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macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Removes 'Time Remaining' Battery Life Indicator

"Customers with poor performance may be using apps that are not optimized for the new MacBook Pro"

Once again, its not Apples fault, its the user and developers fault. :rolleyes:

I can edit video in Adobe Premiere for a good 4 hours on my Lenovo Y700 using just the battery. Whats your excuse Apple?
 
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MacRumors said:



macOS Sierra 10.12.2, released this morning, features several key bug fixes and addresses an issue that has plagued some customers who purchased a new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar -- battery life.

Apple believes that the battery life indicator in macOS Sierra is ultimately inaccurate and has led to some confusion about battery performance, and so it has been removed in macOS Sierra 10.12.2.

batterylifeindicator.jpg

Going forward, the battery icon in the Mac's menu bar will offer a look at remaining battery percentage, but it won't provide estimates on how long the MacBook Pro's battery will last. Here's what Apple said about it to The Loop:MacBook Pro buyers have complained about getting less than 10 hours of battery life, reporting as little as three hours of battery life in some cases, but battery performance can vary significantly based on the apps and processes that are running.

Customers with poor performance may be using apps that are not optimized for the new MacBook Pro, and on the 15-inch machine, if an app engages the discrete GPU, battery life takes a significant hit. For MacBook Pro owners who are seeing bad battery life, it's worth checking the Activity Monitor to make sure the dGPU is not in use.

Spotlight indexing, iCloud photo syncing, and other behind-the-scenes processes can also have an impact on battery life, especially when a machine is new.

According to The Loop, Apple has done extensive battery life testing on the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and continues to stand by its battery life estimates of up to 10 hours. It seems Apple believes reports of bad battery life are largely based on the faulty indicator, but there have been some real world tests that don't rely on the estimate and still show poor performance.

Apple says its new MacBook Pros can get up to 10 hours of battery life when browsing the web or when watching iTunes movies.

Article Link: macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Removes 'Time Remaining' Battery Life Indicator
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That's it Apple - I am done with you. Downgrade to El Capitan first, new macbook order cancelled, moving to google ecosystem! So long Steve, my long time inspiration....did Not realize until today, Apple has died with you!
 
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Time Remaining never made any sense. I turn on MBP, open Safari and have 8 or 9 hours. If I begin to watch streaming video in Chrome, encode video, run multiple spreadsheets in Parallels, or otherwise cause the fans to turn on, I suddenly drop to 3-4 hours left.

If I go back to reading the news in Safari, I suddenly have 8 hours left again. Sometimes it goes as high as a 15 or 19 hour estimate. Great, except it's a BS indicator! I know I'm not getting 15 hours EVER.

It's a worthless indicator unless I am consistently doing only one thing on the computer and never changing that thing.
 
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LordVic said:
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
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Huh, then what about all the people that are getting great battery life with that smaller battery and thus proving Apple claims true? You speak as if every MacBook is affected.

If the smaller battery was the reason for poor battery life, then wouldn't EVERY MacBook pro be getting poor battery life because they ALL have the smaller battery?
 
shareef777 said:
Jesus, this is worse then Samsung's exploding Note7. At least they weren't openly trying to hide a defective product.
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I wouldn't go that far.

Every time I fly, over the PA, they aren't saying "if you have a touchbar mac with horrible battery life, it will NOT be allowed on a plane"

And they definitely did Hide it to an extent. They said they fixed the issue when they didn't and was spun as "we thought we found the issue in the lab but apparently not." Or rushed the recall out the gate. At least they're bricking the remaining 225k units in the wild and stripping functionality with a splash screen and powered down radio.

Why would you hold onto a note7? Risk blowing off your limbs or worse,

That's fanboyism at its finest
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
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.
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Well said.

I'm not ashamed about how much apple products I've purchased nor ashamed about switching from Windows back in the day. But that so many people defend every single thing apple does is too much and it's a bit sad
 
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Pez555 said:
It can't get any worse can it?!
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(sigh) I wish, I could promise you that. :(
Alas, I can't.

What's going on there? Are they too busy with their cars, their new building, too busy gloating at the money?

A tree can die from the inside out. It may look good on the outside, while it is rotting inside. Tim, just in case you miss it, but the core of Apple is rotting away at an ever increasing speed and decisions like this, just make it faster.
 
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WWDC 2017

Tim: We hear your complaints about battery life on the new MacBook Pro. Today, we're introducing macOS 11—a revolutionary new update that has been rebuilt from the ground up to remove multitasking entirely. Now you can enjoy up to 18 hours* of battery life on the new MacBook Pro. Best of all, this update is free for everyone and available this autumn. Only Apple could do this. I'd like everyone to stand up who helped make this possible.


*10 hours of battery life typical
 
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HAHA I love this. Just get rid of the time remaining estimate! Watch everyone lose their minds.

This actually makes a ton of sense. There is no TIME REMAINING on iPhone. This measurement is a snapshot of current use, and is used to estimate the battery left BASED ON CURRENT USE.

But, battery power consumption is not a constant. It varies with use.

Apple is telling us what I've been saying all along-QUIT STARING AT YOUR BATTERY REMAINING AND USE YOUR COMPUTER! LIVE YOUR LIFE!
 
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The optimist in me says they are removing it in order to improve it and re-release... But who knows.

I, for one, found this feature extremely useful because I could close apps and dim brightness until I saw an estimate that I could live with considering my constraints vis a vis plugging in.

In my opinion, it was pretty accurate, and a hell of a lot more accurate than any PC I've ever seen, where they often can say '30 mins left' and then just shut off.
 
I for one never even knew the time remaining existed. To me, seems pretty easy to leave the battery percentage icon up and take a quick glance to see how much battery is left. Don't even have to move the mouse over there and click on the icon.
So what is the big deal about it being gone ? (OBTW, that's a rhetorical question)
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
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.
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Again just excuses. If Apple knows those are the most ideal conditions, should they make that marketing claim or back off of it a bit? If they know it can't be replicated in the "real world," they just set them up for consumer unhappiness by claiming ideals but delivering less.

Key concept here is that we all know Apple CAN build Macs that can last 10 hours in less-than-ideal environments. But what you have here is clashes of "thinner", various negatives related to this new "pro" product, unusual bugs getting out the door, etc such that some see a "MBpro Issue Train- Choo, Choo..." and this is just one more thing on top of all that.

The catalyst for the gripe is not even the battery testing. It's this move to hide a measurement that has been "just fine" for years and years but is suddenly judged inaccurate and deleted right when this issue is PR noisy. It looks like a shyster move and we are relatively unaccustomed to that from the Apple (at least through the long history lens). Make this particular change 6 months ago or 6 months from now and this thread probably doesn't make it 16 pages already today.
 
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Martyimac said:
I for one never even knew the time remaining existed. To me, seems pretty easy to leave the battery percentage icon up and take a quick glance to see how much battery is left. Don't even have to move the mouse over there and click on the icon.
So what is the big deal about it being gone ? (OBTW, that's a rhetorical question)
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Really? o_O you never knew the battery icon was clickable?
 
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Watabou said:
The users complaining in this thread don't get it.

That metric was so useless and inaccurate, just simply opening a new app would drastically change the "time remaining" for some time. So people would open up their favorite apps and then immediately check the "time remaining" and see that they're only expected to get 3 hours of battery life.

Since it was so adaptive, it was highly inaccurate. People can complain Apple is hiding the issue or whatever, but to me, percentage will tell you more about the actual battery life that the machine is expected to get.

EDIT: To users saying they should have tweaked the metric, I would say that the metric would remain be still inaccurate. It's very difficult to actually estimate time remaining (I say this as a software developer). There are certain things you can estimate, but generally, since it's all dependent on the user's actions, it's very difficult to predict what the battery life would be. There's a reason the iPhone doesn't have this metric too.

I think getting rid of the time remaining would actually remove that check having to be done in the background as well.
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What kind of a logic is that? My car's computer tells me my range based on my driving style and it re-calculates dynamically all the time, just like the Mac. If I stomp on the gas and start driving like a lunatic, my range decreases accordingly, and if I behave it goes up again. Should I complain because it keeps changing its mind?
 
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Has anyone noticed that the percentage remaining no longer drops but remains at 100% no matter the battery charge? Mine did that immediately after updating to 10.12.2 today. I've already submitted a bug report to Apple about this.

Screen Shot 2016-12-13 at 2.18.53 PM.png


Screen Shot 2016-12-13 at 2.19.13 PM.png


Not liking this "new" Apple. Seems quality control has been lacking for a while now.
 
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