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Tests Find OS X Mountain Lion May Significantly Degrade Notebook Battery Life

SeaFox said:
Isn't that what testing is for? This isn't like when Microsoft releases a new OS and it has to work on literally hundreds of different makes and models of PCs. Over the months of testing of Snow Lion are you saying that nobody reported lower than normal battery life on their notebooks?
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Mountain Lion
 
Must only be affecting newer notebooks. My original unibody MacBook seems to have better battery life.
 
I did post about this before all this stuff came out. My 2012 macbook pro has been struggling with battery life. Even when I close the lid it depletes readily. :mad:
 
My Mac had terrible battery life when I first upgraded to ML. I did a clean install a few days ago and it's lasting much longer than it was previous to that. I'm not sure whether it's better or worse than it was on Lion now. I think slightly worse, but not by much.
 
BRLawyer said:
True words. Despite ML being a total disaster, Windows notebooks are a POS when it comes to battery life (well, when it comes to anything, really).
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That's not true. My Samsung Series 7 17.3" has 6+ hours with WiFi on and with bright screen settings. None of my MacBook Pros have ever lasted more than 4 hours, even after getting new batteries and turning the brighness down. So stop the smug arrogance, Apple is not the only one who can build decent laptops.
 
BAD battery use....

Well, just to throw in my two-pennies, my MBP battery is getting hammered by ML. I can use it on battery-only for probably 3-3.5 hours now down from 6.5 . What's really a pain is when I'm finished, turn everything off -all apps - network - the whole lot and 'log off' with 100% battery, when I wake up the MBP , the battery is usually at 75-80%....

WTF?
 
I still have absolutely no battery problem with Mountain Lion on my 2012 Air, upgraded directly from Lion. I get over eight hours of use.
 
8 hours?

My MBPr with 16GB/768GB SSD tops max. 5 hours in "normal use mode", meaning with Bluetooth and WiFi on and normal screen brightness. I use the gfxCardStatus for dynamic switching. I am what I consider a normal office user basically the Office package.
8 hours sounds like heaven to me...
 
Steve Jobs Didn't Allow This To Happen.

I have to take blame for this. You see, I flew to Cupertino a couple months ago, and subdued the guards on 1 Infinite Loop with my 20 years of Jiu Jitsu experience, after training with Bruce Lee. No, he wasn't teaching me, I was his sensei.

After walking into the Dev room, I was immediately trusted by the software team, as I was dressed like a pirate, under the moniker "Captain DJ PoopyPants". The guys and 3 girls were hardcore stressing about this battery controller whatchacallit, and I was like, "Dudes and 3 girls, just. don't. worry. about. it... Let's go cheef for a few minutes, and then we'll totally forget there was a problem in the first place, and then the Mac Fairy will come down and fix all of our problems, no problem, bada-bing, happy times for everyone."

After 3 hours, we were totally baked, and forgot there was an issue to begin with. The software team just went on to the next set of bug fixes, and moved on.

The moral of the story, kids, is don't ever trust the Mac Fairy. She's a lazy jerk, and a liar. She totally said she'd take care of it. Steve Jobs wouldn't have allowed us to put anything in the hands of the Mac Fairy, He totally got burned when she brought in John Sculley.

In short, I'm really sorry you guys, and um, this is...all true... :apple:
 
SeaFox said:
Isn't that what testing is for? This isn't like when Microsoft releases a new OS and it has to work on literally hundreds of different makes and models of PCs. Over the months of testing of Snow Lion are you saying that nobody reported lower than normal battery life on their notebooks?
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If they did, we would have seen it on here. They change a few pixels on an icon and it gets reported here within minutes of the dev preview going live. Something like a 40% decrease in battery life (about what I'm seeing) would have been big news.
 
Raftysworld said:
It's pretty sad that you would defame Steve's character so soon after his death. You should be ashamed of yourself.
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You sure did not read Job's bio, did you?

Btw the previous poster did not "defame" anyone! He just told what every normal working person knows: people do mistakes! There's nothing bad about that (as long as you learn from them - Apple did and does!).
 
This seems like an obvious issue that should have been addressed before release.

This is why I waited until Lion 10.7.4 before I upgraded from Snow Leopard (which is still faster). I won't run Mountain Lion on my test drive until at least 10.8.3.

I remember a time when Apple would release solid operating systems. But then again maybe we're holding our laptops the wrong way
 
east85 said:
10.8 actually INCREASED my average battery life.
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I have to concur, both my MBA and MBP show slight improvements..I'm guessing the issue is far more prominent with the rMBP's screen demanding more juice. Can't see how they are going to fix that one...You pay a heavy price for retina. The managed it with the ipad3 only due to a larger higher capacity battery.
 
anonymouslurker said:
That's entirely not true. There are SEVERAL things that can be done at an OS level (or, low-level code *in* the OS) that can affect actual current draw.
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We're not talking about current draw... we're talking about degradation. As in the battery actually losing capacity, not just losing charge.
 
problem found here. i upgraded to ML on the very first day. it has been over more than a week now, i released my 2012 MBA's battery capacity has dropped from 100% to 95% instantly after the upgrade. at first i thought it was just battery fluctuation, but i dont think so since i did a few calibration a few days ago... sigh...
 
I have not noticed any change at all with my rMBP battery life. I do feel that OSX Mountain Lion runs much slower on it than Lion. No idea why.
 
HiRez said:
Good example of why you never install OS X 10.X.0
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Completely agree, I did this with Snow Leopard and had some issues with file sharing that took several updates to fix. I waited until 10.7.2 for Lion and probably will do the same with Mountain Lion.

I would consider a public beta a good idea. Heck I would even partition a external drive for it just to test. Until then I will not be a early adopter for apple products (except iPhone, I'm a sucker for those)
 
battery life

I'm also experiencing reduced battery life. From 100% to 58% in 1 1/2 hrs usage. Mid- 2011 MBA.
 
lifeinhd said:
We're not talking about current draw... we're talking about degradation. As in the battery actually losing capacity, not just losing charge.
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There is nothing that firmware/software can do to make a battery lose capacity, only make it draw more or less current at any given time.

Capacity is defined by battery chemistry/size, and will degrade over time because of the efficiency of the chemical reactions, but absolutely can not be affected by code.
 
Upgraded Macbook Pro 13" to Mountain Lion (as opposed to clean install which I did with Lion). Currently using the MBP tethered to the PSU/Charger as I am down to 3+ hours on a full charge. I charged the battery to full capacity and left the laptop unused for 12 hours, and percentage went down from 100% to somewhere in the forties, screen closed in sleep mode, and mine doesn't even qualify for PowerNap.

I have the original firmware and may revert to it to see what happens when I have a bit more time.
 
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