
Apple removing battery life estimates following MacBook Pro complaints - zeitg3ist
https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/13/why-apple-is-removing-time-remaining-battery-life-estimates-macbook-pro/
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KirinDave
Yeah, having both a new gen Surface book and a new MBP, the difference is
stark for CPU and I/O intensive tasks. With battery saver on, the Surface Book
can easily last 6-8 hours of use.

To get that far with my MBP I'd need to essentially disable the screen,
disable all backgrounding, turn off incremental compiles, and try to be
careful about using my clojure repl. You immediately stop using Chrome
(despite being a better overall browser) and go to the inferior Safari for
battery life, etc.

The tradeoff is that the MBP compiles about 10-15% faster, but as it only
lives about 1/2-2/3 as long on a single charge it is not worth it to me.

~~~
youdounderstand
To be fair, SurfaceBook has a 15W TDP dual core CPU.

~~~
KirinDave
"To be fair" if I can observe at most a 10-15% difference on my primary CPU+IO
bottleneck _with power consumption on_ then I do not care much about the
specifics of the underlying hardware.

Ironically, the only thing my MBP is better at is gaming.

~~~
caconym_
Your personal workflow isn't really a generally applicable benchmark, and if
Apple had gone with the 15W TDP processor people would just have more
ammunition for the "it's not pro enough" argument.

The Surface Book is probably a better choice for you, though. My workflow
sounds pretty similar to yours (maybe not quite as heavy a background load,
though I do some incremental compiling and whatnot), and I have the mid-spec
12" Macbook which routinely gives me 10+ hours of programming and web browsing
(I use Opera with the adblocker and battery saver turned on). I simply didn't
need more power; this little machine handles everything I throw at it. I think
a lot of people fetishize computing power to the detriment of their own
convenience.

~~~
KirinDave
> Your personal workflow isn't really a generally applicable benchmark,

On the contrary, I think many developers here would be interested in the
actual difference observed as opposed to benchmarked. My workflow is unusual
in the wider world, but compiling Clojure, running webpack, compiling Android
executables with Gradle, and running ocaml's compiler are all somewhat unique
to this sphere. I feel comfortable talking about it.

> I think a lot of people fetishize computing power to the detriment of their
> own convenience.

I agree with this. That's why I think my surface book is a good compromise. A
nice medium of a lot of things, acceptable speed at standard tasks with
excellent battery life, a touch laptop for when touch-centric work and
usability arises, and for my eyes the nicest screen shipped on a laptop right
now.

------
WildUtah
They keep shrinking the battery to make the machine thinner. Nobody but their
internal design team appears to care that the box is getting any thinner than
it is already.

But the days of 10 hour batter time are over. Regular use on Macbooks is now
around five hours and will continue to fall in future versions.

~~~
DoodleBuggy
They'll probably switch to ARM soon. The "pro" user need not apply.

~~~
heywire
I have to say, I owned a Samsung ARM chromebook (which I promptly wiped and
installed Linux on), and it was great. Fanless, and the battery outlasted me.
Performance left a bit to be desired, however, but this was an older ARM chip
too.

------
cwisecarver
I honestly wish they'd focus on battery tech instead of whiz-bang features
like the touchbar.

Just accept that you're not going to make a touchscreen Mac. Accept it. That's
fine. I don't want one anyway.

Give me a quad-core newish processor with 32GB of RAM, the fastest SSD that I
can imagine, and ten hours of battery life.

If a 15" laptop weights between 2 and 3.5 lbs I don't care. I'm carrying it in
a backpack 99% of the time. I'm not going to notice the difference. I will
notice the difference when it stops working because my 2.257lb laptop stopped
working after 2hrs because it's thin and light.

~~~
stevefeinstein
It's not a zero sum game.

------
DoodleBuggy
So basically in response to reports of lackluster battery life on the smaller
battery equipped 2016 MacBook Pro, they remove the time remaining indicator?
LOL!

It wasn't an issue for 16 years, but now it's a problem? Does anyone buy that?

~~~
zaphoyd
The time estimates make an assumption that you can use a small sample of
energy usage and project it linearly over the remaining battery capacity.

This assumption breaks down on modern processors that get much of their energy
efficiency by non-linear usage techniques such as race to sleep, adjusting cpu
clocks for workflow, coalescing interrupts, etc.

Additionally, modern OSes are doing more small random background tasks that
are invisible to the user. A machine that is temporarily using a lot of CPU to
perform a cloud sync or face detection on some new photos will report that at
this level of energy usage you might not have much time left, when in reality
the background operation is likely to end shortly and battery life estimates
might spike up in 5 minutes.

A user seeing a 3 hour estimate (that is probably wrong per the reasons above)
when they are doing nothing that seems energy intensive and concluding that
their machine is broken is the problem that Apple is trying to solve here.

Might there be a better way of communicating the energy effect of background
tasks on battery to users? Probably, but a single number time remaining is
going to be a very hard way to do that (basically asking software to predict
the future). The battery life graph over time found in activity monitor is
much better.

Something else that would help, and would fit into Apple's MO of moving iOS
features to macOS would be a method of allowing users to enter a low power
mode that would forgo face detection and spotlight indexing temporarily in
favor of more consistent battery life. If it could do this for network usage
when I say I am on a slow or metered connection that would be super helpful
too.

~~~
KirinDave
> This assumption breaks down on modern processors that get much of their
> energy efficiency by non-linear usage techniques such as race to sleep,
> adjusting cpu clocks for workflow, coalescing interrupts, etc.

But uh, my Surface Book's battery indicator is pretty accurate.

This is about changing the estimate to bring it in line with the rest of the
industry being a PR disaster. Removing it entirely is esoterica.

~~~
tedunangst
Windows seems to have more hysteresis or longer sampling period on their
estimates. I can light the CPU up, and battery won't drop from eight hours to
two until it's been that way for a while.

~~~
zaphoyd
A longer sampling period could certainly be a potential solution. It could
also cause a different sort of user confusion. If I start up a game, play for
a few minutes and then worry about battery life and go check.. If I still see
8 hours I'm seeing the wrong info and may make a decision to keep playing that
I will regret in two hours.

I still think something like the battery over time graph is a better solution
than a single number with so many assumptions built in that are opaque to the
end user. The graph can express "you've not been using a lot of power but
whatever you started recently has caused it to drop a lot faster."

------
themagician
I don't have one of the new ones (yet), and maybe it's just me, but I find the
battery life to be completely bananas for the few week or so after a
reinstall. Even more so today with iCloud. The amount of background
downloading and indexing for iDrive, iCloud, Photos, etc. is bananas for the
first week. I recently re-installed on my older MacBook Air and the battery
life was like 1.5-4 hours for the first week or so. Now it seems back to the
normal range.

I wonder how people are really testing the battery life on these? It seems the
only fair way to do it is not log into anything.

Maybe what macOS really needs is a system preference like, "Disable background
tasks when running on battery."

~~~
dimfeld
This fits with what I've seen. Got the new 15" a few weeks ago, and
transferred my old system over to it. Battery life was 5 hours at best,
usually less (actual usage, not estimated). But then just a day or two ago I'm
suddenly getting 8-9 hours with no problem, no change in usage or
applications. I don't have much data in iCloud either, as far as I know.

If it is related to background indexing, I'm surprised that there doesn't seem
to be much visibility into it. None of the Activity Monitor tabs or tools such
as htop revealed any particular heavy CPU/disk usage to which I could
attribute the poor battery life.

~~~
eric_h
I've noticed mds (the spotlight indexer) will occasionally, and randomly peg
one or more cores on my machine. It seems to come in fits and starts, but it's
definitely a battery hog when it's running.

------
guitarbill
I thought having some way of knowing "how long can I keep doing the thing I'm
currently doing" is basic functionality you'd expect in a laptop (or any
powered device, phone, camera, gps/navigation, etc.)

~~~
alyandon
It is basic functionality until it results in bad PR for Apple. :-D

Seriously though, it's pretty insulting to their users to think that removing
a basic feature like this is somehow going to change the perceptions about the
battery life of the 2016 MBP.

~~~
jimmaswell
When's the last time Apple introduced a useful feature instead of removing
one?

------
throwaway420
I almost feel sorry for Apple. Almost.

I think the MacBook Pro actually looks like a better than average machine
despite some of the issues.

But they squandered all of their goodwill through years of neglect. If they
had a normal release schedule, many more people would be willing to give them
a pass about the dongles and the battery or touchbar issues or low Max RAM or
anything else that's been annoying people.

------
leggomylibro
It's easy to scoff at the timing, but as someone who's had laptops with
Nvidia's optimus tech for the past 5-6 years, I can understand why. When you
spin up the discrete GPU, even a weak mobile chipset, you can easily halve
your battery life. If Apple hasn't quite perfected the decision around when to
switch between the integrated and discrete GPUs, then that estimate won't seem
very accurate to the average user. Watching youtube/netflix may or may not
wake up the beefier GPU depending on how busy the machine is at the time, that
sort of thing.

Personally, I'm starting to think that discrete GPUs are a bit overkill in
laptops these days. More and more, I'm finding that modern integrated chipsets
are up to the task of basic 3D modeling and graphical programming; the Linux
Mesa drivers are even starting to support OpenGL 4.x and Vulkan.

~~~
mikeash
I think this just makes the estimate _more_ important. When your estimated
remaining time goes from 6 hours to 3 hours when you fire up a YouTube video,
you'll immediately understand that you've started doing something that will
greatly impact your battery life.

------
wlesieutre
Does anyone make a USB-C battery pack that can put out enough power to sustain
the new MBPs during use? IMO that's going to be the fix for Apple's thinness
fetish, a return to the days of replaceable batteries except now they're
external.

Carry as large / as many batteries as you need, and if you're going somewhere
with an outlet you get the benefits of thin/light.

~~~
CharlesW
Yep, here's a bunch.

[http://www.macworld.com/article/3028132/consumer-
electronics...](http://www.macworld.com/article/3028132/consumer-
electronics/best-usb-c-battery-pack-review.html)

~~~
wlesieutre
That article's geared toward the 12" MacBook, which uses a 29W power brick.
MacBook Pro is either 61W (13") or 87W (15"). I'm not sure that any of these
are up to the task yet.

Granted you don't need to match the power brick unless you want to run the
computer at full load while also charging its battery, but I don't know what
the requirement is for the computer's max steady-state power draw.

Going to wait for a similar article written for the MBP.

EDIT: Added benefit, they're generic USB batteries and will charge your phone,
tablet, eReader, headphones, and whatever else you've got. All things
considered, I prefer this scenario to the directly replacable laptop battery,
since you no longer have to use the laptop as a passthrough to charge other
USB things.

------
millzlane
Reminds me of when they stopped calling the powerpc Macbooks 'Laptops' and
started calling them 'portables' everywhere. To avoid customers placing the
hot griddles into their laps.

~~~
canuckintime
The change was from 'laptops' to 'notebooks' iirc. And those griddles were
hot[1]

[1][http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/09/09/blotchy...](http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/09/09/blotchy_burns_o.html)

~~~
millzlane
You're right. I stand corrected. Funny how 10 years seems like a long time.

------
amitutk
I was waiting for an Anandtech review to get definite answers to questions
about the new MBP.

Isn't it strange Anandtech hasn't reviewed the new MBP yet?

~~~
zaphoyd
Still waiting for their review of the iPhone 7 SoC...

------
draw_down
Jeez, come on. I mean, maybe I think a lot of the griping about new MacBooks
is a bit much, but this is just embarrassing. They really do need to figure
out what the hell they're doing with Macs.

------
smegel
It would be ironic if that new touch bar was draining too much power.

------
bitmapbrother
I can't help but feel amused that a company that bashes others for battery
life stamina has now built a computer with battery life that is so bad that
it's removing their claims. This is false advertising at its finest and I
expect class action lawsuits to follow.

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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13164534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13164534)
is a related recent thread.

------
wlesieutre
Just installed the update. The "time remaining" estimate is still present in
Activity Monitor, it's only gone from the menu.

------
serkanyersen
I got the new macbook pro 15' first two days batter life was really bad, 2
hours most. but on the 3rd day it went back to normal. now I get around 10
hours. I think it had something to do with Firevault. Encryption was running
in the background and draining the battery now that it's done it's back to
normal.

I think there is no need to freak out over this

~~~
FireBeyond
Encryption on a brand new Mac typically takes about an hour or so, unless
you're dumping a whole load of data. I've always installed (via Homebrew Cask)
a bunch of software on my new Macs and FileVault is caught up by the time it's
done.

AES-NI - hardware encryption. There's no way FileVault should be taking that
long unless you dump hundreds of gigs of data on at once.

~~~
majewsky
To put some numbers on this, `cryptsetup benchmark` on my Linux notebook
reports 1329 MiB/s encryption speed and 1346 MiB/s decryption speed for
256-bit AES in XTS mode (which is the default stream cipher for Linux's LUKS
disk encryption). And that's on a 2012 Core i3.

If a modern CPU has AES-NI, I would never expect disk access speed to be
constrained by the disk encryption. (Unless, maybe, if you're copying from one
internal disk to the other, or if you're copying across a 10gig ethernet.)

------
limeyx
Customer: My keyboard isn't working right Apple: Give it here (takes it and
doesn't give it back) Customer: My Mouse isn't working right Apple: Give it
here (takes it and doesn't give it back) Customer: My laptop isn't working
right Apple: Give it here (takes it and doesn't give it back)

End

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hw
Even on the older rMBP (mine is 2012) my system just goes on suspend mode at
15-20% battery, even when I'm not doing much so the estimates shouldnt have
been that far off. Did all the SMC reset steps and same issue.

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iwritestuff
I do dev work. I easily get all day battery life. People complain, people take
those complaints as truth for all the MBP 15". None of those complaints about
battery life have proven true for mine.

------
tedunangst
Would it have killed the author to clarify whether they were over or under
estimates?

I can maybe guess under estimates, but people also get really angry when an
over estimate suddenly drops to zero.

~~~
pfranz
I get the feeling the estimates were "correct" but the load for background
tasks is so volatile (heavy indexing and syncing, then nothing after they
complete) that Apple now considers them misleading. I guess technically that'd
be an underestimate.

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rzhikharevich
You can still use this though.

    
    
       pmset -g batt

