Phil Schiller: Apple Working With Consumer Reports to Understand MacBook Pro Battery Test

This is kinda how I imagine Apple "working with" Consumer Reports

Rick+mayall+-+Bottom+-+Spirit+of+England+-+Peter+Crawford.JPG


Consumer Reports being the guys in the stools and Apple having placed the mouse traps right next to their wedding tackles.


....I'm even kinda sad that I trust Consumer Reports over this and not Apple
 
MacRumors said:



Yesterday Consumer Reports revealed that Apple's 2016 MacBook Pro became the first MacBook to fail to achieve a recommendation due to inconsistent battery life. Apple SVP Phil Schiller today tweeted that the Cupertino company is working with Consumer Reports to understand the battery tests.

macbookpromodelssideview-800x405.jpg

"Working with [Consumer Reports] to understand their battery tests, " Schiller tweeted. "Results do not match our extensive lab tests or field data." Apple claims its internal testing has seen the new MacBook Pro providing up to 10 hours of battery life when watching iTunes movies or browsing the web.

​

Consumer Reports' test has come under scrutiny since publication of the non-recommendation. The tests were conducted by opening a series of 10 web pages sequentially on Safari. This tests' inconsistency had the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar registering 16 hours, 12.75 hours and 3.75 hours of battery life. A 15-inch MacBook Pro ranged from 18.5 hours to 8 hours of battery life.

When Consumer Reports tried the test with Chrome rather than Safari, it found consistently high battery life. "For this exercise, we ran two trials on each of the laptops, and found battery life to be consistently high on all six runs," the report said. Consumer Reports did not think it was enough data to draw a conclusion, though they also point out their test results only take default browsers into consideration.

Critics, like iMore's Rene Ritchie, argue that inconsistent test results require more testing to ferret out whether the issue is easily fixable, like a Safari glitch. Consumer Reports noted in its report that if Apple issues a software update that it claims will fix battery life inconsistency, they will conduct fresh tests.

Article Link: Phil Schiller: Apple Working With Consumer Reports to Understand MacBook Pro Battery Test
Click to expand...
I think the MBP is going in the wrong direction. I purchased the entry level 13", sans touch bar, and I'm satisfied with it but man is it way overpriced. I got it through B&H in NY so there was no sales tax which took a bit of the sting out, but still. I was coming from a mid 2009 MBP so it was a significant upgrade for me. If I had last year's MBP, I wouldn't have upgraded. I am glad I passed on the touch bar model. It's useless and gimmicky. After seeing it in person, the colors look really cloudy/ faded too - I'm guessing because of that matte finish they put over it. OLED colors are supposed to pop, but not the touch bar's colors. Fail.
 
Paul Dawkins said:
Even if it is more efficient it is still pennies compared to how much smaller the battery is. You can't optimise to save 25 watt hours.
Click to expand...

I did address that point at the end of my post. Perhaps not clearly enough.

For some tasks you can. Even CR's tests show that on some runs it was doing as well or better then the old model. Having read the thread in the forum, the same appears to be true.

However, I don't believe efficiency improvements can mitigate the 1/3 (13") or 1/4 (15") drop in battery capacity across the board.

I suspect Apple have based their battery capacity decision on mainstream tasks such as browsing/word processing/etc. For those sorts of tasks I believe (once the SW issues are resolved, NB I'm deducing they are SW issues) the 2016 will be in the ballpark of the 2015.

In other instances YMMV. There's probably enough info out there on the CPU/GPU/etc for people to make an educated guess where the drop in capacity will really hit home. I haven't seen any objective metrics on the Screen/SSD in terms of efficiency improvements, so those area's remain an unknown. I would make an educated guess the screen is quite a bit more efficient, as otherwise its unlikely the 2016 could get close to the 2015 for general browsing.

It will of course all come out in the wash sooner or later.

My main concern is where the battery degrades, as those tasks where there aren't significant efficiency improvements, will be hit even further.
 
Last edited:
Paul Dawkins said:
I've been browsing this forum for a few years and even if i saw few promising figures everyones bias surfaces eventually.
Click to expand...
And companies manipulate numbers for marketing purposes.

In which case what I suggest is buy the product and decide for yourself.

I ordered a 2015 refurbished and brand new 2016 two days sort and conducting my own tests based on my user scenarios . From my experience the 2016 does indeed have a battery problem and it's not far from what apple reduced the battery by. To achieve apples 10 hour battery life I need to turn down the settings and effectively use the machine in its Efficiency sweet spot, that for me is not a realistic user journey, but yeah battery life can be achieved as stated.
 
How can someone like Scott Forstall get fired for Maps not being up to par on release and not the same happen to whoever messed up this release of the 2016 Macbooo Pro?
 
bobob said:
One need only observe the tsunami of trolls that have flooded our own MacRumors forums over the past couple of years to realize that for every person that has actually purchased a new MBP, there are a hundred more merely pretending to own one in order to falsely reinforce their malicious arguments.
Click to expand...
Can you post a link to this proof please or is it just drivel?
[doublepost=1482584798][/doublepost]
Paul Dawkins said:
You don't know those members just like you don't know the people who did this test if they were paid, simply stupid or just biased.

If someone started filtering this member data using a scientific method it would probably turn out to be a complete rubbish almost every time.
Click to expand...
Likewise you don't know the people at Apple. But I can tell you that they are paid, some are stupid and all are biased.
 
MH01 said:
And companies manipulate numbers for marketing purposes.

In which case what I suggest is buy the product and decide for yourself.

I ordered a 2015 refurbished and brand new 2016 two days sort and conducting my own tests based on my user scenarios . From my experience the 2016 does indeed have a battery problem and it's not far from what apple reduced the battery by. To achieve apples 10 hour battery life I need to turn down the settings and effectively use the machine in its Efficiency sweet spot, that for me is not a realistic user journey, but yeah battery life can be achieved as stated.
Click to expand...

I also have 2015 model, but can't say it is much better than 2016 model if at all. My average is ~7 hours of video and web browsing.
[doublepost=1482584883][/doublepost]
H2SO4 said:
Can you post a link to this proof please or is it just drivel?
[doublepost=1482584798][/doublepost]
Likewise you don't know the people at Apple. But I can tell you that they are paid, some are stupid and all are biased.
Click to expand...
Oh ... good for you.
[doublepost=1482585035][/doublepost]
MrGuder said:
How can someone like Scott Forstall get fired for Maps not being up to par on release and not the same happen to whoever messed up this release of the 2016 Macbooo Pro?
Click to expand...
No one knows the real reason he was asked to leave.
 
Rogifan said:
Yes actually. On the latest Macbreak Weekly he said since Apple chose to turn the Mac into an appliance it's on Apple to make sure it's properly updated with the latest technology (referring to the Mac Pro and mini here). Funny though that people who are routinely negative on Apple (like pretty much everyone who posts here and the whole of the tech world outside of Rene) don't get the same level of criticism. Of course it's easier to call Ritchie a fanboy and apologist than refute his arguments with facts, reason and logic.
Click to expand...
What a stupid post. How ca the people here get the same level of criticism? Two reasons;
Most aren’t schills.
We aren’t so called journos with websites to respond over.

Ritchie does not always respond with reasoned arguments, seldom in fact. I do and have seen it done.
[doublepost=1482585541][/doublepost]
Firebrand said:
But people are buying?!!
Click to expand...
People bought VWs. They still do. They were full of it too.
 
maflynn said:
Given that so many people have reported less then stellar results, why couldn't Apple have uncovered this before rolling it out?
Click to expand...

Apple's website states that their battery life tests were run on preproduction units. Consumer Reports uses units bought at retail. That's one major difference.

Both Apple and CR test with reduced brightness, using canned website pages from dedicated servers for consistency. So that's similar.

In addition to a possible Safari bug, I wonder if there might be a bug in how the laptop reports being fully charged. Perhaps in the sequence of tests that CR did, it's only partway charged, less and less each time. Just a thought. Except the Chrome test results would seem to negate that idea, unless they were done differently.
 
H2SO4 said:
What a stupid post. How ca the people here get the same level of criticism? Two reasons;
Most aren’t schills.
We aren’t so called journos with websites to respond over.

Ritchie does not always respond with reasoned arguments, seldom in fact. I do and have seen it done.
[doublepost=1482585541][/doublepost]
People bought VWs. They still do. They were full of it too.
Click to expand...
It's a very good car.
 
MacRumors said:



Yesterday Consumer Reports revealed that Apple's 2016 MacBook Pro became the first MacBook to fail to achieve a recommendation due to inconsistent battery life. Apple SVP Phil Schiller today tweeted that the Cupertino company is working with Consumer Reports to understand the battery tests.

macbookpromodelssideview-800x405.jpg

"Working with [Consumer Reports] to understand their battery tests, " Schiller tweeted. "Results do not match our extensive lab tests or field data." Apple claims its internal testing has seen the new MacBook Pro providing up to 10 hours of battery life when watching iTunes movies or browsing the web.

​

Consumer Reports' test has come under scrutiny since publication of the non-recommendation. The tests were conducted by opening a series of 10 web pages sequentially on Safari. This tests' inconsistency had the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar registering 16 hours, 12.75 hours and 3.75 hours of battery life. A 15-inch MacBook Pro ranged from 18.5 hours to 8 hours of battery life.

When Consumer Reports tried the test with Chrome rather than Safari, it found consistently high battery life. "For this exercise, we ran two trials on each of the laptops, and found battery life to be consistently high on all six runs," the report said. Consumer Reports did not think it was enough data to draw a conclusion, though they also point out their test results only take default browsers into consideration.

Critics, like iMore's Rene Ritchie, argue that inconsistent test results require more testing to ferret out whether the issue is easily fixable, like a Safari glitch. Consumer Reports noted in its report that if Apple issues a software update that it claims will fix battery life inconsistency, they will conduct fresh tests.

Article Link: Phil Schiller: Apple Working With Consumer Reports to Understand MacBook Pro Battery Test
Click to expand...
Profit by all means also means less focus on the product. It may work for some time, but in the long run the customer can't be fooled.
 
phil must've been like, "but we removed the battery indicator, it didn't improve the battery life?"

apple needs a staff and management change bigtime for macs
 
Apple trying to understand.... how they f@*$#d up? Or, how CR got it sooo wrong?
[doublepost=1482586147][/doublepost]This is what happens when you are worrying about watches, cars, and your very own Amazon Alexa. I knew it was doom when they removed "Computer" from their name. Honestly, computers are the last thing on their business minds.
[doublepost=1482586273][/doublepost]And battery life is a FEATURE. Apple doesn't want us working too hard for too long. This is clearly be design. In other news, wait till you see how thin the NEXT iteration of the MBP is!!!!
 
Honestly, in this case I have zero empathy for Apple. What they released is a product that disappointed a lot of their customers (me included) and they should get some harsh feedback. I know some deluded people here on this board put it off as "whining", but I know for a fact that many people are very uncertain whether they will buy another MBP, again including me. It's a real shame, mainly because of OS X which offered a unique compromise between UNIX and proprietary support, but I will deal with it eventually.

In case they want professionals (and I mean professionals that actually work with their computers beyond clicking around in a few apps) to stay, something brutal needs to happen at Apple. I need to hear something a little more promising than "We've some great things for mac in our infamous pipeline!". It's just not enough.
 
Apple compromised when they decided shaving a few mm from the machine (and thus using smaller batteries) was more important than improving battery life on a pro machine.

CR not recommending the new Macs might just be the kick in the arse Apple needed to do something about battery life.
 
furi0usbee said:
Apple trying to understand.... how they f@*$#d up? Or, how CR got it sooo wrong?
[doublepost=1482586147][/doublepost]This is what happens when you are worrying about watches, cars, and your very own Amazon Alexa. I knew it was doom when they removed "Computer" from their name. Honestly, computers are the last thing on their business minds.
[doublepost=1482586273][/doublepost]And battery life is a FEATURE. Apple doesn't want us working too hard for too long. This is clearly be design. In other news, wait till you see how thin the NEXT iteration of the MBP is!!!!
Click to expand...

Everything Apple is today is because of Mac. I don't know why they are doing this. "Don't worry we have great Mac products in our roadmap" - rubbish.
 
Alas, if only CR would prioritize "thinner" over all else too. But I guess they foolishly take the word "consumer" much too seriously. Everybody knows that it's corporation, then shareholders, then corporate partners, etc. ALL stacked up above lowly consumers. CR needs to get with the times: they're "measuring it wrong." ;)

Note: CR usually keeps it's testing approaches the same for years and years. Past Macs have done very well... just this Mac seems to have a problem. Was Apple wanting to "work with CR" in the past when all was fine? Of course not. Instead CR is only "wrong" when the review is unfavorable... like the patent system is broken when some patent is working against Apple... or analysts or our fellow consumers are only wrong when they have some negative comment about Apple.

How can the test/patent/analysis/consumer opinion be right when it's favorable to Apple but wrong when it's not?

Personally, I (too) see CR as a gold standard of objective testing. They rate something well and I believe them. I've very rarely been disappointed with trusting their ratings. I think the main issue for Apple is that CR seems to put function over form, consumer utility above marketing spin points like "thinner" that pretty much nobody (outside of Apple HQ) wants... especially if increasingly thinner comes at the cost of having to jettison useful consumer utility to make room for "thinner."

Thin enough. THIN ENOUGH! How about a few years of prioritizing function over form? I'd welcome prior "thin" bodies (which were perfectly thin enough IMO) if the recovered space could be used for more consumer utility. 5 seconds of marketing spin "thinnest _______ ever" is getting more and more "expensive" every year.
 
Last edited:
I wonder if it's possible Apple would issue customers a rebate check down the road if they purchased a 2016 MacBook Pro and they can't fix this issue, like $50.00 or $75.00 for example. Sort of like a goodwill gesture.
 
bobob said:
CR was the gold standard.

Actually, the organization used to be highly credible, but it's not so much anymore. A change of leadership a few years ago brought an end to the credibility of its recommendations, which today are sometimes based on political correctness or on what management wishes were so. In 2013 its entire editorial division was eliminated. By 2015, most real journalists had left, and experienced staff had been forced out. This is the outfit that highly recommended the Samsung top-loading HE washer -- the one that rips clothing to shreds, disgorges sheets that don't even get wet (to say nothing of clean), and explodes. If you're looking for assessments of consumer products, you're better off studying the user reviews on Amazon. http://www.alternet.org/media/... and https://www.quackwatch.org/03H...​
Click to expand...

I agree. And their latest MBP battery life report drives this home.

I have no doubt their testers came up with battery life numbers such as 12 hours, 16 hours, 18 1/2 hours, and 19 1/2 hours during their MBP real-life usage battery tests.

But where was their internal review and management oversight, or even editorial curiosity, that should have caused them to say, "Hold on a minute, how can those numbers possibly be real? We need to examine our test protocols and especially our procedures to understand why in some cases we're getting results that better Apple's published maximum real-life usage number by almost 100%."
 
Naimfan said:
While on some level that's true, an even stronger argument is that everything Apple is today is because of the iPod, which led directly to the iPhone et al.
Click to expand...

That was my path back in 2005. iPod(s) -> Mac mini(s) -> iMac(s) -> MBP(s) -> iPhone(s) -> iPad(s) -> Apple TV(s) ... I've owned just about every "revolutionary" Apple product. And MOST were revolutionary, but now they company has so much money it really doesn't need to innovate much.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Back
Top