Apple Working With Consumer Reports on MacBook Pro's Battery Issue (cnet.com)

Last week, Consumer Reports concluded that it won't be recommending Apple's new MacBook Pro models. The American magazine published since 1936 by Consumers Union, a nonprofit organization, cited inconsistent battery issues for not recommending the MacBook Pro for the first time in its history. Apple's VP of Marketing has since addressed the report, saying they are working with the magazine to understand the results. From a report: Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller followed up with a tweet late Friday saying Apple is "working with CR to understand their battery tests. Results do not match our extensive lab tests or field data." Consumer Reports' review says that in-house testing revealed wild fluctuations in battery life for unplugged MacBook Pro computers. In the case of the 13-inch model without a Touch Bar, for example, battery life ranged from 19.5 hours to just 4.5 hours. Apple says the devices should operate for up to 10 hours between charges.

Comments

I'be been a Mac user for 13+ years

[93 Escort Wagon]

And, even to me, it's obvious if Phil Shiller is the point person on this, Apple is looking for a PR "solution" to this battery life issue.

This is antenna-gate all over again.

Re:I'be been a Mac user for 13+ years

[93 Escort Wagon]

That is nonsense. From Apple's perspective this IS primarily a PR problem at the moment because it is highly unlikely that CR's testing is so advanced and extensive that they would be able to detect issues that Apple internally could not.
Especially things like extremely varying battery life ranging from 4.5 hour to 19.5 hours.

I think you are missing the point, if you think this is about "advanced and extensive" testing.

I don't expect the Consumer Reports' crew to be experts on this sort of thing. I expect they will run things more along the lines of how a typical non-technical Mac user will run things, because CR's team probably isn't that much more knowledgeable about Macs than the typical end user. And many end users - even before CR said anything - had already been reporting these same problems... so it seems darn obvious there is an issue, whatever Apple's "advanced and extensive" internal testing may (or may not) indicate.

That's kind of the point of Consumer Reports... to test things the way typical real-world people do.

And, frankly, we don't know if there was some subset of Apple's internal tests which did indicate this sort of issue, but the company decided weren't critical enough to cause them to hold production. The iPhone 4 antenna issues showed it can - and does - happen. Heck, how did Samsung release an exploding phone, if all these companies' "advanced and extensive" internal testing is infallible?

Working on the report instead of the battery

[lucm]

They are trying to prove them wrong, they are not working on fixing the battery issues. Within a few days we will all learn on Slashdot that Consumer Reports was doing it wrong.

Re:Working on the report instead of the battery

[PolygamousRanchKid]

In other news, Apple has secretly hired a team of "Test Conformance" executives and engineers from Volkswagen, to ensure that the battery lasts longer, when it detects that it is being tested.

Back in my younger days, vendors would add obscure flags to the C compiler, to ensure that it produced code optimized for benchmark tests.

Now they are wrong? What about before?

[lucm]

Consumer Reports has recommended the Macbooks for years. And until now you apparently had no worries about their testing methodology. Isn't that an interesting coincidence?

Re:Do all companies 'work with' CR after a bad rev

[Solandri]

CR will work with companies regarding details of test conditions and procedures to help them isolate any problems the testing might have turned up (which is probably the case here).

The actual products that are tested though are bought off of store shelves by undercover CR employees posing as regular customers. That way a company can't rig the actual sample of the CR product being tested, unless they're specifically invited by CR to see if the product is defective (which has happened a few times with cars which failed some of CR's minimum safety tests.)

This is one of the reasons I maintain a CR subscription even though the vast majority of their testing is too "average user" to be relevant to me. I think it's incredible valuable to have at least some published reviews based on random samples, instead of manufacturer-provided samples.