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

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.

Comments

They can't dynamically figure this out?

[gameboyhippo]

My Surface Pro 3 dynamically figures out the time left. It will show me how much time I have left if I continue to use the computer in the same way. Light work naturally will show more time left than playing a video game.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[The-Ixian]

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.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[damacus]

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.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[Jeremi]

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.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has improved their estimation algorithm quite a bit then.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[Lord Crc]

The only way to get a correct figure would be to predict how many times I'm going to recompile in the future.

Or it could quote you a range: time remaining with light load, and time remaining with heavy load.

It could also figure out what is "light" and what is "heavy" by your usage patterns.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[tlhIngan]

My Surface Pro 3 dynamically figures out the time left. It will show me how much time I have left if I continue to use the computer in the same way. Light work naturally will show more time left than playing a video game.

Therein lies the rub. What is "the same way"? Browsing the web can be tricky - some websites are nice and static and use little CPU and give plenty of battery life. Other websites have videos and sound and take more CPU and reduce the time. So "browsing the web" isn't the same way - I may go to YouTube all of a sudden and the battery life will have to drop.

And that's the issue - there's no point telling the user they have 5 hours of battery life because they'll think they have ... 5 hours of battery life. Then they launch Netflix and watch a 2 hour movie, and expect 3 hours of battery life left, but get awfully surprised when they're down to 1 hour or less.

Time remaining works well for relatively constant loads - a camcorder recording video can display time remaining when recording because it's all it's going to do. If it says you can record for 2 hours, then it will last two hours regardless of what you're filming. It won't suddenly drop to 1 hour because a kid comes into frame and recording cuteness takes more power.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[Jeremi]

Or it could quote you a range: time remaining with light load, and time remaining with heavy load.

Or better yet, a line graph, with battery-percentage-left on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, with accurate logged information up to the present moment, and speculative prediction into the future (the line getting progressively wider as it proceeds to the right side of the graph, to indicate the greater likely margin of error). You could even use statistics or a neural network to dynamically adjust the speculative algorithm based on past behavior to make it become more accurate over time.

That would be a pretty cool Linux-style solution; but this is Apple; they prefer to make things simpler, not more elaborate, whenever possible.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[sound vision]

I have a couple of Windows XP netbooks, they definitely have the time-remaining indicator. It could be that it was added in SP1 or SP2, but that's still a long time ago.
This is just another example of Apple oversimplifying things. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of how a computer works will understand that battery life will vary depending on how you're using the computer. Or, they could have added the word "estimated" in, so any English speaker over the age of 10 could understand. But I guess they deemed it more important to protect their customers from the split-second confused dissatisfaction of "What? Apple told me it had 10 hours and now it has SIX??"

Maybe that is good marketing. Maybe it improves the emotional state of their customers, leading to a couple percentage points more reporting "satisfaction" with the product. But it does make the product less useful for intelligent people.

Re:They can't dynamically figure this out?

[Kjella]

Since when is no estimates a subsitute for poor estimates? It's done when it's done, we'll get there when we get there, it'll run out of power when it runs out. Let's not try to find any answers because they'll be based on assumptions and have uncertainty and won't be perfect.

I agree that sometimes the estimates are as good as they get and the only way to know more is to actually try, but if you do say a 30 minute average and tell people it's an average of the last 30 minutes that's a reasonably good indication. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

huh?

[fluffernutter]

10 hour battery life doing what? I have a brand new macbook pro and it is more around 6-7 hours. It is undoubtedly the best battery life of any laptop I've had so far but not 10 hours.

Re:huh?

[damacus]

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.

Re:huh?

[matbury]

The PR & marketing text probably says up to 10 hours. It's probably an unrealistic figure in the real world and more often than not comes out at less than 10 hours and in many cases probably a lot less. I guess they took out the battery life estimate indicator because it looked bad in the iStore or Apple Genius Bar(TM) or whatever it's called showing less than 10 hours on a supposedly brand new machine.

Re:huh?

[TheFakeTimCook]

10 hour battery life doing what? I have a brand new macbook pro and it is more around 6-7 hours. It is undoubtedly the best battery life of any laptop I've had so far but not 10 hours.

Actually, Apple is pretty specific (e.g. "Brightness set to 12 clicks from the bottom, or 75%" (see below)) (unlike, say, Microsoft for the Surface Book, who only stated "Auto Brightness Disabled" for the biggest current-hog in the system...Right...) on their Product Page.

Here are the "Tech Specs" for the 15" Touch Bar MacBook Pro. Scroll down to the "Battery and Power" section (and don't forget to read Footnote 8).

Re:huh?

[berj]

Yet, instead of making it clear what background processes are draining your battery, and why that's killing your estimated time remaining, Apple goes it's usual "form over function" route and just hides all those nasty details.

You'd be 100% right.. except for one nasty detail which makes you 0% right.

There are multiple ways to find out precisely which applications/processes are draining your battery.

Here's one:

https://support.apple.com/en-c...

Here's another:

http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-con...

That second one is right there in the battery menu.

Nasty.. nasty details.

Courage!

[Moridineas]

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!

Re:Courage!

[dgatwood]

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.

Re:Courage!

[Alan Shutko]

iStat Menus still has the widget. So does the energy tab of Activity Monitor.

Agreed, this is stupid.

Re:Courage!

[duke_cheetah2003]

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.

Re:Courage!

[OhPlz]

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.

Re:Courage!

[dgatwood]

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.

Will they remove the mini and mac pro next?

[Joe_Dragon]

Will they remove the mini and mac pro next?

and then being able to run non store apps?

Re:Will they remove the mini and mac pro next?

[Moridineas]

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.

Observation is bad, m'kay?

[fyngyrz]

(incoming comet threat, panic):

Let's burn the observatory down so this can NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!

Re:Observation is bad, m'kay?

[Hognoxious]

I used to work at a place where if you put an "Out Of Order" notice on something they'd fix it by removing the notice.

We (well I, they volunteered me because I used to work in a bar) once changed a water container (after waiting four hours for maintenance to do it). Fuck me, the song and dance they made how it could have caused a disaster and so on.

I will add that, unlike them, I did it properly; I peeled off the hygiene seal rather than leaving it in place so it got rammed inside the container by the spigot. Cunts.

Re:Observation is bad, m'kay?

[OhSoLaMeow]

I will add that, unlike them, I did it properly; I peeled off the hygiene seal rather than leaving it in place so it got rammed inside the container by the spigot. Cunts.

I used to be an operator on a Burroughs B4700 mainframe (which shows you how old I am). It used to blow these 100 amp fuses in the power supply cabinet periodically. We'd call Burroughs, they'd send someone out when they could fit it in their schedule and we'd be down for hours. Finally we found the spare fuses in the engineer cabinet so we'd pop the breakers and replace the fuses ourself. One day a Burroughs FE happened to be in when a fuse blew and we started to replace it when he blew a gasket, telling us how dangerous that was. He proceeded to start changing the fuse but neglected to throw the breakers - and knocked his ass across the room.

To stay on the subject: the B4700 did not have a battery indicator.

Re:Observation is bad, m'kay?

[Hognoxious]

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

Re:Observation is bad, m'kay?

[Ziest]

This reminds me of my days programming on a DEC VAX 11/780. A call to DEC field circus was always entertaining.

http://foldoc.org/field%20circ...

But is it accurate?

[SuperKendall]

My Surface Pro 3 dynamically figures out the time left. It will show me how much time I have left if I continue to use the computer in the same way.

That's what Apple was doing also. But that calculation is not as accurate as it used to be, partly because even if you "use the computer the same way" the computer may or may not decide to put some of the cores out of low power mode, or possible something the app is doing may suddenly activate the discrete GPU. I don't think the Surface is using the same CPU the new MacBook Pros are using.

I think they are still showing percentage of battery remaining, just not a number that may or may not reflect what you will actually get.

Re:But is it accurate?

[PopeRatzo]

But that calculation is not as accurate as it used to be, partly because even if you "use the computer the same way" the computer may or may not decide to put some of the cores out of low power mode, or possible something the app is doing may suddenly activate the discrete GPU.

Even with all that, calculating an approximate battery-time remaining shouldn't be an NP problem. I don't do this kind of system work, so I don't know how difficult it really is, but it seems like even with the variables you describe it should be something MacOS can do (considering other OS's do it).

Re:But is it accurate?

[SuperKendall]

Well no, if you are using it in the same way it won't take them out of low power mode. If what you're doing is just reading news articles there is no reason to take them out of low power mode for example.

What if you have Dropbox installed? I often see CPU surges if someone puts something in that it has to sync.

Or a background web page, it's not infrequent I open up Activity Monitor and find a GitHub page I just left open for review later is constantly consuming 15% of my CPU.

It could well be you are just doing one thing, but generally people have other windows and apps installed that will be doing background tasks from time to time...

So what's wrong with that? If what you are doing uses more resources than what you were doing before then this has an impact on battery life, obviously and you can extrapolate from there like has always been done.

Yet i has always been done but the difference between near idle and full steam ahead appears to be much greater now, so the time estimate was no longer very useful and very probably misleading if it mostly read lower instant readings while the system would spike at times consuming a lot of power over short intervals you were not looking at the time.

Basically, look at all of the posts from Windows users saying how inaccurate they thought the battery time remaining estimates were. Why present a number that is just a lie? An absolute battery percentage is I think much more useful as I can estimate pretty well when I have the system under a lot of load.

How Orwellian...

[the_skywise]

Battery life is up! :)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Apple: Cuz math is HHHHAAAAAAAAARRRRRD!!!

[Chas]

Apple is trying to tell you that it can't do a simple algorithm that checks battery levels, draw, etc and produce a decent, semi-accurate time remainder on battery life?

Get the fuck out!

This is what they get for sweatshopping their code to China and India.