[jakobegger]

The time remaining indicator was really useful. It was more than accurate enough. It allowed me to see at a glance if I had enough charge to finish the movie, if it would last for the rest of the train ride, etc. If I saw that the battery wouldn't last as long as I had expected, closing Slack would fix it.

The problem with the time remaining indicator was that people started reporting the displayed time as actual run time. I read a couple of blog posts where people claimed that the battery life time of the Macbooks was reduced, based on the estimates they saw in the battery menu. They didn't actually time the run time of their Macbooks, presumably because that would take 5-10 hours, or longer if you want to repeat the measurement. So Apple is claiming that these people are wrong, the indicator was inaccurate, and they removed it.

Of course, the problem is that most likely battery life actually is lower. The battery of the new MacBook Pro is significantly smaller than the predecessor's, but the components don't use significantly less power. With the increasing popularity of Electron based apps, average power consumption is probably even increasing.

For the user, this is a huge loss. We've learned to live with the battery time estimate, and we know that the time remaining isn't absolute; just like we know that the remaining range displayed on the dashboard of most recent cars depends heavily on the driving style.

Fortunately, there are 3rd party tools that display the estimate Apple removed -- I downloaded Coconut Battery. But I wish we wouldn't have to rely on 3rd party tools for such basic functionality. Macs used to come with "batteries included".

[nothrabannosir]

> With the increasing popularity of Electron based apps, average power consumption is probably even increasing.

I can only hope OS vendors (both mobile and desktop) will one day be driven to actually incentivise frugal use of resources. We are currently suffering a massive tragedy of the commons for RAM, cpu and even disk I/O (see Spotify, recently).

I would be absolutely thrilled if, just for example, App Store margins were calculated based on median resource usage. Or if apps got a clear UI annotation indicating resource use. Or something... anything. Like a carbon tax, but for software :)

Currently it's the Wild West out there, the cpu tuna is being massively overfished and we don't put the blame with the right parties so why would anyone stop. We the consumers end up paying for all this.

Edit: and if google could do the same with search ranking I would convert to any religion you asked me to.

[mtw]

This makes sense for iPad or the 12" MacBook but not for MacBook pros. I invest a lot of money in a MacBook Pro for work and it makes sense the apps I'm using needs more RAM, CPU and graphics card usage.

If the thinness of current MacBook pros prevent them on displaying remaining battery time, then making the MacBook pros thinner was not a good decision. You can make the regular MacBooks thinner but not the MacBook pros -- unless Apple finds another battery material that outputs significantly more power per cubic cm

[nothrabannosir]

> I invest a lot of money in a MacBook Pro for work and it makes sense the apps I'm using needs more RAM, CPU and graphics card usage.

100% agreed. The crucial word there is "I". You choose. You get to decide what to think of wasteful apps. Text editor in Electron? Well you're a programmer, so ok. No hard feelings. Image editor using up 50% of your cpu? I'll look for a different one. Might be just the other way around for a graphic designer.

The important part is: let the market figure out what is the balance of acceptable resource usage. Right now, there is no accountability. Spotify was trashing the disk for about a year and finally got off their asses to fix it when it became a serious pr issue. That is not a sustainable system.

Edit: to drive the point home about your mbp: I have one too, and I actually don't think it's acceptable for apps to use a lot of cpu / gpu. I'm on battery a lot and I constantly monitor the tasklist to shut apps that are using too much. Already in n=2, you and I have different preferences. And that's great! Let us collectively figure out a balance like a normal market does :).

[j-pb]

You are not getting OPs point I think. He's talking about efficiency not overall resource usage. When people code in electron and embed an entire friggin browser into their application just so that they don't have to port their webapp or so that they can apply their webdev skills, you the user gain nothing.

These apps don't do more, they do less but require more resources. They trade user convenience for developer convenience.

[kalleboo]

> Of course, the problem is that most likely battery life actually is lower. The battery of the new MacBook Pro is significantly smaller than the predecessor's, but the components don't use significantly less power

Exactly. Apple has always designed their devices to a battery life target. But as "wireless web" and "movie playback" both depend on use cases that get more and more optimized as Apple improve their software, they get more and more disconnected from the reality of pro users. How about a "editing a Swift Playground" battery life estimation? Or Photoshop? What Pro user spends all their day browsing the web and watching movies? Those make sense for the regular MacBook, not the Pro.

[whywhywhywhy]

> Or Photoshop

Consistent 20-30% processor usage no matter what the processor when not in focus and no files open.

[tajen]

It's natural that Apple designs a battery target for one usage. It's totally ok to tell '10hrs watching a movie', with actual figures being lower when doing other activities. PC competitors never ever hit the target, even for movie-watching, so we were perfectly happy to have 10 actual hours for one usecase.

Of course I don't get what customers gain from .07 nineteenth of an inch less of thickness. Next version Apple will provide a thinner macbook, with no battery, and the power supply will come from an NFC table...

[herbst]

There are several non apple products for years with way better battery life. My 6yo T420 easily makes 12-14 hours on Wifi. More if i disable stuff.

[kalleboo]

I just wish they'd show figures for a use case that matters to me. If you keep 10 hours of "wireless web" mostly by optimizing your web browser, that's great for people who spend their time browsing Facebook, but if that means I lose 2 hours of my usage, I wish they had some number that showed that as well. Of course, I get that if they show a "heavy productivity - 3 hours" then pundits will latch onto that and compare it to other makers' web browsing numbers... It's a crap situation.

You have a point that many PC manufacturers have fantasy numbers - I don't want Apple to venture into that realm. ("10 hours... as long as literally the only process you have open is Safari")

Phrasing it another way... I hope Apple doesn't optimize their batteries for their own benchmark, to the detriment of real-world use cases.

[JumpCrisscross]

> I don't get what customers gain from .07 nineteenth of an inch less of thickness

It is difficult to make thin, light and functional laptops. This results in fewer doing it, with those that do being able to command a margin for it.

It also amortises your product R&D. Minitiarisation continues, delivering not only more computing power but more in smaller form factors.

By focussing on thin and light, they can keep tweaking with decisions they had to make when putting a computer in a phone and then a watch and will need to face putting it into a contact lens, et cetera.

[mynewtb]

> PC competitors never ever hit the target

Start looking at proper business models maybe.

[mastax]

For example: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Revie...

[hellofunk]

I've read several reviews by critics, as well as some users here on HN, that report that the new MacBook Pro battery is actually lasting quite a bit longer than its predecessor. I always found this surprising considering the current ongoing controversy.

I myself bought a brand-new 2015 model 15 inch, and I'm getting all day battery close to 12 hours. I've never had a laptop deliver such battery life before. And that's doing C++ development all day!

[logicallee]

Sorry did you mean 2016 (if you did and correct it I'll delete this comment, so don't reply to it) which your context implies

[hellofunk]

2015 model, bought brand new a couple weeks ago. Apple made the smart move of still selling last year's model as part of the current product lineup.

[logicallee]

So you would get 9 hours on this year's model (likely enough for you.)

This year's has give or take a 75 watt hour battery while last year's has give or take 100 watt hours, so to arrive at the above figure I quoted three quarters of what you reported.

[hellofunk]

Perhaps. Some reports by varied users really do claim improved battery life on the new 2016 model, so perhaps, especially with this last macOS update a few days ago, I'd actually get more than 12 hours now. Who knows, I ain't buying this first iteration of the 2016 model. But when I gave it a try at the store, I must admit I liked the feel a lot. The battery and graphics issues, and my unwillingness to deal with dongles (for now), and the extra 400 euros, led me to the proven 2015 design.

[hellofunk]

By the way 3/4 the battery wattage does not mean 3/4 the battery time. The new 2016 supposedly uses lower power consumption, especially with the display itself (which is where much of a battery goes). Which is why many people are getting longer battery life from a smaller battery (if you believe many of the reports out there, including by tech journals).

[herbst]

Have they fixed the issue that batteries dont stop charging once they are full? Otherwise those 9 hours wont be 9 houra for long ether.

[hellofunk]

Was this an issue in the recent 2016 model? All major laptops by all manufacturers have prevented overcharging in batteries for years. It has always been safe to leave a Macbook plugged in long after the battery was full.

[antnisp]

Do you compile your code locally?

[hellofunk]

Yes. My workflow is emacs + clang.

[rufius]

The usage of Electron, while convenient, is continually irritating to me. Power consumption matters and "hur dur lets repurpose our web app for desktop" is annoyingly bad for power.

I get why companies do it, I just wish they wouldn't. Alternatively, perhaps an investment in electron as a platform in the power consumption space is what really needs to happen.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> The battery of the new MacBook Pro is significantly smaller than the predecessor's

I think I heard that Apple originally intended to have a different battery design than the one they shipped, and had to revert at the last minute. Perhaps it would have better battery life had that not happened.

[vbezhenar]

There's Time Remaining indicator in the Activity Monitor, you don't need 3rd party tools.