I can't remember people complaining about the audio jack, SD card slot, or large batteries, and yet...
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macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Removes 'Time Remaining' Battery Life Indicator
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If someone concludes what you say, then that someone is a complete idiot. Apple should not cripple their systems for all its users only because someone cannot use his/her brain (if present at all). If Apple has the ambition to adjust its systems to the most incompetent of its users, I suggest producing two versions of their SW and HW: normal (TM) and idiotic (TM). I am sure Phill's department will come up with a more appealing name for the latter (may I suggest: magic ;-) ).
Since OS X 10.7 (OS X 10.6.8 being the last solid version), every version of OS X/macOS is taking out something I find essential in the name of streamlining / simplifying ( = adjusting to some people's stupidity ). I am really fed up with Apple.
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No. I actually want it to report an estimate based on what I'm doing right now. I don't care that I was compiling something or booting the computer or whatever before, I want to know how much time I have left if I just keep editing this document. Or, I was editing, now I'm running a mix of compilation and testing, and I want to see how much that has shortened the expected life.
I suppose you could make an argument for wanting both a short-term and a long-term estimate, but that starts to get too complicated. The current "last 5 minutes-ish" averaging period seems a good compromise.
You have to click into it to see it and why would you want to wait until 5% to waste another battery cycle? Seeing the estimated time on the bar makes it obvious when your CPU is churning and it jumps from 4/5 hours to 1/2 hours. I'd rather catch it before consuming more battery, especially when not near a charging point. I don't see how the percentage/apps that consume excessive amounts" makes it any better either. It's reactive and not proactive. Like the removal of the MagSafe (a small but amazing feature to save the laptop from flying off the table), that removal of estimated time is the same thing. A small but convenient way of telling you if the CPU is churning much more than you expected in real-time.
You've just told me I have either wait for the pop-up at 5% or do more steps to see what's going on with battery. Regardless of the relevant information still being there, you still haven't told me why it's better than a relatively accurate 'Estimated Time' remaining countdown.
Apple haven't even bothered to replace it with something better. That's what annoys a lot of people also.
When you get the 5% alert it's already too late. For instance when I am on a plane without a power outlet and I wish to work, the remaining time indicator tell's me that if I continue to use the machine the way I am currently using it, I either have or don't have enough battery capacity left for that. In the latter case I adjust my behavior (e.g. dim the display a bit, switch off unnecessary apps, start the app tamer software to suppress most other apps drawing power).
The point is (as always): some people find a feature very useful. Some don't but it's in no way causing them any harm by being present. So, damn, just leave the feature in place!
BTW: The smaller the battery capacity and the more power efficient the CPU when doing almost nothing, the greater impact a more intense use will have on the battery time. Clearly, the insufficient battery due to excessive thinness is the main reason why a (more) inaccurate time-left indications are claimed to be a problem. The true problem is the Apple thin-mania.
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Keeping people in the dark and dumbing them down is a proven way to defuse conflict. Apple sure tries to become the grey men from the 1984 commercial.
Frustrating indeed. Try installing the recent 10.12.2 update, your battery life should improve.
Having said that, from other posts I read and my own inference, it seems wifi access (streaming, cloud syncing, etc) does reduce battery life more than usual. Apple estimated 10h for playing video was based on a file playing in loop on iTunes not streaming.
I'm not claiming that it is any better, what I'm saying is that in my opinion it is not any worse. I don't see how you need to do more steps:
- You click the battery icon in the menu bar -> see energy intensive tasks -> check activity monitor if you are unaware of what is happening
before it was:
- You click the battery icon in the menu bar -> see remaining battery life estimation -> check activity monitor if you are unaware of what is happening
My point is that even if the remaining battery life indicator was still available, you have to actively click on the battery icon in the menubar to gather relevant information (which imo are still there). Tunster claimed that the remaining battery life somehow alerts you, which imo it did not, unless you wait for the 5% warning.
I found that if you were able to save 'Battery.menu' from the previous release you can put the Time remaining indication back in the menu bar.
This is not what Apple intends and will last probably not that long but I am happy I have my indication of remaining time on battery back in the menu bar.
On Osx daily this solution is described in the comments of a news message about this topic.
The result for me now shows:
This is not what Apple intends and will last probably not that long but I am happy I have my indication of remaining time on battery back in the menu bar.
On Osx daily this solution is described in the comments of a news message about this topic.
The result for me now shows:
Nope. The desire is for Apple to fix it. To do it right. Not to bury it and pretend it never happened.
I can imagine though that in the age of sensation-seeking media this can be a significant problem, like people returning complaining about their (otherwise perfectly fine) machines because they misunderstand how the estimate works. If they are indeed getting too many returns because of that, I can somehow understand why they would decide to remove the indicator.
Thats the nature of change, some things are being removed, some things are being added. I can think of many useful features that later OS X have added, but only of few (in fact, none) essential features that they have removed. I do have a 10.6. install on our internal legacy server, so I have a daily side-by-side comparison. In terms of server maintenance, lack of tabs in Finder is probably the most annoying things about 10.6. Stability is so/so, stock apps and admin utilities are crashing periodically (but they also do on later OS X versions). For daily tasks, the 10.6. is a huge regression because it lacks too many convenience features of the stock apps in later releases (e.g. Mail, Notes, Calendar, Safari). Performance is quite bad as well, but its also true that the legacy server is running older hardware, so maybe thats the issue.
Can you not set it up so that the the remaining is what is always shown in the menu bar?
That is certainly how I have it set up in Snow Leopard...
How would you fix it? Modern computers have advanced poor-saving features and they can go from 0 to 100 in a split second. A simple algorithm of taking the current wattage will always perform poorly under these circumstances, because if you open it up when the machine currently happens to index some new files or run some episodic learning stuff in the background, your battery life will appear much less than what it will be in real life. A way to do it right would involve some sort of semi-intelligent learning AI, that studies how you use your computer and makes a prediction. Which is tremendously difficult to do, if not impossible.
That's extra steps to go and proactively check the time remaining regardless of what's going on. So I don't get why you're sticking to that opinion, but I'll always have to agree to disagree. Apple have decided users shouldn't see it until they've reactively seen what's going on in Activity Monitor (or you keep Activity Monitor up - again, another pointless window to have running all the time). That is bad for mobile users who don't have access to power all the time.
They've changed the flow (and steps to get to the time remaining) to suit themselves (Apple) and not the user. Although someone will create a nice taskbar extension to counteract this stupidity, it's these little design choices that will cost them business in the long-run.
I'd like to add a 4th method to the three that have been outlined already.
1. Use Activity Monitor (someone suggested Sys Prefs / Energy Saver but that only shows % for me)
2. Restore battery.menu (http://osxdaily.com/2016/12/13/see-battery-life-remaining-macos-sierra/)
3. Say "it was inaccurate, I fully understand why Apple did this. Percentage is a great way to measure time"
4. I've found an Applescript. I put the Script Editor on the menubar and added the script from the link below
http://applehelpwriter.com/2014/08/25/applescript-make-your-own-battery-health-meter/
1. Use Activity Monitor (someone suggested Sys Prefs / Energy Saver but that only shows % for me)
2. Restore battery.menu (http://osxdaily.com/2016/12/13/see-battery-life-remaining-macos-sierra/)
3. Say "it was inaccurate, I fully understand why Apple did this. Percentage is a great way to measure time"
4. I've found an Applescript. I put the Script Editor on the menubar and added the script from the link below
http://applehelpwriter.com/2014/08/25/applescript-make-your-own-battery-health-meter/
That's fine, but consider that regardless of the solutions to this; it doesn't take away Apple are afraid of exposing their latest laptops with poorer battery life than claimed with really no good explaination.
Or...why not just use the average power consumption over say a moving 5 or 10 minute period? Or even over 15-30 minutes? This is incredibly easy to do...
Here is a link to at least two well-known, respectable professional hardware reviewers that show that the 15" MBP hits the advertised battery life.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-15-Late-2016-2-6-GHz-i7-Notebook-Review.185254.0.html
http://arstechnica.com/video/2016/11/the-2016-13-and-15-inch-touch-bar-macbook-pros-reviewed/
So please, stop spearing the misinformation that Apple is somehow lying about the battery life of these units.
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Thats a good question. I believe that Apple uses a window of a couple of minutes before. It was obviously not working as they have expected. My guess is that they decided to pull it entirely last-minute (also because of the panic that was spreading in the internet). Maybe they will reintroduce it later after some testing.
Also, I doubt that simple averaging would do it. What would the sample interval be? How do you deal with spikes? One should obviously use some sort of smoother, but which one? Its something that actually requires quite some testing...
How? I've been using Macs for as long as the "Time Remaining" feature has been available, and I've found it to be nothing but fairly accurate within a +/- 10% margin. Case in point, running the latest version, I open Activity Monitor and click over to Power, where you can still find the feature buried. Unplug from the wall charger with 100% charge, Monitor says I have 4:06 remaining. At 3:47 the 10% low level warning pops up. That's pretty GD accurate, Monty.
Sorry, there's your party line Apple apologist BS, and then there's reality. Come join us in reality, we have beer and chips.
And integrity.
Cheers.
Are you serious? Just comparing OS X Server with the Server.app tells it all. Let me name a few other things removed/crippled: Spaces, Disk Utility, Podcast Producer, Xgrid, iWeb, Mail (RSS support), etc.
As for stability, I don't remember having issues on OS X 10.6. What I do remember is update to macOS sierra failing (to boot the machine) on a remote server because it's not connected to a monitor (bug filed for more than a month, still not repaired... but we have new emoji! ).
As far as things that were added are concerned, it's mostly eye candy crap. Very few really useful things, at least for me.
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