MacOS Sierra – Report lack of battery life as a bug

3 points by shad0wca7 9 years ago | 3 comments

Since time immemorial, laptops have been able to show the expected battery time remaining based on the current usage profile. This is well understood by users and useful in order to gauge how they are using their systems (and adjust accordingly).

The removal of the battery life indicator from the latest build of macOS Sierra is a bug. The explanation from Apple (https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/13/why-apple-is-removing-time-remaining-battery-life-estimates-macbook-pro/) is pure flim-flammery, showing nothing but contempt for the intelligence of their users.

Report this nonsense for what it is - a usability bug: https://bugreport.apple.com/

gargravarr 9 years ago |

Apple do make a valid point that, seeing as battery life calculation is based on average power use, which with current CPU and OS extensive power saving kicking in every few seconds, getting that average is no longer straightforward and the estimated battery life can as a result be wildly inaccurate.

Not that I'm defending them - having the machine give you some idea of the estimated remaining battery life is useful, if only a ballpark figure. Apple answering the concerns by removing the gauge altogether is not an answer. A friend likened it to a car manufacturer responding to your concerns about the fuel consumption by removing your gas gauge.

It does need to be reported as a bug. Apple should do what they always do and re-establish the standards, set the predicted battery life to be rounded up/down to the nearest 10 minutes or something similar.

In fairness, all smartphones make do with percentage gauges only, which we've gotten used to, but removing it from the full computer is a silly decision that they need to reverse.

shad0wca7 9 years ago | |

Reporting it as a bug is a direct method of feedback - this trimming of functionality (for little good reason) shouldn't be accepted.

thewhitetulip 9 years ago |

I have Sierra MBP 2012 model I haven't got a 10.2 update, is the update hardware specific? my battery runs fine, no change at all. It is a bug if an OS is unable to tell the user about how much time the battery will stay, but is there any critical scenario where it is required to know how much time the battery will be active?