Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Removes 'Time Remaining' Battery Life Indicator
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Good riddance. The estimation always fluctuates to a point that it's basically useless anyway—and it's been junk for a long time. I've always just gone by the percentage. That's at least a real number with some tangible meaning. (Who can rely on a number that can jump hours during normal use? It was NEVER reliable.)
So yeah, I guess I should be outraged they removed something that never worked right and realistically can't ever be accurate but something that CAN lead to customer confusion. Uhhh... okay. Outraged? I guess? Or something.
It wasn't even precise to the hour. It was all over the place. If anything, the complaining should be directed at the fact that this was ever even a thing. Unless they were keeping long-term metrics on power usage by the user and, even then, the moment you do something out of the ordinary that drains power things get all messy.
Except my parents, my grandparents, and my kids. But hey, only the technologically literate should be able to use computers, right? (I don't use it.) Fun fact: if you don't use it, you can disable it.
With all that said, I haven't managed to get that much life out of my machine. 7-8 is more realistic. My Air, during "normal" use, was pretty close to Apple's estimate. They can stand by their numbers all they want, but their numbers are grossly optimistic and not particularly realistic.
So yeah, I guess I should be outraged they removed something that never worked right and realistically can't ever be accurate but something that CAN lead to customer confusion. Uhhh... okay. Outraged? I guess? Or something.
It wasn't even precise to the hour. It was all over the place. If anything, the complaining should be directed at the fact that this was ever even a thing. Unless they were keeping long-term metrics on power usage by the user and, even then, the moment you do something out of the ordinary that drains power things get all messy.
Except my parents, my grandparents, and my kids. But hey, only the technologically literate should be able to use computers, right? (I don't use it.) Fun fact: if you don't use it, you can disable it.
With all that said, I haven't managed to get that much life out of my machine. 7-8 is more realistic. My Air, during "normal" use, was pretty close to Apple's estimate. They can stand by their numbers all they want, but their numbers are grossly optimistic and not particularly realistic.
Don't disagree with that. I don't personally find the stats particularly useful, I know others love them.
Can someone just fire everyone at Apple and start over from 2011 forward.
Please folks, please, do not complain of anything else... it will be removed!!!
Oh look, Tim Cook removed another feature ...
I always liked being able to look and see what was 'estimated' if I needed to adjust what I was doing to make the battery last longer I would. Of course different applications effected drain. From what I noticed this was never removed in the beta versions, which really makes this more dubious on Apples part.
Now Apple just has to remove the System Overview to fix the 16GB RAM limit on the new MBP's. See, hardware can be changed via a software patch 
To be fair, that's not quite the same... It's more like they removed the "distance until empty" estimate rather that the actual fuel gauge.
And, to all those who keep saying it's inaccurate, it isn't that bad. It's an instant estimate of the remaining time if your usage continues in the exact same manner as right now. Going back to our car analogy, it would be like the instant fuel economy estimate as opposed to the average. Right now, you may be getting XX MPG but only if you continue driving in the exact same way will you actually get that. The fault lies with people who make wrong assumptions and don't understand that.
Last edited:
If you don't see it, it isn't a problem. I think that is what they are going for; Odd move, but understandable, I suppose.
I can go on several more miles past the 'Miles to Go' indicator. Just like I can use my MacBook for 2 more hours past the '2 hours time remaining' estimation.
all of these apologists, is anyone else saddened by this new direction of apple? this is the same as saying "time doesn't exist!" when your delivery is late or something
If we complain about a person (not specific to anyone particular, be it CEO, or dumb engineers suggestion) will they be removed too?
People have been bitching about battery life since the dawn of time...in my years of Apple support, i've always been able to find a process or app that is the culprit. But it is much easier to blame someone else
I think people could tolerate the little foibles and missteps here and there because we knew that Apple was about providing the best UX.
Now, it just seems like the interns are running the show and the execs are counting the days until they're vested in their stock options.
It's horrendously clear that visionary leadership has left the company. Time for some new blood.
Now, it just seems like the interns are running the show and the execs are counting the days until they're vested in their stock options.
It's horrendously clear that visionary leadership has left the company. Time for some new blood.
Last edited:
The percentage indicator is next. Pretty soon it will just show a static battery icon and say "You should charge soon.".
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.
Saying goodbye to a feature that has been in MacOS a long time. Although it wasn't always accurate, it was still nice to have an estimated best case/light use battery life.
Although I would be very surprised if my iBook G4 still holds almost 3 hours of charge!
Although I would be very surprised if my iBook G4 still holds almost 3 hours of charge!