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Apple Removes the 'Time Remaining' Battery Indicator In New macOS Update (loopinsight.com)

Posted by msmash on from the it's-simple dept.

Apple has removed the "time remaining" battery life indicator with the new macOS Sierra update following complaints from several users of new MacBook Pro models. Apple says it stands by its 10-hour battery life claim in the new MacBook Pro models, and adds that the battery life indicator didn't show accurate information. From a report on The Loop: You can still see the image on the top of the screen, and you can see the percentage, but you will no longer be able to see how much time is remaining before your battery dies. [...] Apple said the percentage is accurate, but because of the dynamic ways we use the computer, the time remaining indicator couldn't accurately keep up with what users were doing. Everything we do on the MacBook affects battery life in different ways and not having an accurate indicator is confusing. Besides the apps we are working on all the time, there are a lot of things that are happening in the background that users may not be aware of that affects battery life.

12 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Courage! by Moridineas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In before 'courage'!

    In all seriousness, just another stupid and anti-customer decision by Apple.

    1) People complain about battery life on new Macbook Pro, so remove battery time indicator.
    2) ???
    3) Profit!

    1. Re:Courage! by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So who wants to write the replacement widget that puts the time back? I mean it has to be what, a hundred lines of code, tops?

      This is an absolutely idiotic response by Apple. It seriously diminishes the usability of the machine for people who currently use that indicator as a "My computer is using ten times as much battery power as it should be; what app has gone crazy?" notification.

      I'm growing more and more concerned about Apple's leadership, and I say this as somebody who spent almost thirteen years working there. This is not normal Apple behavior. Something is very, very wrong in Cupertino.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    2. Re:Courage! by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm growing more and more concerned about Apple's leadership, and I say this as somebody who spent almost thirteen years working there. This is not normal Apple behavior. Something is very, very wrong in Cupertino.

      Been spending those thirteen years in the utility closet? This is EXACTLY what Apple does and has been doing since the first days of the Macintosh. You will use their computer in the way they intend, and no other way, and if it does something unexpected, it's YOUR FAULT, and they'll fix it so you can't do what you did.

    3. Re:Courage! by OhPlz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They did the same thing many years ago when people complained that the latest iPhone got fewer bars of signal. They sent out an update that artificially added bars.

      Fool me once.

    4. Re:Courage! by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure the functionality they just removed predates Mac OS X. So this isn't something that suddenly stopped working, nor was it some sort of emergency that required immediate action to "fix". But some manager had a knee-jerk reaction in response to some article, and they decided to remove functionality that is decades old.

      Ten years ago, this would have gotten shot down in UI review. It is unclear whether they could have even made such a change in a major OS release, much less a minor bug-fix release, which are supposed to have zero user-facing functional changes except in situations where a feature's schedule slips, and even then, only to the minimum extent required to enable that feature.

      No, this is not "exactly what Apple does and has been doing since the first days of the Macintosh". It might occasionally appear that way to folks who have no idea how Apple works internally, but that's a different matter.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  2. Re:huh? by damacus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The big gripe here is that Apple's 15" 2015 MBP had a 99.5 watt-hour battery (rated for 9 hours wireless web) while the 2016 15" MBP has a 76 watt-hour battery that's rated for 10 hours. The 2015 model came very close to the rated time, which makes sense with its 31% larger battery.

    Apple removing the estimated time, which it's provided for a long time, feels like a really childish response to the backlash they're receiving. It's been largely understood by most that these times are simply estimates based on the recent rate of consumption.

    These 2016 MacBook Pros are great machines, but they should've been in the 'MacBook' or 'MacBook Air' product lines.. not Pro.

  3. Re:They can't dynamically figure this out? by The-Ixian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't recall seeing a Windows computer without this since... geez... probably Windows XP.

    I am not sure that it has ever been all that accurate though.

    I am surprised that Mac even had this indicator in the first place. The main difference I have always seen between Mac and Windows is that Mac tends to hide more stuff from you.

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  4. Re:They can't dynamically figure this out? by damacus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They can, and have been for years. I believe they're being petty - butthurt from all the backlash they've received over the clusterf- that is the 2016 MBP lineup.

  5. Re:They can't dynamically figure this out? by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Light work naturally will show more time left than playing a video game.

    Well that's just it, isn't it? The time-remaining figure, even if calculated accurately based on what you're currently doing still likely bears little resemblance to the actual time you have left before your battery runs out.

    Say I'm editing my source code in a text editor -- zero CPU / disk / network usage, very light load, and so my time-remaining figure is 9 hours.

    Then I decide it's time to do a fresh compile, and my "make clean; make -j4" drives all cores to 100% and exercises the internal drive for several minutes. Now my time-remaining figure is 2 hours.

    Then the compile ends, and the time-remaining figure is back to 8 hours.

    Which of those figures was correct? Answer: none of them was. The only way to get a correct figure would be to predict how many times I'm going to recompile in the future. So why bother making up a number that clearly is not going to be correct anyway? It only confuses the issue.

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  6. Re:Will they remove the mini and mac pro next? by Moridineas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One has to wonder whether the thinking in Apple corporate hq is something like "Mac Pro and Mac Mini sales are cratering--let's kill the product line to save costs."

    Well no crap, you don't update the MacPro for 4 years and your most recent (last?) update for the MacMini was a downgrade when compared to the 2012 model and you wonder why people aren't buying.

    I've been an Apple user and occasional booster / apologist for a long time, but this is just ludicrous.

  7. Re:Observation is bad, m'kay? by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It just shows that "authorized" personnel are not necessarily qualified, and "qualified" personnel are not necessarily competent.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion