Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How do you all feel about Apple removing the battery estimator in Mac OS?
- Thread starter Ghost31
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Removing it does not bother me much; not very accurate in my use. I do wish they would give the option to toggle it on and off.
It doesn't bother me at all. To me, the battery percentage has been more accurate than the estimate. Everyone's usage is different. I have a brand new 2016 13" MacBook Pro and my battery is easily lasting 8+ hours.
Smart people like you will no doubt still have easy access to this information, but "regular" users like me rely on the indicator at the top by the battery icon. This move is meant to keep the average user in the dark. No doubt advanced users will download 3rd party apps or look in other built-in locations for this data. Ignorance is bliss for the masses (like me)!
Ok, I'm gonna end this double posting stuff now haha. See my reply in the other thread
Unfortunately most people do not understand that the number is dependent upon what they are doing, their environment, etc.
A scenario. A user reads the display and it shows 6 hours remaining while watching a video they have loaded locally. A friend stops by and they stop the video. The estimate creeps up and up as they chat with their friend. Then the friend leaves and the estimate and it says 9 hours. They turn up the brightness, and stream a new 4k video over a poor wifi. The power consumption increases dramatically. And the user complains to Apple that "my mac said it was going to last for 9 hours but shutdown in an 1 hour. I was not doing anything, just watching a movie".
If Apple is supposed to just say 8, don't forget to make every company *cough Microsoft* that greatly inflates their numbers higher than Apple inflates theirs be truthful too. No double standards with Apple (like so many forums posters have here).
Would be nice. But Apple has recently been great with their battery estimates, ever since the iPad really. The MacBook Airs always outperformed their esitmates (well, from 2010 at least). And this has continued though to today's iPads and other products like the Watch which have way better battery life than listed.
It would be a shame for Apple to start inflating their estimates.
Launchpad> Activity Monitor>Energy.
Or
Finder>Apps>Utility Folder>Activity Monitor>Energy.
Or
Find the little magnifying glass near the upper right of your screen.
Find it? Click it.
Type or dictate "Activity Monitor"
Hit return.
Or
Click Siri and ask her to "open Activity Monitor".
Or
Finder>Apps>Utility Folder>Activity Monitor>Energy.
Or
Find the little magnifying glass near the upper right of your screen.
Find it? Click it.
Type or dictate "Activity Monitor"
Hit return.
Or
Click Siri and ask her to "open Activity Monitor".
If we couldn't make car analogies we wouldn't have anything to talk about
Of course it's not because the estimator was inaccurate. It was perfectly fine.
The problem is noobs that can't read it. They can't open activity monitor to check what's loading their CPU. They can't open energy tab to check if iGPU switched to dGPU. They don't understand how to use the indicator in the first place! If there're less noobs whining about battery estimator showing 3 hours instead of 9 while mds or Photos face recognition demon generates 100% thread load, it'd be so much better....
For me it's just another sad move though. The previous sad move was removing the option to have time remaining always displayed in status bar. Having to click on the battery icon to see it was inconvenient and I switched to iStat Menus instead.
The problem is noobs that can't read it. They can't open activity monitor to check what's loading their CPU. They can't open energy tab to check if iGPU switched to dGPU. They don't understand how to use the indicator in the first place! If there're less noobs whining about battery estimator showing 3 hours instead of 9 while mds or Photos face recognition demon generates 100% thread load, it'd be so much better....
For me it's just another sad move though. The previous sad move was removing the option to have time remaining always displayed in status bar. Having to click on the battery icon to see it was inconvenient and I switched to iStat Menus instead.
Marketing was, it looks terrible. When this just happens to happen after reports flooding the Internet of terrible battery life, it looks like "hey. We aren't going to fix the battery issues. We are just going to make you not know how much battery is remaining!"
More fuel for the anti apple crowd
I feel like they are specifically trolling MacRumors Objectively, the remaining battery indicator was not pulling its weight and I can imagine that it itself was eating up a fair amount of battery (pun intended) while trying to compute an estimate. It is obvious that the vast majority of users don't understand what it did and how it worked. Maybe they will reintroduce it later, once they have tweaked the algorithms a bit, who knows. Personally, I find the charge percentage + list of energy-hungry apps more then sufficient.
That said, I very much agree with Ghost31 that it was a very weird thing to do from the PR perspective. Already the crowd is claiming that this is happening in response to MBP battery criticisms.
Objectively, the remaining battery indicator was not pulling its weight and I can imagine that it itself was eating up a fair amount of battery (pun intended) while trying to compute an estimate. It is obvious that the vast majority of users don't understand what it did and how it worked. Maybe they will reintroduce it later, once they have tweaked the algorithms a bit, who knows. Personally, I find the charge percentage + list of energy-hungry apps more then sufficient. That said, I very much agree with Ghost31 that it was a very weird thing to do from the PR perspective. Already the crowd is claiming that this is happening in response to MBP battery criticisms.
I LOVE this move. I was so sick of hearing the ignorant comment "I only show 3 hours remaining, this is unacceptable for a $XXXX computer." It is a bad estimate period.
Well, the funny thing is that all the published tests I have seen so far show that the 15" MBP easily gets the advertised battery time and that its consistently better than the competition such as Dell XPS 15" and friends. Most of the battery life criticisms I have seen really appeared to rely on the remaining battery estimator.
I think the simplest explanation is that Apple decided to remove the thing simply because its not working properly. Of course, its very likely that the battery criticisms were the trigger. But honestly, if a feature that does not work properly is used to criticise a product, it kind of makes sense to remove it. I wouldn't be surprised though if Apple reintroduces it later, after they improve their estimation algorithms. Could be a neat little AI project for a masters or something
It's about the same as if Harley-Davidson were to remove the air temperature gauge from Electra Glides.
Not quite. Temperatures do not fluctuate wildly, leaving riders completely confused about how hot or not the temp is. Next analogue please.
Well, the funny thing is that all the published tests I have seen so far show that the 15" MBP easily gets the advertised battery time and that its consistently better than the competition such as Dell XPS 15" and friends. Most of the battery life criticisms I have seen really appeared to rely on the remaining battery estimator.
I think the simplest explanation is that Apple decided to remove the thing simply because its not working properly. Of course, its very likely that the battery criticisms were the trigger. But honestly, if a feature that does not work properly is used to criticise a product, it kind of makes sense to remove it. I wouldn't be surprised though if Apple reintroduces it later, after they improve their estimation algorithms. Could be a neat little AI project for a masters or something
That sounds plausible for sure. Keep the complaining down to a minimum by hiding the poor battery life (or perception thereof, but I can attest battery life can be really bad at times for no apparent reason) and then reintroduce the feature when/if it is advantageous for Apple to do so.
Clearly at one point Apple thought this was a good enough "feature" to make it prominent in their OS, so now telling us it is either not useful or accurate is irritating to many users.
Guess I'll be downloading "iStat Menus"...
Examples of how some of the criticisms are overblown can be found in the thread on battery life, e.g. this post: #1530 And there are a lot of like it. Imagine what must be happening at Apple stores. "My MBP is crap, the battery is only 3 hours" — "Oh sir, we are very sorry. So it shuts off after 3 hours of light use?" — "No, I don't know, I didn't time anything, but its just says 3 hours here in the menu" — "Uhm sir, that is just a rough estimate, it can be fairly inaccurate" — "APPLE SUX I DROVE 1000 MILES BATTERYGATE I GO GET A MS SURFACE". Removing the indicator actually forces the user to look at the real battery life and can be a reasonable measure. But yes, its unfortunate situation.
[doublepost=1481683127][/doublepost]
What about the many users who report good battery life and the objective benchmarks performed by industry reviewers that show that the Map easily hits 10 hours on browsing tests?
[doublepost=1481683127][/doublepost]
What about the many users who report good battery life and the objective benchmarks performed by industry reviewers that show that the Map easily hits 10 hours on browsing tests?
That sounds plausible for sure. Keep the complaining down to a minimum by hiding the poor battery life (or perception thereof, but I can attest battery life can be really bad at times for no apparent reason) and then reintroduce the feature when/if it is advantageous for Apple to do so.
Clearly at one point Apple thought this was a good enough "feature" to make it prominent in their OS, so now telling us it is either not useful or accurate is irritating to many users.
Guess I'll be downloading "iStat Menus"...
Download any 3rd party utility you please. Better yet, use the built in % and a watch. The % doesn't fluctuate illogically. It actually goes DOWN over time, not both up and down.
Why would Apple get rid of something that is only a "PERCEPTION" of bad battery life? Simply because it's wrong. I don't jump for joy when my time remaining says 15 hours. It's wrong both favorably and unfavorably. It's only right when you do exactly the same thing until the battery dies. For me, that means 8-10 hours on my normal light usage. YMMV.