macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Removes 'Time Remaining' Battery Life Indicator

[jkichline]

I have to say... this is a dumb move. I understand that long running background processes (iCloud syncing giving me the "bird") and apps like Chrome and Flash will reduce battery life. It's obvious. But now I won't know how long I have until the battery is depleted. This was nice to let me know how quickly I needed to finish something or get to a wall outlet. It let me prioritize my time.

Now, not so much. Dumb move really. Just show people the Activity Monitor and what's sucking battery.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

As you said: go take a look at the website and see for yourself. Do read the foot notes as well because the last one specifically tells you how they measured it plus warns you that battery life varies by use and configuration. Anyone who spends a few seconds thinking about how a computer works would have thought of all this by himself without having Apple to explain it to them.

You left out some much bigger print statements. Does only fine print count? If big print doesn't count, why don't they change those references to 100 hours or 1000 hours?

You're defending a corporation over your fellow consumers for what exactly? What do you get? If it's you and you've sunk a couple thousand dollars into some product not made by Apple because of some marketing claims and you are not getting the benefits you expected, does other consumers saying "read the fine print" (but ignore the big print) make it OK by you?

 

[LordVic]

when I read the news, the only thing that came to mind:


"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO ****? HAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAH"

 

[Fran6cojL]

whoa! first we all held it wrong.

Now - that 20 something year old estimator is completely inaccurate?

hahaha

 

[zaaach48]

If you believe that, you're perfect for this forum these days.

LOL right?! he is right where he belongs. misinformed and making assumptions!

Almost like he didn't even check to see if Apple actually manufactures the batteries

 

[nordique]

This is stupid. Imo.

I loved that time remaining indicator, apple removing it for these obvious reasons is just stupid

 

[SuprUsrStan]

First you take away the option to show the hours in the bar and you make us click on it to see the remaining time.

Now you take away the remaining time even if we click on it.

Perhaps Apple will make us hold option when we click to see the remaining time?

 

[ANDJOE]

Everyone needs to calm down. Recognize your own hyperbole.

I don't think this is a matter of Apple making missteps as much as our expectations that are growing.

10 years ago I had one Apple product, a computer, that I used for 2 hours a day. Now I have 6 Apple products that I interact with on and off all day long.

The relationship we have with technology is becoming more complex and our expectations are growing accordingly.

 

[Apple_Robert]

What do you read in Apple's marketing on the Apple site?

Or are you splitting hairs here with the definition of "guarantee"?

Apple makes a strong suggestion that one can get "up to 10 hours" with wireless web browsing usage. Your fellow consumers are saying they can't seem to get 10 hours. They could be collectively lying as you would probably believe (I'm guessing) or Apple could be clinging to the nice marketing number of 10 with the wiggle room to hide behind the "up to" portion.

So no, they do not make a guarantee. But they sure spin it such that their consumers seem likely to expect it. If those consumers realize a little less than the spin, they probably write it off to puffery. But if it's a fair amount less, they may voice frustration. Are they wrong to do so? Apparently.

Apple did their testing in a antiseptic type lab setting which, in my opinion, is not indicative of normal day to day consumer usage. If I wish to buy the new Mac ( which I have done) and use it under the same exact circumstances as Apple did at the time, I may get up to 10 hours of use on said Mac. As a consumer of said product, and one that does not use said Mac under the exact parameters, I do not expect to get 10 hours of usage out of my Mac. If I am able to get 10 hours during a charge outside of the testing environment, then I see it as a win for me, and one that can possibly speak to the strength of said product.

 

[moderngamenewb]

This sounds like something right out of a SNL skit or the SNL weekend update LOL

 

[macduke]

You really need to check out Dell XPS and even Microsoft's Surface Pro

New XPS still not as good looking but WAY better than the last XPS I bought in 2005. I wouldn't be ashamed to own one as long as it doesn't suck. Had back luck with Dell back in the day though.

 

[thadoggfather]

The real question is, will 10.12.3 magically restore this functionality as easy as 1 2 (dot) 3

Also was this apparent on 10.12.2 betas or is it a GM "one last thing" surprise?

 

[StayPuft]

"Up to" is not promising anything

You peeps are silly.

 

[macfacts]

MacRumors is going to explode...

"This wouldn't happen if Jobs were here"

(Except for that time they "recalibrated" the signal bars for the iPhone 4 because they "realised" we'd been seeing the wrong signal strength all along..."

No one expects any company to be perfect but as time goes on, people expect Apple to be constantly improving. Not making the same mistakes again and again.

 

[zaaach48]

whoa! first we all held it wrong.

Now - that 20 something year old estimator is completely inaccurate?

hahaha

yea i doubt anyone has even TOUCHED that code in the last 20 years

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Then you should be angry at battery manufacturers, not Apple.

oh my gosh. Redirection???

Where did you come out on Samsung's phone meltdowns? Samsung's fault or the battery manufacturers?

How hard some of us will work- apparently for free- to spin anything negative off of Apple by any means we can conjure.

Apple does many things great. But when they don't, we are not obligated to defend them every single time. Apple can actually learn from mistakes... but they can't if consumers claim they are always right in all things.

"You're holding it wrong" is a classic mistake. When the crowd didn't correct themselves (in how they held it) such that the mistake got louder, Apple actually was moved to do something tangible about it. And phone developed after that one did not retain the issue (or non-issue depending on your point of view) in how they were designed.

 

[kingtj]

I don't know about that? Every Windows laptop I've used for something like the last 20 years has attempted to provide estimated battery run-time remaining. Were they ever really completely accurate? No... not really. But they give you some guidelines that say, "If you keeping doing exactly what you're doing now with this machine, you'll be able to use it for about this much longer before the battery runs out." That has some value to it.

It sounds to me like people who don't understand what's going on were misinterpreting what the time remaining indicator really meant on a Mac, and complaining when it wasn't showing close to the "10 hours" Apple bragged about. So rather than educate people, Apple just got lazy and removed the feature.

Everyone needs to calm down. Recognize your own hyperbole.

I don't think this is a matter of Apple making missteps as much as our expectations that are growing.

10 years ago I had one Apple product, a computer, that I used for 2 hours a day. Now I have 6 Apple products that I interact with on and off all day long.

The relationship we have with technology is becoming more complex and our expectations are growing accordingly.

 

[thadoggfather]

One could argue it's furthering the iOSificaton of mac, since iOS / iPhone os never offered a time estimate, ever. Rather short sighted even if that's the vision in this case doe

And if anything I think it would be cool to have time estimate in iOS, even if not prominent and buried in settings app like time stats since last charge instead

 

[adrianlondon]

I think it's been hinted at, but not said outright (although this is a fast-moving thread!) ...

The Activity Monitor still shows the estimated time remaining.

 

[bingeciren]

Can you imagine if they removed the fuel indicator on a car, because you complained weren't getting enough MPG as reported.

I know people hate car analogies here, but I loved this one

 

[thadoggfather]

I think it's been hinted at, but not said outright (although this is a fast-moving thread!) ...

The Activity Monitor still shows the estimated time remaining.

For now (if true I didn't know that, interesting)

 

[bbzzz]

Its true though that the time left indicator is wrong because it only count on the things the users are doing at the moment when looking at it. I have that it showed 9 hours first after full charge and some safari browsing, then if i did a task for like 10 minutes that used dGPU instead it was showing 3 hours, but after done with that and continued to only do safari i got those 8-9 hours anyway.

That's why it was exactly right, it showed current trend (time left, absolute accuracy not important) not past use (how much you used so far is not very helpful). I tend to do the same thing for a long time (editing) so the prediction was about right and very valuable to judge giving up and finding power vs completing a job

When it jumps you get to know what you did that causes it and can quickly notice if some app or page in safari you aren't looking at is eating cpu and go stop it before you see you lost 50%.

It may not be right for everyone, if it isn't you had the option of switching to just battery %, now the rest of us lost a useful option.

Many are saying IOS is the same, that doesn't make it right. Antennagate is also mentioned, I have mine set to signal level instead as that is more useful, you get to know what level is needed for decent data and can easily see the slight change in positions that fix poor reception which you can't discern by just looking at the bars.

Everything is data driven now, don't spoil it by hiding the data

The new macbook pros don't have a big enough battery no matter where you hide, 12h was a good minimum for a working day, would have replaced the Air with one if it had at least equivalent run time. Would have been happier thicker for more life too, things are thin enough already and all the dongles add more weight/get lost.

 

[magicschoolbus]

You can't even troll this.

We're being trolled back!

 

[LordVic]

Then you should be angry at battery manufacturers, not Apple. The only way we will get to the point that you don't have to think about it is when someone develops new battery hardware that can hold so many hours of charge (i'm thinking 20-30+) that you almost never have to think about plugging in.

Until then, all computer companies can do is optimize their software. It's like cars...SHOULD we be running off of cleaner, more efficient energy sources? sure! but is the technology truly there yet, and are the powers that be willing to embrace it? nope

what apologetic nonsense

the entire industry is dealing with the same battery tech.

Other companies have decided that given the restrictions of battery technology as it exists today, they will keep devices thicker, and provide the reasonable battery life estimates.

Apple on the other hand has decided that to lose 3mm of thickness, on a "pro" laptop, they could reduce battery size and power and everything will be OK!

It's one thing to be efficient, But being efficient doesn't help you if the underlying technology and how you implement it is fundamentally flawed. And in this case, it was apple's implementation of the battery by making it thinner that is flawed.


It's like inventing a solar panel thats supper efficient, if it only receives redlight. Then blaming the sun and atmosphere for only letting in bluelight.

if you implement something that has a fundamental limitation and you ignore that, then its on you, not the thing that creates the fundamental limitation

 

[zaaach48]

Apple did their testing in a antiseptic type lab setting which, in my opinion, is not indicative of normal day to day consumer usage. If I wish to buy the new Mac ( which I have done) and use it under the same exact circumstances as Apple did at the time, I may get up to 10 hours of use on said Mac. As a consumer of said product, and one that does not use said Mac under the exact parameters, I do not expect to get 10 hours of usage out of my Mac. If I am able to get 10 hours during a charge outside of the testing environment, then I see it as a win for me, and one that can possibly speak to the strength of said product.

But thats how testing works. You test in a controlled environment so that you can get an accurate, reproducible result based on reasonable conditions. Of course it's the best case scenario and may not be realistic for a lot of users. People need to understand this...did no one go to science class?

There are literally billions of configurations users could be running and they cannot test for every single one. The guy who runs Pro Tools will get less battery life than the guy who checks his email. They can't say "well lets see how THIS mac runs with just google chrome installed, and let's see how THIS mac runs with lightroom installed, and let's see how THIS mac runs with MS Office installed...." They would never finish the testing!