I've used/worked with and fixed Apple laptops for a long long time and I have never heard anyone complain about having less battery life than Apple quotes in it's specs. If you have a Mac laptop that doesn't get as many hours as Apple says it will (or even more), you are an exception IMO.
Your post is so exaggerated it just reads like a lie. "Significantly less" than 1.5 hours would have to be maybe an hour (or perhaps even less than that) on a battery rated for over 4 hours. So please tell us the details on all these people that got less than an hour out of their PowerBook batteries and how Apple did nothing about it. While your at it point us to the news articles about the outrage that followed, because if it's true then certainly it would have been a colossal deal in the press.
I don't remember hearing or reading anything about it.
Then you weren't paying attention. Not surprising as you apparently aren't paying attention here either. You are specifically talking about the PowerBook. I am specifically talking about the very first revision of the MacBook Pro. Keep up.
Not everything makes it to a class action suit. But, that does not mean that there wasn't an issue.
One thing that was interesting about the MacBook Pro's initial release, is that Apple originally did not publish an expected battery life. So, users were on their own to compare and exchange their observed battery life experiences.
Lots of people reported 30 minutes (and were absolutely shocked and amazed). Those people asked others what they were getting, and found that they were in a minority (although still numerous). The majority of early reporters stated around 1 and a half hours to 2 hours.
Several people reported the best they could get was 3 to 3.5 hours.
And, then a few weeks later (after all the discussions), Apple finally posted their rating of 4.5 hours for the 15-inch and 5.5 hours for the 17-inch.
That absolutely baffled the people since it didn't stand to reason that a larger screen version should outlast the smaller screen version.
I was a level 4 on the Apple Discussions / Support site at the time, so I fielded a lot of questions and participated in a lot of the discussions surrounding this issue (under a different name than I use here).
As for providing you with proof and so on, do a simple search. I was going to provide you with links, but decided against it as I didn't feel like sorting through the massive number that came up. You can search it yourself.
Simply put, do a search, then sort the results by date, then go to the oldest hits first.
As for the other poster's statement about things on forums being out of line quantity wise, that is a common and easy statement to make. The problem, is that forums are about all Apple users have to get things resolved and find their cures. Apple has a nasty habit of refusing to acknowledge that they even know about an issue until it gets to the recall or class action stage.
Take the iMac G5 for example. Many of us had issues that caused the machines to over-heat, some burned / charred internally (like mine), others had capacitors that bulged or leaked. And, many users were told that there was no known issue with those machines. It wasn't until much later (after many of us had finally trashed our computers that Apple finally initiated an extended warranty to cover the very issues they originally denied.
Sometimes the forums are the only place to get support and to make your voice heard. After-all, Apple isn't going to willingly and publicly admit an issue.
Sure, not everyone uses the forums. Many don't. But, when there is a huge number of people reporting an issue, it is probably sufficient to say that it is a wide-spread issue.
After-all, I could just as easily say that just as many happy customers never report their satisfaction, that many people with issues don't jump on the forums to complain either. Lots of people have computers die and have issues with the manufacturer without ever thinking that they should go on the Internet and tell someone about it.
So, the argument works both ways. You can't dismiss an issue just because not everyone participates in the forums. Otherwise, you'd have to consider that for every person who says something nice in the forums that there could be thousands more who are dissatisfied and never get on the Internet to complain about it. Obviously, that argument would be equally short-sighted.
It would be more accurate to say simply that if a large number of people complain about an issue, that it's not likely an isolated incident.
After-all, a whole bunch of people have jumped to Apple's defense claiming that only people with issues make their voice heard on the forums. And, in most of those cases there has been (eventually - many months later) an admission by Apple that there really was a large number of people affected by the issue.
I originally thought as you did that there were not really as many people affected as it appeared (thinking that only those with issues were hanging out on the forums). But, then I began to see every failure they complained of claim my (previously reliable) Apple computer.
Turns out that while I was discounting their claims, it was only that my number hadn't come up yet.
