The problem is only that the modern computer power usage is much more volatile than fuel consumption in a car. It can literally go from sleep to race in a split second. When you are driving, the fluctuations are usually much more regular. With battery consumption, a seldom-used energy-hungry background process can completely mess up your consumption estimates over a given 5 min window.
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macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Removes 'Time Remaining' Battery Life Indicator
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The problem is only that the modern computer power usage is much more volatile than fuel consumption in a car. It can literally go from sleep to race in a split second. When you are driving, the fluctuations are usually much more regular. With battery consumption, a seldom-used energy-hungry background process can completely mess up your consumption estimates over a given 5 min window.
Wow. 
So a features that lets the user get a feel on whether they need to plug in sooner or later on a laptop, will now be disabled because all of a sudden it is giving a bad impression of battery life? for real? what are these guys smoking?
I think users know that it is an estimate based on the current load, that is when we typically bring down the brightness, kill apps, etc to boost that number up until we charge.
But not it is a "useless" feature. Just like Magsafe.
So a features that lets the user get a feel on whether they need to plug in sooner or later on a laptop, will now be disabled because all of a sudden it is giving a bad impression of battery life? for real? what are these guys smoking?
I think users know that it is an estimate based on the current load, that is when we typically bring down the brightness, kill apps, etc to boost that number up until we charge.
But not it is a "useless" feature. Just like Magsafe.
They Promote X Hours of use but that indicator always and all the time I have been using a Mac Laptop (16 Years) has never shown those X Promoted Hours. But rather X - 2 or 4 hours of time...
So they HAD to remove it to cover the lie.
Sure, if you just open the Lid of the Mac Book Pro and dimm down the display to 10% of full capacity, and dont otherwise touch the Lap top, you WILL get that battery life. If you work with the Computer, which is the purpose of buying one, you will NEVER EVER get those promoted times. Never. It is a clear cut lie. And everyone using a MacBook Pro at Apple knows that. Still they promote it, instead of being honest. 4 Hours of Battery life is quite great I think for a device this thin.
For the record, I find Battery Life on any Mac Book Pro to be extraordinary good compared to its size. Really. 2 - 4 hours of use is quite fantastic for a very capable device. iPhones on the other hand since the newer iOS versions have a VERY VERY poor battery life. Cant even go a day without recharging and that with the NEW iPhone 7 Plus...
Only gripe I have with Apple in this regard, is that I dont like being lied to. Come on, 10 hours of Battery life for a computer like this. Their iPhone won't even last that long.... Why should a device 100 times as powerful last longer
Claiming you get 10 hours of Battery life from a Macbook Pro while actually working with it is just as insane as if United Airlines would offer Moon Landings with a 747 Jet !
So they HAD to remove it to cover the lie.
Sure, if you just open the Lid of the Mac Book Pro and dimm down the display to 10% of full capacity, and dont otherwise touch the Lap top, you WILL get that battery life. If you work with the Computer, which is the purpose of buying one, you will NEVER EVER get those promoted times. Never. It is a clear cut lie. And everyone using a MacBook Pro at Apple knows that. Still they promote it, instead of being honest. 4 Hours of Battery life is quite great I think for a device this thin.
For the record, I find Battery Life on any Mac Book Pro to be extraordinary good compared to its size. Really. 2 - 4 hours of use is quite fantastic for a very capable device. iPhones on the other hand since the newer iOS versions have a VERY VERY poor battery life. Cant even go a day without recharging and that with the NEW iPhone 7 Plus...
Only gripe I have with Apple in this regard, is that I dont like being lied to. Come on, 10 hours of Battery life for a computer like this. Their iPhone won't even last that long.... Why should a device 100 times as powerful last longer
Claiming you get 10 hours of Battery life from a Macbook Pro while actually working with it is just as insane as if United Airlines would offer Moon Landings with a 747 Jet !
Mine ran out last year and I'm glade I no more buy Apple crap stuff! nothing work anymore:
* iTunes sync hanging
* iTunes is GUI nightmare
* Music apps force down the throat, barely can see my own music anymore
* no more battery times (this was there since OS X.0 for Cri*** sake)
* Cripple Quicktime X
* OS update that brick devices
* Wireless network woe (this thing was working perfectly fine until X.5 or around that)
* Slow as hell and not yet evergreen retarded Safari (btw Safari is the new IE)
* OS Performance down into the drain, each update after X.6 make devices slower and slower
Seriously, there ain't anything special about Apple anymore and the crap they make. Steve Jobs must be rolling into his tomb to see so much above decent quality product getting out of Apple now a day.
mehhh. and modern cars have stop-start, that doesnt apply on the motorway. they have cylinder-deactivation, that literally shuts off half of the motor for cruising, they have hybrid powertrain and battery regeneration... and yet they all support a 'distance left' estimate. (key word = estimate)
so your computer clock speed and jump up and down? there are overenthusiastic processes that overconsume battery? well yeah, you have the advantage of hours on the charge to smooth out the estimate. you have hundreds of thousands of hours of history to weight the processes to come up with a guess.
we're not asking for the laptop to predict the humidity level of the football field in overland park kansas in jan 12th 2019.... we're asking for a time indicator.
funny enough, with variable clockspeed processors, and diverse mix of software - the exact same condition that exist today - noone had complained about the unreliability of the timer before.
Trust me it's very odd. I've used it for the past 5 years on my Macbook Pro 2011 with no problems for the most part. But it used to say, 2 hours remaining and maybe I got an hour and a half. Now it says 2 hours remaining and I get 6 with the tbMBP. There's definitely something causing it to act up more than usual on the new macbooks.
Yep. Like a digital version of the iPhone 4 band. #BatteryGate
it's an analogy and not an exact 1:1
but I use the time remaining on my laptops as a good barometer of how much life I've got left in time. It's a very useful benchmark and statistic to be able to know that "if i continue operating at current levels, i should expect X amount of battery"
is it exact? of course not. Just like driving, different behaviour changes different results. But it's not useless by any stretch.
And before you say " just use the % left". Percentage left doesn't equate time. Time is a useful measure for predictability. The percentage is not. In order to use a percentage, or Delta of percentage to calculate estimated time left, you would have to do your own timing. Time how long that delta took, then apply it to the rest of the percentage.
this is a silly thing to need to do when it can be done automatically by the very computer system.
Now, the next argument is "But it's wildly innacurate anyways!". First, on my macbook air, it's been fairly good for how I use it. And fairly accurate enough that I've never been caught with no battery life unexpectedly.
second, if the modern implementation is so poor, I would Rather apple spend the resources to fix it, than to just get rid of it.
lol? I'm an apologist cause I'm having it show wildly inaccurate numbers?
In total it died with about 10 hours of real time use, and 25 hours "Time On Battery." While showing 3 hours left estimates the entire time. That's the best proof I can give so I hope it suffices, but then again I'm not living in reality according to you LOL.
Dude, right?! I was just speaking to colleague the other day about Apple's current lineup, and had to reflect on the fact that the conversation could be summized as 'At your own risk'.
WTFF?! I'm definitely 'thinking different' now.
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Perfect analogy.
I will miss this feature "time remaining" on 2015 rMBP as it helped me to then see if there was a background task draining the battery, so I could take the necessary action.
iPhone, iPad and iPod touch have never had this feature though....
iPhone, iPad and iPod touch have never had this feature though....
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Funny how apologists are quick to compare Made in China iPhones and Macbooks with German BMW but selectively forget the fact that BMW for nearly the past two decades do report how many miles you have left.
Simple fix to get the time remaining back, from what I know all you have to do is install Windows 10 and you get it back as well as s first class OS that is light years ahead of Apple when it comes to features like how much battery you have left.
Next macOS will no longer show capacity of SSD or HDD storage you just guess what you have
Next macOS will no longer show capacity of SSD or HDD storage you just guess what you have
Cars do have displays that estimate exactly that...this really isn't rocket science.
I completely agree with you. And its possible that they will bring it back once they have a better algorithm. But I can also understand that given the circumstances, the inaccurate battery estimate was spreading the impression of bad battery life on some Macs, which leads to its own problems. Imagine people returning Macs in bulk because they saw a viral video of someone showing their battery estimate being 3 hours on 100%. It makes sense to disable the problematic feature first, before making a more involved decision what to do later.
This is no different then what Apple has done with the battery %. No matter what the actual battery percentage is when plugged in, the percentage always shows 100%. If you use iStat Menus or other battery monitoring apps, they will show the actual percentage. Right now, OS X shows my battery as 100% yet iStat shows it is 96%. Once the battery drops down to 95%, it will then charge again till it's 100%, yet the OS X battery percentage will never change until I use it on battery power.
Let's all have a moment of honesty... a dynamic timer isn't a useful metric... it's something to pacify gullible people. The % Remaining is a much more useful tool.
Well that is an entirely different issue and does sound like a bug. A bug that should be fixed! Not hidden...
It's like when they disabled reviews for MacOS in the App Store because it got so many bad reviews
The % remaining is useless for determining how much TIME you have left given your current usage...Why is this so hard to fathom?
not exactly sure what you are trying to say here...yes i use activity monitor to see what app uses too much CPU and kill it/delete it. On iOS, its in the battery settings. I didn't say you are using it 'wrong,' just that software is not perfect and can cause issues behind the scenes. I consider it important to know how to fix that stuff so I don't have to rely on someone else.
This thread is about the "time remaining" no longer being shown. No-one has mentioned the removal of the list of "Apps using Significant Energy" because ... that list hasn't been removed.
Lots of cars still don't have that feature.
I've never thought the battery estimate was accurate so I never bothered with it.