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Why I think removing the "time remaining" indicator was a bad idea on apples part.
- Thread starter Noerdy
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I thought Windows removed it as well awhile ago?
I don't remember it on my surface books.
Surface Book has as the runtime prediction, likely do all Window systems, believe that Microsoft depreciated the "waiting for time remaining" Msg. Windows 10 now indicates battery percentage with or without predicted runtime.
Q-6
So you are saying because it is misleading it should be removed? Go back to my miles remaining analogy, are you suggesting that car companies should remove the miles remaining from cars just because it is not 100% accurate?
Solution: 1. Install iStat Menus, or 2. Install Coconut.
This change is right at the absolute bottom of the list of concerns that I have, given that it's something that's easily handled using one of the two options listed above.
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It's only pro in the sense of "pro" when compared to the rest of Apple's laptop lineup.
Compared to MacBook, the MacBook Pro is "Pro".
Apple's use of the "Pro" marketing term has always been a means to differentiate that product from the rest of its lineup.
This change is right at the absolute bottom of the list of concerns that I have, given that it's something that's easily handled using one of the two options listed above.
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It's only pro in the sense of "pro" when compared to the rest of Apple's laptop lineup.
Compared to MacBook, the MacBook Pro is "Pro".
Apple's use of the "Pro" marketing term has always been a means to differentiate that product from the rest of its lineup.
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Exactly. It's a bit disappointing that they are not so powerful, but we cannot blame apple for calling it pro.
The 2016 MacBook Pro, with its smaller battery, has far worse battery life than the 2015 model.
Apple is hence "fixing" the issue by removing the time remaining indicator.
Apple is hence "fixing" the issue by removing the time remaining indicator.
The battery is only marginally smaller, why does it have so much of a difference?
This is deja vu, as there are at least a couple of these threads going around. You and some like you happen to fall into the rational camp and understand how the time remaining is an indicator of what you have been doing the last few minutes. Judging from the battery life thread, this is not the case as a whole. Everyone was freaking out with the highly volatile time remaining stat. I'm not saying there isn't any battery issues, but most of us who understand that the power varies drastically depending on what you're doing seem to be getting good battery life. This new update is also fixing a lot of people's issues. I'm sure Apple was getting annoyed about the dumb comments about bad battery life only using the time remaining indicators. I know I was/am.Hi I'm Noerdy. I'm getting a 15inch 460 in a week or so, and I have been actively reading MacRumors for 6+ years so I thought I would make an account.
So in the latest version of MacOS Sierra 10.12.2, they removed the "time remaining" indicator. More info here. Anyway, we assume they removed this because it was never really accurate, and they must have received a ton of complaints or something.
I have found the time remaining to be somewhat accurate as long as I keep doing the same task I am doing. (Not going from like iTunes to heavy video editing). This (to me and many others) is just apple admitting that the new MacBook pros do not have all day battery life. I am quite worried about just spending thousands of dollars as a college student on a product that does not preform as well as I was told. (not to mention that fact that I do a ton of editing with adobe products, so I hope the GPU does not die on me, like it has for others, but I heard that was "fixed".)
Anyway, to me, the time remaining is like the "miles left" on your car before it runs out of gas. Of course, it is not accurate, but if you continue driving at the same speed, it is somewhat accurate. If you are using your computer, and it says there are 2 hours remaining, and you do not change what you are doing, there should BE two hours remaining. Of course it is rare that we use the same amount of power constantly, so there is some variation.
So yeah, those were just my thoughts on that matter. I hope to become more familiar with this forum in the future, and become a more active member.
I'm sure the very anti-MBP16 crowd figures this is some conspiracy to hide battery issues. It's not a conspiracy, these batteries power up and down based on usage, much more than any previous model. This is simple, the indicator was a bad and inaccurate algorithm. They should have just smoothed it out instead of removing it so that there wasn't something else to bitch about.
Not unlike the MBPs released at the start of a new Intel cycle have presentations slathed in specs, ones at the end are "Raw specs are irrelevant".
I already missed the ease of if when they removed it as an option next to the battery icon. At this point, I could care less about having it, I found it more useful to have the percentage of battery left as I could estimate more easily based on my habits how much time I had left. It's simple guestimate math. If I use 10% of my battery in 30 minutes I have 9 more sessions of 30 minutes, or about 4 and a half hours. (30 minutes * 9 times) / 60 minutes = 4.5 hours. Depending on what I'm doing I might get more or less, the time remaining averages it out and guesses at what you've got left based on the previous 5 - 10 minutes. So I'm web browsing for 90% of my battery cool, I've still got another hour left, now lets play a game. Computer dies in 10 minutes, but it said I had an hour left... It's all Apple's fault. (Throws tantrum) Pretty sure the support team got tired of hearing those calls so the engineers said it's not important. You have to understand, some people take everything for face value and do not understand how their activities affect power consumption.
Oh dang, I had no idea it was that much. I thought it was like an 8% decrease or something.
They announced the thing, but the thing itself is trying to sweep the battery life issues under the rug.
It's especially insulting because the problem had nothing to do with the "estimated time remaining". It had to do with the gap between how long the machine actually ran and Apple's claimed battery life. On the web site. Not the thing in the battery meter.
This is only your interpretation of the problem. If you read the Battery Life thread, there were clearly many people who use the estimated time as gospel and for outrage on battery life. This was only causing confusion. You may be more informed but many (most) are not. Apple sweeping stuff under a rug is a reaching narrative. Sure they aren't angels, but why is the answer always that Apple is conspiring against consumers just to screw them? The time estimate sucked, plain and simple because people were running around claiming that was their battery life. Apple's claimed time is accurate. It always has been for me, and for many others it's much better with the .2 update. I'm sorry your personal experience does not agree with the other data points.
How is it sweeping anything under the rug? You're battery life doesn't change because of that. If you got bad battery life before, you'll still get it now. It wouldn't change that or sweep anything away.
The purpose of the announcement is to try to create the impression that the "battery life problems" with the 2016 MBP consist solely of users being idiots and not knowing how the battery life meter works. And I've seen people here advocating that view. But that makes no sense! If that were the case, we'd have seen similar problems with every previous system. We didn't, not even close.
The new machine appears to be failing to meet Apple's claimed performance. This announcement is a distraction from the actual problem.
Apple exec: Lets remove the battery remaining data and people won't know they are only getting 3 hours
Tim Cook: Brilliant idea, do it!
Apple customer: My MacBook is only getting 3 hours of battery life and I can tell without the battery remaining data
Didn't Apple do something similar several years ago with display properties? If I remember correctly there was a script people could run that would tell them the display manufacturer. People were retuning machines because they got LG instead of Samsung (or was it vice-versa?) so Apple decided to remove the script from running.
Not entirely the same but c'mon man Apple.. Do they really think that by removing the battery remaining data people won't be able to tell how much battery life they are getting?
I don't really care as it's not something I used but still, some people do care and it's removal makes no sense other than to try and mask the issue...
Tim Cook: Brilliant idea, do it!
Apple customer: My MacBook is only getting 3 hours of battery life and I can tell without the battery remaining data
Didn't Apple do something similar several years ago with display properties? If I remember correctly there was a script people could run that would tell them the display manufacturer. People were retuning machines because they got LG instead of Samsung (or was it vice-versa?) so Apple decided to remove the script from running.
Not entirely the same but c'mon man Apple.. Do they really think that by removing the battery remaining data people won't be able to tell how much battery life they are getting?
I don't really care as it's not something I used but still, some people do care and it's removal makes no sense other than to try and mask the issue...
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That would be believable if it wasn't removed at the same time as complaints started coming in about battery life. Since it wasn't I consider it a cynical ploy by Apple to silence those complaints.
Hi I'm Noerdy. I'm getting a 15inch 460 in a week or so, and I have been actively reading MacRumors for 6+ years so I thought I would make an account.
So in the latest version of MacOS Sierra 10.12.2, they removed the "time remaining" indicator. More info here. Anyway, we assume they removed this because it was never really accurate, and they must have received a ton of complaints or something.
I have found the time remaining to be somewhat accurate as long as I keep doing the same task I am doing. (Not going from like iTunes to heavy video editing). This (to me and many others) is just apple admitting that the new MacBook pros do not have all day battery life. I am quite worried about just spending thousands of dollars as a college student on a product that does not preform as well as I was told. (not to mention that fact that I do a ton of editing with adobe products, so I hope the GPU does not die on me, like it has for others, but I heard that was "fixed".)
Anyway, to me, the time remaining is like the "miles left" on your car before it runs out of gas. Of course, it is not accurate, but if you continue driving at the same speed, it is somewhat accurate. If you are using your computer, and it says there are 2 hours remaining, and you do not change what you are doing, there should BE two hours remaining. Of course it is rare that we use the same amount of power constantly, so there is some variation.
So yeah, those were just my thoughts on that matter. I hope to become more familiar with this forum in the future, and become a more active member.
Quite right.
I've heard more than a few commentators, supposed Apple experts, make any number of excuses for this bonehead move of Apple's. Listen to these apologists and one might get the impression Apple was actually doing us a favor in finally removing a feature which was always notoriously inaccurate anyway. Not to mention the suppose improvement in incrementally downsizing OSX into a hybrid of iOS.
Wrong, and no way. I can be quite clear: I very much value and need to know approximately how much battery I have left on this laptop. While perfectly content to refer to the remaining percentage, it is a helpful feature to also be able to refer to that expressed as estimated time.
Moreover this was never much of a mystery for most customers with any experience; we always understood it was by nature a fluctuating estimate. A quite helpful one we had adjusted to through personal experience.
This only became an issue when Apple chose to significantly downsize the battery in the 2016 MBP and retain any functional battery life by optimizing the system towards certain ideal circumstances. Veer very far from that and one will realize the limits of the smaller battery they have.
This is not only a stupid move by Apple but plainly hostile. It papers over a problem of their own making by not just making the obvious a bit less so for their 2016 MBP customers, but in the bargain punishing all other OSX customers unwary enough to 'upgrade' to the latest version.
Personally I can do without any of that. I've long since decided their supposed improvements in hardware and software are often largely not, increasingly so. Thus retaining an older MBP which by design is an expression of the best the could create—and which will indicate the battery time remaining.
Why are you guys so convinced there is some sinister plot? Removing something that is objectively wrong and is causing confusion among the uninformed (most) is somehow an Apple conspiracy? I've done tests, battery life is real. That's the only way you can get an accurate measurement. Why is this so strange or suspicious? It does not hide a MBP with bad battery life, nor does highlight one with good battery life. Interpreting the time remaining as a battery life indicator is simply wrong. Valid complaints are those that run down their battery. Again I refer you to the battery thread. Most people don't do this.
I see these comments as simply anti-Apple for no reason. You can be anti-Apple for a great number of things as I am, but removing a confusing, inaccurate indicator is anti-consumer? WTF? Please find ANYTHING else to bitch about. You're barking up the wrong tree. You should all go back and read what you're writing - some insane hyperbole.
Many are now reporting fixed battery issues with the update. Now you're claiming that this is only because the indicator is gone? Is this a way to keep a battery controversy going? Do a real rundown test and see if the update is a placebo. If you haven't, than you really have no reason to complain that the wrong time indicator is gone or reason for any battery life at all since you don't go unplugged. This sounds like a whole lot of negativity just to be negative.
Well lets see here...
1. MacBooks have always gotten good battery life*
................ *I guess the indicator being wrong in the past was a-ok by Apple?
2. It was removed as soon as battery life complaints surfaced
These new MBP's utilize CPU's and other hardware that speed up and slow down. The indicators are volatile as are the computers themselves. What good does it do to give someone who doesn't understand these things a time indicator. If anything, it's a disservice if they actually go by it and find that they run out of battery sooner. Yes, the indicator is wrong both ways.
Past MBP's did not have this issue to this degree. They weren't "efficiency", multi-speed chips like these. Therefore the algorithm worked more accurately. Come on @raqball, you know these are the facts of how this generation of MBP's are different. I feel as if you are being a contrarian just to keep these threads lively or something, because I know you get this.
I honestly don't care either way if it's there or not.. I can see where some will be upset that it's been removed and I see where some will theorize / speculate as to why it was removed and the timing of it...
If Apple didn't want it there then why was it even included? Apple could have removed it before the new machines even shipped..
If Apple didn't want it there then why was it even included? Apple could have removed it before the new machines even shipped..