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Sanpete

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2016
3,695
1,665
Utah
Companies that admit their faults can be trusted. Companies that never admit any wrong, ever, when exposed will always have an aura of distrust.

I have been buying Apple computers since the 90s. Personally, over 30 computers. The 2016 MacBook Pro was the first computer I have ever returned.

Apples really going for broke here. There is something going on with these batteries. There are too many similar complaints for there not to be. It was all over the map on my testing.

Also if it was a Safari bug, why where the 2015 MacBook pros where not affected?

Apples not building a lot of trust with it's users. Apple only loves it's stock holders.

They admitted there was a bug. What else are they supposed to admit in this instance with CR? And keep in mind this isn't only Apple but CR who have determined this.

Safari changes all the time, so may not have had the bug in 2015.
 

hawkeye_a

macrumors 68000
Jun 27, 2016
1,637
4,384
You have to understand that on laptops as optimised (because of few configurations) as the MacBook Pro, the same software will have different working parameters based on the models. When there was an update to Sierra to prepare for the launch of Late 2016 model, there was code written in there to support them, which only worked for them and them alone. Nothing was changed for the older models because the new code was specific for the new model only. That code is the culprit for the problems with the battery ( at least that would account for the inconsistencies).

I'm stating to suspect the same myself. Driver/configuration issue almost.
 

Sanpete

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2016
3,695
1,665
Utah
@thesaint024
1. Consistency of tests. If all other branded laptops are tested with caching explicitly turned off, so should the Mac, right?

2. Variance of results. If the caching setting is off for the tests, shouldn't the results be roughly the same. And if caching is on wouldn't the results be roughly the same? (ie scientifically reproducible within a margin of error)

3. Why should Apple get a pass with caching turned on because it boosts their results? That defeats the purpose of being able to compare if to competitors. (its no longer a standardized test)

I'm not too concerned if it's a bug/fix/update/whatever. I'm just pointing out that the reasoning makes no sense to me.

Agreed, if you turn caching on, it does not need to use wi-fi as much and just loads from local storage, conserving battery life. But why the variation? And why dont other laptops see the same sortof results when they are put through the test?

On a side note:
That's why i'm not fond of browser tests. It might mimic real world casual usage. What if the page loads an Ad which requires WebGL, which may/maynot use the dGPU, etc? The power overhead of the ads(which are different every time) is not predictable. OTOH, what other 'real-world' can they do these days?

I'd be very curious if them use ad blockers when testing, could help standardize the test even more.
[doublepost=1484073754][/doublepost]

An excellent point.

The reasoning makes perfect sense. There was a bug that caused unpredictable battery behavior. The bug was in Safari, not the browser used to test Windows machines.
 
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thesaint024

macrumors 65816
Nov 14, 2016
1,073
888
suspension waiting room
@thesaint024
1. Consistency of tests. If all other branded laptops are tested with caching explicitly turned off, so should the Mac, right?

2. Variance of results. If the caching setting is off for the tests, shouldn't the results be roughly the same. And if caching is on wouldn't the results be roughly the same? (ie scientifically reproducible within a margin of error)

3. Why should Apple get a pass with caching turned on because it boosts their results? That defeats the purpose of being able to compare if to competitors. (its no longer a standardized test)

I'm not too concerned if it's a bug/fix/update/whatever. I'm just pointing out that the reasoning makes no sense to me.

Agreed, if you turn caching on, it does not need to use wi-fi as much and just loads from local storage, conserving battery life. But why the variation? And why dont other laptops see the same sortof results when they are put through the test?

On a side note:
That's why i'm not fond of browser tests. It might mimic real world casual usage. What if the page loads an Ad which requires WebGL, which may/maynot use the dGPU, etc? The power overhead of the ads(which are different every time) is not predictable. OTOH, what other 'real-world' can they do these days?

I'd be very curious if them use ad blockers when testing, could help standardize the test even more.
[doublepost=1484073754][/doublepost]

An excellent point.
Yes, you are right about consistency across laptops. I noted in my reply that I can't speculate on that because I don't know. But I imagine it has to do with skylake's power management and why this isn't affecting the 2015 MBP. Maybe all the skylake laptops failed battery? I don't care enough to research to find out because of my battery results which are not an anomaly. The OS and cpu work together to get wildly different results. Actually if you change any variable, you can get different results, but this is specifically a skylake power thing.

Again, this doesn't answer how/if results were different with PC skylakes. Like I said, I have no background or knowledge on prior skylake tests. I am more skeptical of CR than Apple in THIS case, only because those results were so odd. There are plenty of battery complaints here on MR, but no one is claiming wildly different results with different usage. Again, this doesn't explain differences with PC skylakes (I don't even know what those results are or if they exist). I think their tests are so unrealistic or specific that they are hard to replicate, again using MR anecdotes as a comparison point.

I am not apologizing for Apple. They f up all the time. Just when I saw the initial CR results, I thought WTF?
 

hawkeye_a

macrumors 68000
Jun 27, 2016
1,637
4,384
@thesaint024

I hear ya. I have to admit I dont know how a bug present throughout testing can produce such different results, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt...

With the bug fixed and:
-Caching on... u get consistent results at the higher end of the spectrum.
-Caching off... lower end maybe? :)

Now compare that to other laptops which were tested with caching off? :/

But at least they claim to have found what was causing the wild variations. Lets hope, that's that.
 
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imac2go

macrumors newbie
Dec 22, 2016
25
6
I really don't understand why you guys are crying regarding the battery life of the MacBook Pro Touch 15'#

87% and still 568:42 hours 2 go :p

joke aside - I noticed that after few days of using the macbook the battery is getting better and better, maybe its because im using gfxcard ? ( first two days the battery was covering 4-5 hours, now im getting 7 hours approx. )



batteryxhk3x.jpeg
 
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Papakaliati

macrumors newbie
Dec 16, 2016
13
8
Thessaloniki
As expected according to the tests I mentioned before, battery with beta 3 is heavily improved. After 2:20 hours I am sitting at 77% with surfing, bit Skyping, music and emailing. The discrete GPU hasn't been activated once unlike up until now where many websites used to activate it.

It might not get to the full 10 hours, but will easily do 9+. I will mention it again, pre Beta 3 if you had one tab with google maps or one of many other pages open, laptop was going full AMD GPU mode until you closed those said tabs causing a huge drain.
 
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bohrsatom

macrumors member
May 18, 2005
37
4
It's interesting because there's obviously a good fix for the 15" battery life and the decision making process behind using the discrete vs integrated graphics.

Completely different for the 13". I am still consistently getting 5hrs of regular usage - browsing, MS office, a bit of Spotify. Have had a couple of live chats with Apple Support and they say this isn't normal but have not yet come up with a solution despite trying a few things out. Despite what I've read it doesn't seem to make a difference what browser I'm using, the machine discharges at around 7W in both Chrome and Safari.
 

titleistman18

macrumors member
May 20, 2016
70
61
It's interesting because there's obviously a good fix for the 15" battery life and the decision making process behind using the discrete vs integrated graphics.

Completely different for the 13". I am still consistently getting 5hrs of regular usage - browsing, MS office, a bit of Spotify. Have had a couple of live chats with Apple Support and they say this isn't normal but have not yet come up with a solution despite trying a few things out. Despite what I've read it doesn't seem to make a difference what browser I'm using, the machine discharges at around 7W in both Chrome and Safari.

Agreed. My 13" is still having an issue. Happy all of you 15"ers may have a fix but mine isn't doing any better. Minimum discharge of 6w, often 10-12w.
 

JPNFRK7

macrumors 6502a
Sep 27, 2012
599
412
California
Currently on 10.12.3 beta 3 and am showing 10h 54m left at 100% with 5 tabs open in Chrome and streaming Google Play Music in one of those tabs. Better battery may be in the future. :)
 

techfun

macrumors newbie
Jan 10, 2017
2
3
Hi all,
I have been on this forum but I am compelled to make my 1st post. With all the negativity about the new Macs, I put off my decision to upgrade from my late 2013 Retina 13 MBP till January. That said I could not be happier with my upgrade.
In normal use, battery life is as good if not better than previous generations. With mail, keynote, pages ,safari on I am at 50% with battery being used for 5-6 hrs. Pretty good by my standards. Besides the advent of these ports also allow for USB C charging from battery packs and cheaper 3rd party power brick vendors giving us more options than ever.
 

jjjoseph

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2013
504
643
Same here on 13"

I feel your pain, the battery was really bad, I don't feel like the 13" was a safari problem became my worst times where on Firefox. Who knows maybe Firebox has the same bug? I returned a 2016 2ghz i5, 13" 512ssd 16gb of RAM, and now have a 2015 13" 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 1tbSSD 16gb Ram.

The battery life on the 2015 is not even comparable, I did the same tests and after 3 hours I am on 80% on the 2015, and my battery was ZERO after 3 hours on the 2016. I am doing the same tests, and drawing between 10w and 18w. Also the 2015 feels lighter, because the 2016 was so dense.

The only thing I miss on the 2016 is the keyboard and the screen, TB3/USB-C is pretty lame in the base model because you only get two ports, just having 5 input options on the 2015 makes a big difference, the 2015 feels like an upgrade in ports.

Screen and Keyboard are the best parts of the 2016, everything else feels unfinished.
 

jjjoseph

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2013
504
643
Consumer reports now saying
Apple Releases Fix to MacBook Pros in Response to Consumer Reports' Battery Test Results

http://www.consumerreports.org/appl...nse-to-consumer-reports-battery-test-results/

"Once our retesting of the MacBook Pro’s batteries is complete, we will report back with our update and findings." -- CR

Also if Apple where to really acknowledge the problem wouldn't they would release a patch immediately? Maybe Apple is hoping the problem goes away or is forgotten about and if they have to finally address it, it will be another day, down the road, but not today.
 

Sanpete

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2016
3,695
1,665
Utah
"Once our retesting of the MacBook Pro’s batteries is complete, we will report back with our update and findings." -- CR

Also if Apple where to really acknowledge the problem wouldn't they would release a patch immediately? Maybe Apple is hoping the problem goes away or is forgotten about and if they have to finally address it, it will be another day, down the road, but not today.

How many people turn off cache in Safari, which is what triggers the bug in question with the CR tests? I think people can wait for the fix to be tested in beta.
 

jjjoseph

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2013
504
643
How many people turn off cache in Safari, which is what triggers the bug in question with the CR tests? I think people can wait for the fix to be tested in beta.
I returned a 2016 13" MacBook Pro because it got 3 to 5 hours battery life using Firefox, Safari about the same.. In my testing Safari wasn't the problem.
 

Sanpete

macrumors 68040
Nov 17, 2016
3,695
1,665
Utah
Your right, no reason to fix a battery problem on the 2016 laptops, I am probably using it wrong anyway.

Huh? Again, as you said yourself, the fix in question doesn't address the battery issue you had. Again, it doesn't address any reported battery problem except that triggered by turning off cache in Safari, which very very few people do.
 

jjjoseph

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2013
504
643
Huh? Again, as you said yourself, the fix in question doesn't address the battery issue you had. Again, it doesn't address any reported battery problem except that triggered by turning off cache in Safari, which very very few people do.

Yes, which doesn't really fix the battery problem, it just fixes one of the sources of extra battery being drained.. The battery problem is still going to be there, which is why it seems Apple is not releasing a patch to fix the battery. Maybe the battery can not be fixed. Maybe we will only see little updates to reduce any software bugs that drain battery, so the underlying battery problems won't be as noticeable.

Honestly I don't care either way, I already retuned my 2016 MacBook Pro. These threads are for new users to gather information from other users so they can decide on a purchase for themselves.
 
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bxsonic

macrumors member
Mar 27, 2016
85
76
Surabaya
Just want to share my experience with the new MBP. Been using my 2016 MBP TB 13" for almost a month now. The first week was pretty awful battery wise. The MBP would lose power when not in use & got perhaps 3 hours of use out of it consistently. Thought about returning it at this point.

Thankfully, by around the 2nd week and beyond, it got a lot better for me. For the last 2 weeks, I only charge my MBP every other day since I only use it at night for around 3 - 4 hours each day. So from personal observations, I can say that I have been getting around 7 - 8 hours consistently for the past 2 weeks. Not amazing but I think I can live with this

Anyways, for my use case, I usually have Safari, Messages, Whatsapp, Spotify, Unity3d, Affinity Designer, BetterTouchTool & a few other applications running.
 
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