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They keep shrinking the battery to make the machine thinner. Nobody but their internal design team appears to care that the box is getting any thinner than it i

They keep shrinking the battery to make the machine thinner. Nobody but their internal design team appears to care that the box is getting any thinner than it is already. But the days of 10 hour batter time are over. Regular use on Macbooks is now around five hours and will continue to fall in future versions.

DoodleBuggy 10y ago
They'll probably switch to ARM soon. The "pro" user need not apply.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Good thing you put the "pro" in quotes, because actual professionals of all kinds will apply en masse. Professional doesn't mean power hungry number cruncher as some people seem to understand it. A doctor or a lawyer is also a professional.
- heywire 10y ago
  I have to say, I owned a Samsung ARM chromebook (which I promptly wiped and installed Linux on), and it was great. Fanless, and the battery outlasted me. Performance left a bit to be desired, however, but this was an older ARM chip too.
- hobarrera 10y ago
  Steam and other binary-only software wouldn't work, but for developers and alike, this would be a non-issue. As for designers and their Adobe products, Adobe would probably release an ARM version pretty fast.
criddell 10y ago
A smaller battery is less expensive as well. If thinner helps bring the cost down, then I don't think it's just their design team pushing for thinner.
- zaphoyd 10y ago
  And yet these new "fewer materials" macbooks are significantly more expensive. =)
- owenversteeg 10y ago
  Nah, having done (a little bit) of battery design stuff, there's no way that the cost of the battery is at all a consideration. For reference, when I'm working on a system that needs "expensive", high-performance batteries with the best possible performance, we pay around 35 cents per watt-hour. The Macbook Pro is around 50 Wh IIRC, which means if you replaced it with the most expensive cells I use it'd cost $17. And although you do pay more for different cell form factors (typically a decent amount more for flat batteries) the enormous scale that Apple operates at means there's no way the batteries are going to be a price concern no matter their size.
  - blackguardx 10y ago
    Margin is margin. Also, they are doing a funky custom battery form factor that probably drives the cost up a bit, even at their scale.
  - criddell 10y ago
    Thanks for the information. I was going by my experience of spending $100 on a replacement laptop battery a few years ago. I assumed they were much more expensive.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
woah 10y ago
A smaller battery also charges faster.
- jff 10y ago
  "This tiny gas tank means I have to stop every hundred miles to fill up," the man said, "but the tank fills up so quickly!"
  - DoodleBuggy 10y ago
    Better remove your gas gauge!
    - jajern 10y ago
      Gas gauges our pretty inaccurate anyways. So are the "miles left" that newer cars display.
      - DoodleBuggy 10y ago
        Exactly, it would be better to have no idea how much gas you have. You're driving it wrong. Every few hours, go to a gas station, what's the big deal?
  - woah 10y ago
    This is not Reddit
    - EpicEng 10y ago
      I'm betting you were a hall monitor in school.
      - sctb 10y ago
        We've already asked you not to make personal attacks like this. Please stop.
frou_dh 10y ago
With the Apple Watch, I'm really surprised that they let the Series 2 out the door being actually thicker than the original. Is that fact causing the thinness-uber-alles contingent of the design staff to spend this year with dark clouds over their heads?
brigade 10y ago
You say "keep", but the last time the MBP regressed in battery capacity was 2008. Their last major reduction in thinness resulted in a significant capacity upgrade thanks to ditching the optical and 2.5" drives.
coldtea 10y ago
>Nobody but their internal design team appears to care that the box is getting any thinner than it is already. Nobody? Besides the great sales whenever they put out lighter models (the Air, which was booed for not having high cpu, enough connections, etc, Macbook, the same, etc), how's that for "somebody": "I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air – even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky things. Yes, there are vendors that have tried to emulate it, but usually pretty badly. I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light. (...) I’m personally just hoping that I’m ahead of the curve in my strict requirement for “small and silent”. It’s not just laptops, btw – Intel sometimes gives me pre-release hardware, and the people inside Intel I work with have learnt that being whisper-quiet is one of my primary requirements for desktops too. I am sometimes surprised at what leaf-blowers some people seem to put up with under their desks. (...) I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room – by far – should be the occasional purring of the cat. And when I travel, I want to travel light. A notebook that weighs more than a kilo is simply not a good thing (yeah, I’m using the smaller 11″ macbook air, and I think weight could still be improved on, but at least it’s very close to the magical 1kg limit)" Linus Torvalds, APRIL 24, 2012
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Linus isn't _always_ right...
  - majewsky 10y ago
    But he's right to a lot of people. The situation was better when there was some market segmentation between the MacBook Air (for those who care about weight and noise) and the MacBook Pro (for those who care about raw performance). Cramming both use-cases into one SKU will cause at least one to suffer.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    No, but the market, who jumps to buy those devices, is.
  - 10y ago
dosethree 10y ago
You say it like it's a con, but this is what makes Apple unique compared to their competitors. The PC market will always be around to make a clunky laptop with a huge battery if the customers want it. Apple keeps pushing the limits despite annoying some of their customer base. And often times, the bet pays off in the long term - but not always. In the case of battery life, the tech hasn't caught up enough to make it not a problem for customers yet. Example: I have a battery case on my phone that looks like crap.

DoodleBuggy 10y ago

They'll probably switch to ARM soon. The "pro" user need not apply.

coldtea 10y ago
Good thing you put the "pro" in quotes, because actual professionals of all kinds will apply en masse. Professional doesn't mean power hungry number cruncher as some people seem to understand it. A doctor or a lawyer is also a professional.
heywire 10y ago
I have to say, I owned a Samsung ARM chromebook (which I promptly wiped and installed Linux on), and it was great. Fanless, and the battery outlasted me. Performance left a bit to be desired, however, but this was an older ARM chip too.
hobarrera 10y ago
Steam and other binary-only software wouldn't work, but for developers and alike, this would be a non-issue. As for designers and their Adobe products, Adobe would probably release an ARM version pretty fast.

criddell 10y ago

A smaller battery is less expensive as well. If thinner helps bring the cost down, then I don't think it's just their design team pushing for thinner.

zaphoyd 10y ago
And yet these new "fewer materials" macbooks are significantly more expensive. =)
owenversteeg 10y ago
Nah, having done (a little bit) of battery design stuff, there's no way that the cost of the battery is at all a consideration. For reference, when I'm working on a system that needs "expensive", high-performance batteries with the best possible performance, we pay around 35 cents per watt-hour. The Macbook Pro is around 50 Wh IIRC, which means if you replaced it with the most expensive cells I use it'd cost $17. And although you do pay more for different cell form factors (typically a decent amount more for flat batteries) the enormous scale that Apple operates at means there's no way the batteries are going to be a price concern no matter their size.
- blackguardx 10y ago
  Margin is margin. Also, they are doing a funky custom battery form factor that probably drives the cost up a bit, even at their scale.
- criddell 10y ago
  Thanks for the information. I was going by my experience of spending $100 on a replacement laptop battery a few years ago. I assumed they were much more expensive.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

woah 10y ago

A smaller battery also charges faster.

jff 10y ago
"This tiny gas tank means I have to stop every hundred miles to fill up," the man said, "but the tank fills up so quickly!"
- DoodleBuggy 10y ago
  Better remove your gas gauge!
  - jajern 10y ago
    Gas gauges our pretty inaccurate anyways. So are the "miles left" that newer cars display.
    - DoodleBuggy 10y ago
      Exactly, it would be better to have no idea how much gas you have. You're driving it wrong. Every few hours, go to a gas station, what's the big deal?
- woah 10y ago
  This is not Reddit
  - EpicEng 10y ago
    I'm betting you were a hall monitor in school.
    - sctb 10y ago
      We've already asked you not to make personal attacks like this. Please stop.

frou_dh 10y ago

With the Apple Watch, I'm really surprised that they let the Series 2 out the door being actually thicker than the original. Is that fact causing the thinness-uber-alles contingent of the design staff to spend this year with dark clouds over their heads?

brigade 10y ago

You say "keep", but the last time the MBP regressed in battery capacity was 2008. Their last major reduction in thinness resulted in a significant capacity upgrade thanks to ditching the optical and 2.5" drives.

coldtea 10y ago

>Nobody but their internal design team appears to care that the box is getting any thinner than it is already. Nobody? Besides the great sales whenever they put out lighter models (the Air, which was booed for not having high cpu, enough connections, etc, Macbook, the same, etc), how's that for "somebody": "I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to have done what Apple did with the Macbook Air – even several years after the first release, the other notebook vendors continue to push those ugly and clunky things. Yes, there are vendors that have tried to emulate it, but usually pretty badly. I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light. (...) I’m personally just hoping that I’m ahead of the curve in my strict requirement for “small and silent”. It’s not just laptops, btw – Intel sometimes gives me pre-release hardware, and the people inside Intel I work with have learnt that being whisper-quiet is one of my primary requirements for desktops too. I am sometimes surprised at what leaf-blowers some people seem to put up with under their desks. (...) I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room – by far – should be the occasional purring of the cat. And when I travel, I want to travel light. A notebook that weighs more than a kilo is simply not a good thing (yeah, I’m using the smaller 11″ macbook air, and I think weight could still be improved on, but at least it’s very close to the magical 1kg limit)" Linus Torvalds, APRIL 24, 2012

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Linus isn't _always_ right...
- majewsky 10y ago
  But he's right to a lot of people. The situation was better when there was some market segmentation between the MacBook Air (for those who care about weight and noise) and the MacBook Pro (for those who care about raw performance). Cramming both use-cases into one SKU will cause at least one to suffer.
- coldtea 10y ago
  No, but the market, who jumps to buy those devices, is.
- 10y ago

dosethree 10y ago

You say it like it's a con, but this is what makes Apple unique compared to their competitors. The PC market will always be around to make a clunky laptop with a huge battery if the customers want it. Apple keeps pushing the limits despite annoying some of their customer base. And often times, the bet pays off in the long term - but not always. In the case of battery life, the tech hasn't caught up enough to make it not a problem for customers yet. Example: I have a battery case on my phone that looks like crap.