new Mac Book Pro's post some real life proof.. cool? Cool.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Yeah, cause it was thier fault ....the consumers fault....well everyone else's fault that it was apples bug. Let's completely ignore the fact that apple "fixed" the issue to pass these tests.

You are the guy that would blame the anti doping tests in sports, when you favourite athelete returned for the second test and passed.

Zero objectively.

You should talk.

 

[Jim Lahey]

Ask any Developer that has experience in these matters...

WHAT? Developers? Who cares what they think? Don't even get me started on engineers or other such credible sources. The only viewpoints that matter are those of the incredulously uninformed "PROs" who monitor Mac Rumours

 

[lowkey]

Four "crappy" ports with a whopping 80 Gbps of RAW I/O power, and which can EACH SIMULTANEOUSLY supply:

• Thunderbolt 3

• (5) USB 3.0 Ports

• FireWire 800

• Gigabit Ethernet

• mini DisplayPort

• SD Card reader

• Audio combo port (headphones or microphones)

• S/PDIF digital audio

So, that's something like THIRTEEN "legacy" Ports (plus TB3) from just ONE of those "crappy" Ports. So, taken to its logical conclusion, you could theoretically "break-out" FOUR of those ports into, (drumroll, please) FIFTY-TWO I/O Ports.

Source: The soon-to-be-released Thunderbolt 3 Dock by OWC:

http://blog.macsales.com/38562-owc-...-3-dock-with-13-ports-available-for-pre-order

And in case you think they are being overly-optimistic, OWC already has a TB 2 version, that "only" has TWELVE legacy Ports for a TB2-based computer. Keep in mind that TB2 has HALF the I/O bandwidth as TB3; so both products seem QUITE plausible:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thu...=thunderbolt&gclid=CMHElMvJvtECFUK4wAodDlAIAQ

And a company called "Henge" is showing a TB3 "Tethered" dock with similar I/O capabilities to the OWC dock:

https://hengedocks.com/pages/tethered-docks

So, no. Not so "Crappy" after all, eh?

Yeah, but you have spend another $19 on a new cable
Seriously the haters act like they are so "professional" yet they can't afford new cables to go with their new laptops...oh I forgot...the haters don't actually have these new laptops LOL

 

[Pike R. Alpha]

I am not really sure how to make it more clear. So let me try with an analogy:

Say you want to test how some person is affected by being in high altitude (mountains). Basically, you want to have them do some exercises in a high altitude, low oxygen environment and see how they manage. However, you don't the time to actually bring them to the mountains, so you decide to simulate the entire experience by injecting them with a drug that constricts the respiratory tract. The person gets massive asthma attack and collapses. You conclude that their physical condition is crap and they should avoid going to the mountains.

The only problem is: they had an allergic reaction to the drug. They would have done just fine by being in the mountains.

If you want to test "X", test "X" instead of testing "Y" in assumption that you are testing "X". Again, CR failed by a) not disclosing the fact that they uses a debug configuration and b) by not investigating the issue further, but releasing an official recommendation in a situation where the results were clearly inconclusive. Yes, in the end it was Apple's bug and I guess its the only good thing in this story that this bug has being fixed. But that bug would have never affected a normal user in the first place! And CR does its testing for the normal use case, not for the web developer.

You keep putting the blame on Consumer Reports, but it was a bug in Safari (Apple software) and Consumer Reports did say that battery life was much better with Chrome. That's all that they had to do. They don't have to go hunting for bugs in (Apple) software.

Anyone who starts testing hardware should do so with the same settings. Over and over again. For all hardware running their tests. And that is what Consumer Reports did. Not using the same setting(s) would have been an error.

Why should Consumer Reports tell anyone what they are doing for their test runs? Does Apple tell you that? No. And they don't have to, because it's not your business.

The main problem, which you missed, is that bug was there even without the developer setting changed. The setting only made it easier to detect, due to the continued network load. That was also why people reported battery results that were off the scale. Did these people enable the developer menu and changed developer settings? No. They did not.

Perhaps you have missed the posts where people said that battery life improved after the fix. So why was that? Because Safari kept replacing certain images? Yup. That is basically it. Nobody to blame. Not even the Apple engineer working on the code.

 

[rezwits]

I just wanted to quickly comment on the whole "Battery issue(s)", with Macs or Windows machines. I started going to Starbucks, for the past 6 months to take a break, get an iced coffee, and comment my Xcode projects. I $#!+ you not:

The average is this:

2-3 Macs UNPLUGGED with people working on them for about an hour and a half. With 1-2 iPads UNPLUGGED, with people "doing whatever, haha inside joke..."

Then there are 1-2 PC people who are working on something, but are PLUGGED into the wall. And no ordinary Surfaces not one in 6 months. I have only seen one guy with a Surface Book (the funky hinge) during December and he was UNPLUGGED (I think).

I mean seriously, people, it's stone cold, one of two ways, you either have a MacBook with confidence to bring it somewhere and USE IT, (or an iOS device). Or you lug your PC and you take your "Brick!"

(6 months of this, going 2-3 times a week, at Starbucks!) END OF DISCUSSION!

 

[oldmacs]

Oh, ok. So TB3 throughput, and the highest speed SSD is not required for professionals, but somehow thicker computers and heavier batteries are required, despite 17 hour battery life? LOL.

Probably time you get a new definition. Calling a top spec mobile machine unprofessional because it's not heavy or thick enough is just typical apple hate.

Lol top spec. The 13 inch model is freaking dual core still which is a joke. I'm not denying improvements to the SSD or I/O, I am saying (Which is true) is Apple focused on making it thinner rather than improvements that a lot of people wanted like the ability to take more than 16GB of ram, or longer battery life, or useful things life magsafe, or longer battery life.

Defending products to the death is just typical Apple fanboism.
[doublepost=1484293906][/doublepost]

Yeah, but you have spend another $19 on a new cable
Seriously the haters act like they are so "professional" yet they can't afford new cables to go with their new laptops...oh I forgot...the haters don't actually have these new laptops LOL

Oh yeah, I love dragging around so many adaptors that all the weight/thinness gains are made pointless by bulk extra adaptors add.

Of course people who dislike the new MacBooks are not going to buy them, that makes logical sense. Just because someone doesn't like the new MacBook does not make them a Hater. I'm very happy the new MacBook works for you, but it doesn't work for plenty of people.
[doublepost=1484294017][/doublepost]

I tested 2015 and 2016 side by side doing heavy CPU tasks, the 2015 won by about 30% .

With the 2016 screen dimmed, you can get good battery life. With the screen at 80% or more brightness , battery drops fast. That was my experience, the 2016 can get good battery life if your take advantage of the efficiency and use the right settings.

With intensive CPU work, it cannot make the 2015 machine. And that is backed up by the simple facts of how much power both CPUs use at full load.

All lies apparently - I'm just a hater according to those who know what's up.

 

[PalidinoDH]

Four "crappy" ports with a whopping 80 Gbps of RAW I/O power, and which can EACH SIMULTANEOUSLY supply:

• Thunderbolt 3

• (5) USB 3.0 Ports

• FireWire 800

• Gigabit Ethernet

• mini DisplayPort

• SD Card reader

• Audio combo port (headphones or microphones)

• S/PDIF digital audio

So, that's something like THIRTEEN "legacy" Ports (plus TB3) from just ONE of those "crappy" Ports. So, taken to its logical conclusion, you could theoretically "break-out" FOUR of those ports into, (drumroll, please) FIFTY-TWO I/O Ports.

Source: The soon-to-be-released Thunderbolt 3 Dock by OWC:

http://blog.macsales.com/38562-owc-...-3-dock-with-13-ports-available-for-pre-order

And in case you think they are being overly-optimistic, OWC already has a TB 2 version, that "only" has TWELVE legacy Ports for a TB2-based computer. Keep in mind that TB2 has HALF the I/O bandwidth as TB3; so both products seem QUITE plausible:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thu...=thunderbolt&gclid=CMHElMvJvtECFUK4wAodDlAIAQ

And a company called "Henge" is showing a TB3 "Tethered" dock with similar I/O capabilities to the OWC dock:

https://hengedocks.com/pages/tethered-docks

So, no. Not so "Crappy" after all, eh?

Hadn't seen that Henge dock until now, very cool. Anything else out/coming soon?

On a side note does anyone know what display that is on this page? https://hengedocks.com/pages/vertical-macbook-pro-2016

 

[chr1s60]

Wonder how much that cost Apple!

If you are implying that Apple paid Consumer Reports off to get a better score, you need to understand how ridiculous that idea is. Consumer Reports entire business and standing in the consumer world relies solely on the fact that they give unbiased reviews. If even one time it came out they were paid of for a review score, it would collapse their entire business reputation. They are a company that reviews in tons of different areas and not tech alone, they aren't going to jeopardize their standing just for Apple.

 

[dapork]

Anyone care to share the rating they give the new MBP 15" vs the last generation?

 

[pickaxe]

Wonder how much that cost Apple!

Apple had a huge bug in shipping hardware, the only reason they caught it (or maybe they already knew about it, and the only reason they fixed it) is Consumer Reports' review.

I personally have had a LOT of bugs with OS X over the past few years. I report all of them. Many get acknowledged, very few actually get fixed.

 

[zen]

"The 13-inch model without a Touch Bar had an average battery life of 18.75 hours, the 13-inch model with a Touch Bar lasted for 15.25 hours on average, and the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar had an average battery life of 17.25 hours."

Uh ??

Yah definitely trusting Consumer Reports.

Clearly CR's "fixed" testing involves running the MacBook Pro in a parallel universe, because there is no way you'd ever get 18 hours (!!!) of battery life in this one.