Why I think removing the "time remaining" indicator was a bad idea on apples part.

[dilutedq]

If you're committed enough to ignoring the difference in the quantity of complaints that you'd need "evidence", I am pretty sure that we could present a signed listing of the complaints, notarized by God, and you still wouldn't believe it, so why should I bother?



I've been using it for a decade, and it's been quite good at predicting battery life under normal circumstances, and has worked as well as every other battery life estimate. Which is to say, it will obviously fail if you change workloads a lot, but that's fine. It still works.

But the key thing here is: "It wasn't before". So why didn't they take it out at any time during the previous decade? Why did that suddenly become a problem that required correction now, when it wasn't a problem at all in the past?

For years, Apple's fans (me among them) said "of course it's not perfect, it's an estimate, but if you know how estimates work, it's very useful". Now they take it out, and suddenly it was always awful and was never good, and they absolutely made things better by taking it out now. But they shouldn't have removed it ten years ago, or any time between then and now.

The fact that they removed it is irrelevant to what you perceive as "battery issues" because they feature is still there in activity monitor, and it doesn't change actual battery life so people who had problems before will still have problems now. Keep ignoring the logic though.

You can't make a claim on the quantity of complaints and say it's worse because you feel it's worse and have that be a fact. That's not how things work. Unless you can quantify it with actual numbers in some way it's not a fact, it's a feeling which is open to being called ******** if you can't provide actual numbers.

 

[Noerdy]

Thanks guys for all the answers.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

Your iPhone doesn't have time remaining. Apple is just trying to unify the experience.

You mean like how the MB Pro has a headphone jack and the iPhone...oh, wait a minute.

 

[0388279]

Hello All,

I own a late 2016 MBP15 (2.9 GHz, 1TB, 460). Like many owners, I too am concerned about battery life. However, I have developed the impression that the battery life indicator is not being interpreted correctly.

For example, after a full charge and light usage (Safari, Outlook, Mail, Message) Battery Health 1.3 will show somewhere between 6 - 11 watts and a battery life of 10 plus hours for full charge. I should also mention at this point that remaining battery life shown on Battery Health 1.3 appears to be identical to that show on the Activity application.

Today, I was doing some heavy Photoshop work for an hour or so. I checked Battery Health. Power consumption rate 17 watts, battery life was 2.5 hours, with 82% remaining.

After I closed Photoshop, power consumption rate fell to 8 watts but the battery time left still about 2.5 hours with 82% remaining. Usage was light as described above.

I then allowed the laptop to set like this for another 30 minutes, power consumption fluctuated between 6 - 11 watts. But here is what happened. Over the 30 minute period Battery Health steadily showed an increase in time remaining eventually getting all the way 7:20 minutes with 80% left on the charge. If I divide this by 0.8, the total time the laptop could run given the current state was about 9 hours ten minutes

How should we interpret the time remaining results. Like many of you I thought that the battery life remaining was an instantaneous calculation based on current rate of power consumption. This is not correct. The battery life calculation is based on averaging over significant period of time. The averaging time period is unknown.

So my question "Was Apple Correct to Remove the Time Remaining Indicator?". Originally, I thought no. But since so many (including myself initially) were improperly interpreting the results I am beginning to think they were correct to remove this indicator from such a prominent location. Information can still be found in the Activity application.

I would like to here the thoughts of others

Happy New Year,

Donald Barar

 

[Nik]

No.

 

[BenTrovato]

Well they couldn't get it right so they removed it. But they better solve the issue and put it back asap.

 

[Gav2k]

Yes they were. It's never been and can never be accurate.

 

[therealseebs]

Given that I've never seen anyone suggest that it be removed prior to the 2016 MBP having weird battery life issues, and in particular, having inconsistent battery life? No, I think they should have figured out and fixed the actual problem, not pretended it was all to do with the estimate.

I've used Macs for years, I've used those estimates for years, and they've been pretty good. They were never 100% accurate, no one ever thought they were 100% accurate, and they worked fine. I don't think I ever saw a real complaint about them.

 

[Mr Invisible]

I don't think they should have removed it. At least we still have the Activity Monitor to fall back on.

This would have made a good poll actually.

 

[ntnskrds]

I don't think they were right to remove it. They should document it better, they should explain it. I used it like you suggest (as an estimate of current power consumption) and I found it was very useful and quite accurate at that. Perhaps they should replace it with just this: a current power draw reading with the estimated time parenthesized.