macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Removes 'Time Remaining' Battery Life Indicator

[cult hero]

this comment is incredible, i think it speaks volume for the type of pro consumer apple is going for

I guess I'll take that as a compliment since that makes me a pro consumer who doesn't like features that report junk data. The estimates have always sucked. They suck on non-Apple laptops too. If you really want the feature there ar still utilities that provide this very same junk data.

Battery life estimates on machines that fluctuate in use as much as a laptop (or even a tablet or mobile phone) don't give you meaningful information. Can you name a device with varied use that does?

Did Apple do this for the right reason? Probably not. Do the new Pros get less that the advertised battery life? Mine certainly does. With that said:

1. The data was still pointless and misleading.
2. I've seen no shortage of griping over battery life on these forums with users pointing to that number rather than reporting actual time results.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

Wow it took a whopping 52 posts and on to page 3 of comments for the first fan post to appear.
That must be a new record.

I didn't think I was going to find any fan posts in this thread, oh well, I'll admit i was wrong

It's not "fan" to point out that nobody promises x hours of battery life. Any company that makes a laptop always says "up to" the amount they advertise. It's also not "fan" to point out that the time remaining estimates are generally junk. Measuring the load on a battery is not a simple thing with all of the variables that go into it. Personally I would have preferred that they make a more accurate algorithm to display the time left, but battery meters on iPhone don't list time remaining and nobody seems to be losing their mind over that.

Too often the reaction to everything, from the specs on a laptop to the wait time for some headphones, appears to be met with some pretty heavy vitriol in response to slightest amount of negative news. I can see why someone not grabbing a torch and pitchfork to join in might seem like a "fan" post.

 

[Spectrum]

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...

By definition, averaging over a wider time-period will reduce the impact of short spikes of intensive usage. It will result in a more balanced - some would say, more accurate - estimate of the overall battery run time expectancy, but at the expense of being able to see precisely how much battery is being drained at that precise moment in time.

Over prolonged periods of intensive usage, the estimated time will appear to incrementally decrease more the longer you use it - up until the moment it plateaus in line with the higher steady-state usage.

I would think a 15 min average would strike about the right balance. Certainly there is no reason to pull the feature completely! Especially across all the laptop ranges...many of which don't have such power-efficient processors.

 

[Johnny907]

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.
[doublepost=1481718052][/doublepost]

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...

That's nice. They advertised 10 hours for the 13" model as well. The most I've ever gotten? 4:40 something. Web surfing on safari and emailing with the stock app, no videos besides random ads that I quickly shut down, screen brightness set to 70%, nothing running besides Message and stock background processes. So what now, Leman? Who's the liar here: me, or Tim Cook and Jony Ive because I've yet to see them get one of these damn things past 6 hours, let alone 10 under the conditions they described. My 2013 MBP easily skated passed 8 hours under the exact same usage and conditions.
So how about you stop accusing people with a legitimate gripe of "spearing the misinformation" until you yourself can prove them wrong.

 

[ryanwarsaw]

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.

No that isn't the case for me. Before you clicked and checked the battery time, if it was insufficient then you closed apps you know use power or adjust brightness. I have never once used activity monitor before reading this thread. Most of us know what apps use lots of juice and that brightness plays a huge part.

We just want to have a way to at a glance with one click get an estimation of time left. I am not sure why anybody wouldn't understand why some of us don't like a very simple tool to be taken away for no reason. Well no reason assuming Apple isn't just trying to hide battery issues. They are really going out of their way to make it look like that is what they are doing.

You didn't have to use it before and could toggle it on or off. There was no problem of any kind that called for this. In fact when i wasn't sure my RMB battery was good it was useful to use this to see in fact it was just Chrome sucking the juice. It was also useful during time machine back ups because I do them now on battery power on a dongle.

Sure I should be on full power to do this but I was at 70% when I did my first one to set my machine upand could see early on it wouldn't do it. So I was able to abandon the process knowing this early on therefore saving me time to charge the machine when it died and start again because it didn't complete. How do I open activity monitor when I am in the middle of a restore?

 

[mkeeley]

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.
[doublepost=1481718052][/doublepost]

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...

If I had the time to go find them I could put together a much, much longer list of reviews saying the battery life is poor. That includes 9to5 who rarely complain about anything Apple does.

 

[Brammy]

So, has anyone noticed if the battery life on non-2016 models under Sierra is any better?

 

[adamjackson]

You are brilliant! You really are.

No one has ever called me brilliant. LOL.

 

[TMRJIJ]

Fine, let's say chrome sucks. What about the hundreds of other people having issues that don't use it?

On MBP 2016, yes, there is an issue. Apple should look into it. I never said there wasn't a battery problem in the new MacBook Pros but using Google Chrome on any Portable Mac has been knows cost excessive RAM usage and battery drainage.

 

[dilbert99]

It's not "fan" to point out that nobody promises x hours of battery life. Any company that makes a laptop always says "up to" the amount they advertise. It's also not "fan" to point out that the time remaining estimates are generally junk. Measuring the load on a battery is not a simple thing with all of the variables that go into it. Personally I would have preferred that they make a more accurate algorithm to display the time left, but battery meters on iPhone don't list time remaining and nobody seems to be losing their mind over that.

Too often the reaction to everything, from the specs on a laptop to the wait time for some headphones, appears to be met with some pretty heavy vitriol in response to slightest amount of negative news. I can see why someone not grabbing a torch and pitchfork to join in might seem like a "fan" post.

Its not that hard a thing to estimate battery life in time in my opinion. CPU etc varies with usage, I agree, but you know how much power it is consuming at any time. You get to see patterns of usage. Me as a human can tell how long my laptop is going to last. How else can Apple state that you get up to 10 hours surfing, or up to 10 hours Video. That sets expectations of a machine that can do in the vicinity of 10 hours of usage doing a given set of tasks.
If you start to do video editing and you only get 2 hours of use, then Apple has failed to set expectations accordingly.

Its a bit like going to a sale where they say up to 75% off and the median percentage off is 5%, you get a bit hacked off.

I've always found the hours remaining to be in the correct ballpark. (Yes it varies)

 

[MacBH928]

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

This is a joke, yes?
So now you are not supposed to use software unless they specifically optimize it from Apple's MacBook

 

[sracer]

Has it dawned on any of the Apple haters, that removing the indicator so that a proper analysis can be done to hunt down a possible bug (if there is one, and I believe there is) makes it easier for Apple's staff, versus leaving the inaccurate indicator in place, thus causing consumers of said product to get confused and upset, thus (possibly) flooding Apple call centers over said inaccurate indicator?

I'm not an Apple hater, but that makes no sense to me. Has Apple ever made a change to the OS that visibly affects ALL USERS for the purposes of identifying the POSSIBILITY of a problem with a "HANDFUL" of units of one particular device?

IF the indicator is inaccurate (I don't agree with that premise) then why is the inaccuracy such a problem now? All of these years with Macbooks, Macbook Pros, Macbook Airs, retina Macbooks... millions of units over a decade... and NOW it is causing consumers to get confused? There have always been complaints about battery life on Macbooks, some justified, others not.

I have found the "time remaining" indicator to be quite accurate... but then again I understand what that number represents. It simply indicates how much time remains given the current load on the system. If the load changes, then the time is recalculated. I have found that to be extremely helpful in adjusting my workload when out and about on a long day. I'm going to miss it.

It's like those real-time MPG calculations in automobile smart dashboards. Smash your foot down on the accelerator and watch the MPGs drop like a rock. Coast down a hill and watch the number rise. I remember coasting down from Twin Peaks, California and the MPG calculator on my Jeep registered 78 MPG. LOL

I am perplexed as to why whenever Apple removes something many people see it as a GOOD thing.

 

[peter2]

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.

Guess what: on OS X 10.6. you could choose to display the time remaining directly in the battery icon (I don't remember which version of OS X removed this, but I remember being pissed of about it when they did remove it. The current removal of the feature altogether is just a second step of Apple's progressing stupidity).

 

[definitive]

"Mr. Cook, the customers have figured out that the new MacBook Pro's have very poor battery life, what do we do?"
"Oh farts! Quick! Disable the 'time remaining' section in the battery life indicator! That will teach them!"
"Bravo, Mr. Cook! A 'genius' solution! You're so 'brave!'"

 

[leman]

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, etc.

Dunno, I kind of prefer the new Spaces. Can't say that I am missing anything from Disk Utility, it can do all it could do before (at least things I care about) and the new interface is much more clean. The rest of the tools were situational and I guess that it made sense to remove some them. Take Xgrid, a nice concept in theory, but there are much better standard open-source tools that work seamlessly with OS X. We also got some new things, like a free office suite, FaceTime, Messages (which are great for productivity, for screen sharing) etc.

The Server app is a regression, but we also got a very flexible command line interface now which I think is better than the old version. Its still very much in development though.

As for stability, I don't remember having issues on OS X 10.6.

Lucky you. Basically all stock apps were unusable for me until Mavericks or so. Mail didn't work with gmail, Safari was crashing, Calendar was a mess.

As far as things that were added are concerned, it's mostly eye candy crap. Very few really useful things, at least for me.

There is also quite a bit of power-user stuff. Like scripting with JavaScript, the AI features, new diagnostic tools etc. And then just some nice to have stuff like phone integration.

 

[deany]

will there be a 3rd party addon in the mac store?
I see a market for this if apple allowed it.

No addon in the mac store, but a dongle is on the pipeline.

Only $ 79.99 + free shipping.

LOL funniest post on MR

 

[Tunster]

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.

Controlled tests will always differ with real-life usage. There's plenty of the opposite reported in the tech media...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/macbook-pro-users-complain-poor-battery-life/
https://www.extremetech.com/computi...k-pro-touch-bar-massive-battery-life-problems

The suspicious thing is Apple have said there are no issues with the batteries in the latest line of laptops, but then go and remove something that no-one had ever made a major complaint about related to problem they've stated non-existent. Common sense says think of it as Apple maybe trying to cover up potential software issues that are more complex to fix (and not admit it). Or we're all very sensitive and paranoid based on Apple's recent choices.

I'd go with the former based on the past Apple-gate problems. Difference is, Steve Jobs used to come out and ultimately defend the issue and still offer an alternative for nothing. Tim Cook? Can't see him anywhere.

 

[peter2]

Dunno, I kind of prefer the new Spaces.

For start, the space number is not displayed in the menu bar & I never know know which space I am currently on (important if you switch to some other space and want to come back to the original space via a shortcut containing the number of the space). Also, the non-grid layout of Mission Control is much less usable (e.g. for re-arranging windows between spaces or just general overview).

Can't say that I am missing anything from Disk Utility, it can do all it could do before (at least things I care about) and the new interface is much more clean.

Raid management is gone on El Capitan (it's back on Sierra but you can't [officially] put Sierra on an xServe). If I am not mistaken burning capability is missing too. Anyway, the old Disk utility was perfectly clean / logical / intuitive to use. Now it's just more fancy.

The rest of the tools were situational and I guess that it made sense to remove some them. Take Xgrid, a nice concept in theory, but there are much better standard open-source tools that work seamlessly with OS X. We also got some new things, like a free office suite, FaceTime, Messages (which are great for productivity, for screen sharing) etc.

Well, if you argue by existence of better and standard tools, there are better and more standard tools for the things you named (messengers, office suite, screen sharing). Why not remove the Apple ones in this specific case, and remove them in other cases?

The Server app is a regression, but we also got a very flexible command line interface now which I think is better than the old version. Its still very much in development though.

The server app is a joke. It might be in development, but that means it should not be on production system while the development is actually done at least to the point of previous version's functionality.

Lucky you. Basically all stock apps were unusable for me until Mavericks or so. Mail didn't work with gmail, Safari was crashing, Calendar was a mess.

Never had problem with any of those. And we have 15+ macs at work and my family has quite a few at home.

There is also quite a bit of power-user stuff. Like scripting with JavaScript, the AI features, new diagnostic tools etc. And then just some nice to have stuff like phone integration.

I am not saying nothing good was added, just the overall ratio gained/taken away is, in my opinion, rather poor. Speaking of phone integration: I think it used to be superior: you could synchronize your contacts/calendar with (almost) ANY phone via iSync, you could send sms directly from address book just by right-clicking a phone number. The only relevant thing added (while the former things were taken away) is the ability to make/receive iPhone calls (which you could do before using 3rd party apps and not being restricted to iPhone).

 

[rickyipcw]

Oh I see.... They want to make battery indicator a dongle too.

 

[jujufreeze]

*Advertise 10 hours of battery life
*Reports indicate far less than that
*Remove time indicator on all Macs

How is this not an onion report

 

[unclemax]

Muh Activity Monitor…

 

[jetho]

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.

How are that extra steps in your scenario of intensive CPU task in the background? I'm not suggesting going to activity monitor to get an estimation of battery life, but to see what's going on in the background.
I assume that if you previously noticed some low time estimation, you would also check what's draining your battery in the activity monitor.

 

[MrX8503]

So if people were doing what you said Apple could explain to them how the battery life estimate works rather than remove the feature that is useful to many people (despite its "inaccuracy").

I think Apple made the right call in removing it. It didn't work and was misleading.

I am not updating my MacBook - I use this all the time. While it is not accurate, I can get a sense for how much longer I can use the machine.

A Mac is NOT like an iOS device - with those (my iPad Pro) I have a pretty good idea that it will last me the entire day since they use ARM processors and run (mostly) 1 thing at a time. There's no anxiety when using them. However, with a Mac - I have to be vigilant if I want to make it through an entire day without plugging in and the battery time estimate helps me gauge where I am going.

Frankly, even my Android phone (haven't used iOS on a phone in a while) will tell me how much time it thinks I have left - which is handy to see if I can make it 'til I get home or the next time I plan on charging it.

This is really stupid.

I think it's silly that people ever thought battery time estimates were accurate. You think your computer can predict the future? Why doesn't your car tell you how many miles you have left? Your computer usage and driving WILL change over time.

That's why we have gauges that tell you a single point in the present time.

 

[jujufreeze]

Muh Activity Monitor…

Still available, just hidden. Good beer.

 

[LordVic]

I think Apple made the right call in removing it. It didn't work and was misleading.



I think it's silly that people ever thought battery time estimates were accurate. You think your computer can predict the future? Why doesn't your car tell you how many miles you have left? Your computer usage and driving WILL change over time.

That's why we have gauges that tell you a single point in the present time.

Lots of more modern cars DO tell you how many miles/kilometres you have left. Same basic principle as the battery life remaining in time. This is a known estimate based on current usage levels.