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Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health
- floatingatoll 7y agoPreviously, iOS 13 (released in 19Q4) changed the default iPhone charging behavior to improve battery health: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512
- rootusrootus 7y agoI wish they'd give us the option (on the iPhone and iPad as well) to arbitrarily set the maximum charge level. Just like on my Tesla, I'd like to be able to tell my phone not to charge above 80%.
- overcast 7y agoThen 500M people complaining on Reddit that their phones only charge to 80% for some reason.
- mc32 7y agoAnd then they’ll do the same thing they did to the antenna signal strength bars and fake it to make people happy...
- leetcrew 7y agoyou can mostly fix this issue by hiding the option in "developer settings". on android, there's a lot of weird stuff buried in here but you never hear people complaining about it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- arprocter 7y agoThey could probably get away with changing what is technically 95% to read as '100' I realised the other day that Macs don't give 'battery time remaining' anymore, although I'm not sure when that was removed Edit: apparently you can still see time remaining in Activity Monitor
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Slartie 7y agoEasy: make the charge percentage display relative to the maximum configured charge. Just like it already is with battery deterioration over time: if my battery only holds 80% of its design capacity, the phone will still tell me to be 100% charged as soon as the battery hits that 80%-of-design-capacity-brick-wall. I just want the option to manually move that brick wall down a bit (they're already telling me exactly where it is right now, on iPhones at least, on the MacBook I ask coconutBattery).
- overcast 7y agoThen they'll be complaining their phone only lasts 8 hours before a charge instead of 10.
- Slartie 7y agoIf they do that after deliberately reducing their maximum charge (a setting which would probably come with a warning that reduced runtime of the phone is the result of doing it), they'll probably also complain that their internet speed has gone down after disabling the LTE/4G option (actually that does seem to be even less transparent, because not everyone knows that LTE is faster than 3G). Didn't stop Apple from offering a switch to disable LTE/4G.
- gok 7y agoNote that essentially all modern battery systems essentially do this under the hood. The "100%" shown to the user isn't the most you could charge the cells, just as high as you want to charge it to meet lifetime degradation targets. Tesla just goes a bit crazier here and exposes more headroom because they can rely on drivers being more involved in charging strategies.
- hunter2_ 7y agoWhat separates drivers from phone/laptop users? Certainly not techies vs normals. It would seem to me that both cohorts are capable of, and potentially interested in, deciding between "shorter days but more years" and "longer days but fewer years." I think the real difference is that car manufacturers' business health depends on less maintenance over many years, and phone manufacturers' business health depends on planned obsolescence.
- fulafel 7y agoSome laptops support this too (eg business Thinkpads). Apple is a luxury brand and batteries are cheap to replace so it doesn't want to burden users to spend their precious cognitive capacity on battery management.
- gok 7y agoCars have way more capacity than they typically need, and very predictable usage patterns. If your car has 400 km of range and your daily commute is 80 km total, you can pretty safely charge to only 200 km and not get range anxiety. In the rare cases where you need as much capacity as possible (road trips), you know your approximate departure time, so the battery only needs to be at maximal charge for a short time. Laptops don't get used like that. People plug them in, then unplug and walk around with them until they either they run out of power or their meetings are over. It's really asking too much to have people plan their usage out. Plus the draw rates aren't predictable. If I can get away with just checking email, my laptop lasts all day. If I have to do a big C++ compile that's 30 watt-hours right there. I might also add that really only Tesla is doing the charging guidance UI. Other car manufacturers spend a lot of resources to perpetuate the illusion of a battery working like a fuel tank.
- bochoh 7y agoThe only thing wrong with my Note 8 at this point is battery life. I'd gladly have dealt with 80% charge over its entire life in order to still have a good battery life now.
- killion 7y agoThis is exactly what I was thinking. The article doesn't mention if there is a setting to temporarily allow the battery to charge to a higher percentage. I assume checking the box to not use this setting will work the same way but I want to make sure I switch it back. Just like how Tesla prompts you intermittently.
- lloeki 7y agoiOS has made steps towards this by learning your charging habits (e.g at night), going to 80%, and wait to the last minute before topping up.
- rootusrootus 7y agoThis is something I have heard about but have yet to experience. Maybe my charging habits are too irregular.
- progman32 7y agoMy Asus Zenfone 6 does this. It also seems to modulate the charge current to a low level if charging overnight. A tap on the notification engages full charge power.
- RcrdBrt 7y agoLong time ago Ezekeel, a xda-developers user, published a kernel mod for the Nexus S that let you choose the max percentage that the battery could reach while charging. It was called BLX aka Battery Life eXtender. I always set it to 80%. I've always been intrigued by extending the life of li-ion cells and that's the only work that goes into that direction AFAIK. I believe it was 2011. There hasn't been anything like that ever since.
- gruez 7y ago>There hasn't been anything like that ever since. https://github.com/sriharshaarangi/BatteryChargeLimit/ https://github.com/sriharshaarangi/BatteryChargeLimit/ root required, obviously.
- Zak 7y agoThere's AccA (and the command-line ACC) which allow fairly sophisticated control over max voltage and charging rates, with easy profile switching (features depend on kernel/hardware, but works with a lot of stock ROMs). Root is required, unsurprisingly. https://github.com/MatteCarra/AccA/releases/ https://github.com/MatteCarra/AccA/releases/
- dartdartdart 7y agoFor people who use their laptops primarily as plugged in machines, there should be a 50% max charge mode.
- intopieces 7y agoWhy 50%?
- leetcrew 7y agothe optimal charge state for long-term storage of a lipo cell is about 33%. 50% is a nice buffer on top of that if you use it unplugged for an hour or so, then put it away.
- intopieces 7y agoThe use case here is plugged in and, presumably, using the laptop, not storing. Is 50% still the ideal charge state, in that case?
- leetcrew 7y agomaybe not, but it's probably not much worse than the optimal charge state. you want to keep a lipo cell at 3.7v for optimal longevity. usually this corresponds to above 20% charge but below 80%, but the concept of "charge level" is sort of arbitrary. the manufacturer has already set safety buffers on either end of the spectrum, but the exact amount will vary based on risk tolerance, application, etc.
- dartdartdart 7y agoManufacturers send products out at 60% so I assumed 50% would be the best if you're not expecting to lose charge over time
- nodesocket 7y agoI keep my MacBook Pro 16" plugged in 80% of the time, but when I want to go work at a coffee shop on battery having 50% would be a big inconvenience. How much longer in terms of battery life are we talking doing 50% charge vs 100%?
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoPSA: If you have a thinkpad, the lenovo settings app lets you control this too. In lenovo vantage, go to Device > My Device Settings > Battery settings > Battery Charge Threshold.
- simonh 7y agoExcept that's a fixed threshold you have to set manually. This tracks the thermal and charging profile of the battery, learns it's characteristics and adjusts the threshold dynamically.
- ashtonkem 7y agoWhich has a huge impact on battery health. Good and bad battery management explains a non trivial difference between high and low quality LiPo battery products.
- sahaskatta 7y agoThe Dell XPS 13 also offers an interface in the BIOS that lets you set a charge limit, hours not to charge the laptop, and a bunch of other great controls. The only big issue is that they don't expose it through a friendly UI within Windows 10. It's nonsense that I need to go to the BIOS to tweak these settings.
- jonfw 7y agoWhat's really nice about that approach is that I run linux on mine and it all still works perfectly!
- post_break 7y agoHonestly it’s great that it’s in the bios because I run Mac OS on mine and it still works.
- the_pwner224 7y agoThere's an application named something like Dell Command Center (maybe Dell Power Manager on windows?) that comes preinstalled with the default xps win10. Or you can get it yourself from the dell website. It exposes all of the bios settings. There's also a DCC package for Linux which can do the same thing. I made a thin Python wrapper which would read a number and set that to the maximum battery charge limit (e.g. $ battery.py 85). Unfortunately I got rid of the xps so I don't have the script, but it was very simple. Hard part was figuring out what the cmdline arguments to the DCC executable were.
- diebeforei485 7y agoThis makes a ton of sense. I assume it's smart enough to use data like your location to charge up all the way (or more than usual) if you're in some random hotel, instead of having to remember to turn it off when traveling. If it's smart and takes all these things into account, that would be so much better than setting some arbitrary threshold (is 50% okay? is 80% okay?). Adding arbitrary options enables a lot of bullshit advice to spread.
- tambourine_man 7y agoWe desperately need better energy storage tech. It's amazing what we were able to squeeze out of lithium ion, but it's fundamentally a stop-gap.
- rconti 7y agoman, I'm just still so impressed at how much better batteries are now than they were 15 years ago.
- maa5444 7y agois there any he I can buy to do the same .. like something to put between my the wall socket and the plug .... it should kill the charging at some point ever when plugged in
- aeyes 7y agoJust let me set a max charging percentage like on my Thinkpad please.... After 2 years the battery on my MacBook Pro is pretty much dead.
- m_eiman 7y agoYou should probably check your battery cycle count: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585
- aeyes 7y agoIts around 350, the battery is dead from being plugged in at work 10-12 hours every day.
- m_eiman 7y agoIf the full charge is less than 80% of design capacity before 1000 cycles the battery is defective according to Apple. You should be able to get it replaced for free, imho, but I suppose that depends on local regulations and if you have Apple Care or not.
- ben_w 7y agoHuh. That explains why my MacBook Air is doing so much worse than I expected from the number of cycles it’s reporting. It’s a mid-2013, so I’m not expecting much, but a few times I’ve seen “100%” when waking it unplugged, only for this to be immediately followed by an emergency shutdown, and when the reboot completes it claims “42%”. It’s plugged in almost continuously these days.
- floatingatoll 7y agoWhat you describe does sound just like a battery that was almost always fully charged, and is about .. six? years old. You may want to try the “rumored to work” calibration process, or replace the battery after the latest OS update: https://help.ifixit.com/article/265-battery-calibration https://help.ifixit.com/article/265-battery-calibration Which is essentially “set it never to sleep automatically, plug it in overnight, unplug it for 24 hours lid open and let it die and stay dead a while, charge it fully” without ever interrupting the charging process. On a healthy battery this will slightly reduce capacity each time due to deep cycle so don’t go doing this if you’re not experiencing “shuts down at 42%“ problems!
- geoelectric 7y agoIf you check the power tab under System Information, you can find some battery health info that might be illuminating. For example, my newish MBP16: Charge Information: Charge Remaining (mAh): 8362 Fully Charged: Yes Charging: No Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 8647 Health Information: Cycle Count: 18 Condition: Normal Looking it up, specced full capacity is 8818 mAh, so I'm at 98% health right now--probably lost a point or two because I leave it constantly plugged in at work. Willing to bet yours is much lower. There are a few apps out there that can do a better analysis too. CoconutBattery used to be a good one, no idea if it's still around, but they were common.
- bdcravens 7y agoYikes - I have the same, and with a cycle count of 41, I'm down to 94%.
- idoby 7y agoThey should just make 50% the new 100% and then let you "supercharge" to 150% when you need to. I'm kind of surprised Apple hasn't done this already.
- stygiansonic 7y agoNitpick: if 50% was the new 100% then the supercharge option would be to 200%, which sounds even better :)
- thanksgiving 7y agoAnother nit: Maybe we never let the user get to 200% by refusing to charge beyond 150% (internally known as 75%?) ever. Better yet, all devices, phones, tablets, notebook computers, headphones, speakers, ... should automatically stop charging at about 75% and then continue to run directly off of the wall. I used to think that's what all devices do because that just seems like common sense to me.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoI believe this is approximately how modern rechargeable devices work in order to get so much life out of lithium ion batteries. Maximum charge state is some percentage below the batteries physical maximum, and maximum discharge is state is above the batteries physical minimum. There's a bit in this Wikipedia article[1] that state charging Li-ion batteries beyond 80% can drastically accelerate battery degradation. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Charge_and_discharge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Charge_and...
- NullPrefix 7y agoThis could actually work for Apple devices, because no one compares them against other laptops by specs. Although they would be compared against last gen macs. Saying "Battery is half the size" would need some marketing polish, implying that it's lighter or something.
- 7y ago
- jb775 7y ago>Charging a modern laptop battery to 100% and leaving it there for extended periods of time—especially at warm temperatures—can dramatically reduce the battery’s usable life. This has been known for years, and this feature is relatively simple to build. I don't think it's an act of benevolence from Apple, I think the estimated cost of another class-action lawsuit has surpassed the estimated gain from decreasing the perceived life of MacBooks.
- bertil 7y agoI’d be surprised if the risk wasn’t seriously mitigated by hiding that option in an obscure enough menu, or a command-line tool.
- monadic2 7y agoI really wish we could have greater control over these choices—the ones apple goes with rarely align with the way I would ideally use my laptop.
- machello13 7y agoNot sure what there is to complain about here. There's a checkbox to turn it off if you don't like it, and anyway it's designed to adapt to how you use your laptop.
- rusty__ 7y agoI wish people would stop using the generic 'MacBook' when talking about 'MacBook Pro' and 'MacBook Air' - makes it very diffcult as a 'MacBook' owner to find support articles.
- NullPrefix 7y agoDon't they have specific code names? A9999X?
- saagarjha 7y agoA1534.
- geoelectric 7y agoWell, there aren't that many things specific to them unless you're talking hardware specs. They're all part of the MacBook family, so it's valid to call them that. I'd blame Apple who decided not to name the 12" and left it only with its family name. Sure, that's how it used to be, but post 2000s that's just not a model name anymore on its own, anymore than iPhone or iPad is. Think "12 inch MacBook" probably would find the most hits, though. Probably even better than the "MacBook -pro -air" thing I suspect you were doing, since those two get mentioned in the same articles a lot. At least they've mostly backed off the "The New <old name>" type crap they were doing with iPad 3, etc. You want to talk hard to search for...
- tipsysquid 7y agoFor Dell users, you can do this as well in the BIOS if you run Linux, and the Dell battery utility in Windows 10
- adav 7y agoHey Apple, this is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the clean USB-C ports arrangement on new MacBooks! Charging Mode 1) By plugging the charger into the rearmost port, full 100% fast charge please. Charging Mode 2) By plugging the charger into the other, nearer port, I’m indicating that we’ll be here for a while... please trickle my battery up to 50-75% to prolong the battery’s lifespan. Indicate which mode I have instigated with a difference in “on charge” noises and show an explanatory notification in the MacOS UI. Perfect opportunity to explain what’s going on and espouse your green design credentials.
- aaomidi 7y agoThis is a terrible idea. Even if you're going to do this it's far better to be a toggle on software rather than tying it to the port you're using.
- adav 7y agoBut you can see what state the laptop’s in from across the room.
- skrtskrt 7y agoI can't even glance at a MacBook on my desk and tell if I plugged into the closer or further USB-C port
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Someone1234 7y agoI cannot say I've ever needed to know the charge-rate mode from across the room. I can say though that I've wanted to be able to plug a device in on both the left and right depending on location and usage. I really wouldn't want to lose that functionality for this, particularly when a simple software toggle is more flexible long term anyway. 9 times out of 10 I am going to use the same charge mode at the same physical location (e.g. at home, slow, at work fast). That would be the real killer feature, geo-fenced software toggle that knows where I am and what mode I previously used here.
- wrs 7y agoI've noticed that on newer (past few years) MacBook Pros, if their battery runs down too far they refuse to start up, even when plugged into the charger. The battery has to charge for 10-15 minutes with the "dead battery" icon on the screen. It's exactly the same behavior as iPhone/iPad. In past MacBook models, the battery could be dead--or even completely removed--and the charger would power the laptop fine. Anyone know why this extremely irritating change had to be made?
- vbezhenar 7y agoMy guess is they want to be able to perform clean shutdown if charger is removed.
- ratww 7y agoI've been explained that this is because those computers might need more power than the AC Charger is able to provide, so the battery is also used as a "backup" for burst loads. This [1] seems to confirm it. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20081225111200/http://support.apple.com:80/kb/HT2332 https://web.archive.org/web/20081225111200/http://support.ap...
- konschubert 7y agoThat would mean that it would not charge while being used. That’s not the case I assume.
- zeusk 7y agoNo, that only means it can't be charged will on burst load (turbo boost). Intel's chips can consume > 200% of their TDP during all-core turbo.
- leetcrew 7y agothe case where the laptop draws more power than the AC adapter can provide is probably some sort of brief turbo state for the cpu and/or gpu. it can't maintain this for long without overheating.
- 7y ago
- jb775 7y agoWhy not just get rid of built-in batteries entirely? Not only does it lead to unethical business practices (linking battery life to hardware performance), but it facilitates a privacy nightmare.
- KCUOJJQJ 7y agoIf I could just remove and replace a battery then I wouldn't have to give my laptop to someone else. I always put in a separately bought SSD in a laptop, so that I am able to remove my data in case of a (warranty) repair by someone else who doesn't do the repair in front of me.
- lilyball 7y ago> Why not just get rid of built-in batteries entirely Built-in batteries allow for custom battery shapes that increase battery life or allow for thinner computers at the same battery life. They increase laptop durability by not requiring a removable battery cover. They allow for putting other components on top of the battery as well to better take advantage of the space inside the enclosure. > it facilitates a privacy nightmare How does it do that?
- jb775 7y ago> How does it do that? If I remove my laptop battery, I know no one can tap into my hardware covertly. E.g. turn on the microphone, enable bluetooth hardware to see who I'm near, enable 3G/4G hardware to track which cell towers I'm near, etc. I'd gladly deal with a battery cover on my MacBook in exchange for definite privacy. Better yet, remove the battery from inside the laptop entirely and can plug one in via USB-C port as needed.
- lilyball 7y agoFor such a niche use case, just stick the thing in a faraday cage bag. It doesn't matter that it has power if it can't exchange any signals with the outside world.
- KCUOJJQJ 7y ago
- ksec 7y agoWe need a leap in Battery Tech, in Charge Cycles, Capacity, Durability, Non-flammable.
- rubber_duck 7y agoI got a top spec 15 MBP a year ago and I have to say the experience is appalling - 4000$ device that goes full airplane takeoff levels of noise at any serious workload, no ability to control performance (I would gladly throttle the CPU sooner to avoid everyone in the office turning my way when I start an emulator or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fans). All of this could be fixed if the device gave me power settings but even third party paid tools that require custom kernel extensions (Volta) still don't work reliably. My next computer is not going to be from Apple for sure.
- Someone1234 7y agoUnfortunately this is not new. A lot of good can be said about Apple's devices (inc. Macbooks), but in terms of thermal performance the Macbooks are pretty bad and have been for a very long time. They often use software to paper over the problem. Part of that seems to be a design trade-off to hide the exhaust vent and continuing the match towards thin. As an aside the 2019 redesign of the Mac Pro likely has the best thermal design we've seen from Apple by far. I often wonder what an actual mobile workstation laptop from Apple would look like, I'm talking at least three times the thickness, hardy case/screen, great thermal design, and huge battery. It would be niche but fantastic.
- eecc 7y agoJust search for it https://www.eidac.de/ https://www.eidac.de/
- rubber_duck 7y agoThis is fan control - but I want CPU/GPU power control - I wouldn't mind lowering my boost clocks to limit peak temperatures on heavy workloads.
- eecc 7y ago> or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fans My reading skills still suggest SMCfanControl fulfills the description given by the parent post
- lilyball 7y agoApple has been doing this with iOS already, the only thing that surprises me is that they've waited so long before doing it with laptops.
- druidcz 7y agoI have destroyed three MBP batteries by having the laptop plugged in to the wall 24/7. Luckily Apple always replaced them in warranty for free.
- cmckn 7y agoWhy doesn't the UI report 80% as 100%? It seems like exposing this to the user is more confusing than anything, when the cells could be over provisioned and treated politely by a system controller, without the user being part of the decision. Aren't SSD's over provisioned in this manner? You sell a drive with a terabyte of storage, but actually ship more than a terabyte of chips in the case to accommodate degradation over the life of the device.
- Lammy 7y agoReminds me of how they changed Finder in Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) to report disk capacity in base-10 bytes instead of base-2 bytes.
- duskwuff 7y agoEh. That was more for consistency with how storage devices are sold -- if a 10^30 byte hard disk is described by storage vendors as "1 TB", it's incredibly confusing to users to have it show up as "931 GB".
- noisem4ker 7y agoThere's nothing wrong with letting users learn how hard disk marketers are ripping them off, instead of playing their game. But, as usual, Apple prefers to choose blissful ignorance for their sheep customers. Besides that, we have proper units for binary multiples: KiB, MiB, and so on. I've only seen KDE use them properly so far, and it's a shame.
- userbinator 7y agoBesides that, we have proper units for binary multiples Approximately 0 average users know about them, and of the technical users, only the truly irritatingly pedantic are going to use them (which may be why they've shown up in Linux).
- 7y ago
- rb808 7y agoIts amazing how dumb most charging is for smart devices. I plug my phone in every night and it does a quick charge then sits there and does nothing the rest of the night. It even knows my alarm clock time, surely it should be smart enough to slowly charge all night.
- duskwuff 7y agoiPhones will selectively delay charging past 80% if you're at home and if your usage history indicates that the phone will be left on the charger for a while longer. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512
- praseodym 7y agoApparently a notification will show up when optimised charging is enabled. I’ve never seen it, because the functionality also requires Significant Locations and other location services (listed near the bottom of the page) to be enabled. That seems to me to be quite unfriendly to privacy. And given that I always charge my phone overnight and use my phone’s alarm function, it could simply use that as the target time to finish charging to 100%. No complicated location-based ML needed.
- AlphaSite 7y agoIt’s all on device so I don’t think there are any significant privacy implications.
- progman32 7y agoMy Asus Zenfone 6 just looks at my next alarm for this purpose.
- currysausage 7y agoAt least, it would be nice if they told me about this requirement on the Settings sheet where I enable "Optimized Battery Charging". I was wondering why it never seems to kick in. Thank you for the clue!
- qwerty456127 7y agoIt says changes the default. Could this be chosen manually then. Can I set up the same behavior on High Sierra?
- Sephr 7y agoIt would be nice if I could keep my MacBook battery at a healthy level without having to drain it. With the MacBook Pro 16 you can easily draw enough energy to drain your battery while using a 100W power adapter. Dell addressed to this issue in their USB-C laptops by making and allowing 130W power adapters. Apple requires you to tap into your non-user-replaceable battery to supplant the power usage.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoI had the issue that my charger was overheating so much it would stop charging entirely. Had to ask the IT guy for a 2nd charger so I can swap between the two to make sure my laptop wouldnt lose its charge. My former employer had us all with Macbook Pros even though due to the nature of our work we couldnt do jack while outside of the office. Still unsure why they didnt just buy us iMacs.
- Marsymars 7y agoI wonder why this applies only to Thunderbolt 3 MacBooks and not non-Thunderbolt USB-C MacBooks.
- cerberusss 7y agoMaybe the Thunderbolt 3 MacBooks have enough capacity to spare?
- Marsymars 7y agoMaybe... there's not a ton of difference in specced battery life though, so 80% of that should be roughly the same. The 2017 MacBook is specced for 10/12/30 web hours/movie hours/standby days on battery vs. the 2020 MacBook Air is specced for 11/12/30.
- diebeforei485 7y agoSo many people on here seem to be intent on micromanaging their device's battery. IMO the whole point is to let macOS handle it so you can focus on actual work. I know Apple has screwed up in the past with throttling iPhone CPU's (bad). At this point they know not to go to those lengths again.
- anamexis 7y agoThe only thing they screwed up on was not telling people they were throttling. They're still doing it (which is good).
- kohtatsu 7y agoTo be fair that's a pretty big thing to screw up. I commend Apple for a lot (see my last 3 comments), but I think they cross the line of too-voodoo too frequently. I think they'd do well to dispel more magic.
- askafriend 7y agoThat "issue" was way overblown. Apple's change did the right thing. It fixed a ton of older phones which before were rendered unusable since they would experience random shutdowns due to naturally degraded Li-Ion batteries. Every manufacturer should implement the kind of fix Apple did (and I'm sure at this point, they have). They even mentioned the change in the original release notes for the iOS update.
- yakkers 7y agoThe problem with how Apple did it originally was that it was completely opaque to the user. As far as the average user was concerned, their phone was slowing down for no reason. The Battery Health menu should have been implemented from the start, and the controversy probably would have been completely avoided.
- mthoms 7y ago>They even mentioned the change in the original release notes for the iOS update No, they didn't. The amended the release notes after the fact. https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/02/06/apple-on-ios-10-2-1-throttling-disclosure/ https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/02/06/apple-on-ios-10-2-1...
- treyfitty 7y agoI thought keeping a MacBook plugged in was advertised as OK (Even said to be BETTER) since the power is being drawn from the AC source rather than the battery. What’s the deal, is it better to leave it plugged in, or not?
- mr_toad 7y agoGenerally speaking it’s better to keep it plugged in than to repeatedly charge and discharge it. But it’s even better to keep in plugged in at 80% charge instead of 100%.
- Nyra 7y agoReally? I'm not very knowledgeable about the subject but I always understood that discharging the battery was healthy. Is there somewhere I can read up on why that is?
- aeyes 7y agoIt is healthy, but discharging to 0% isn't and keeping it at 100% isn't either. It is best to plug in at 20% but only charge to 80%. Then every half a year you do a full charge to 100% and a full discharge to calibrate the battery management. But sadly that can't be configured on a MacBook.
- wyclif 7y agoBut...how do you keep it plugged in at 80% charge without hitting 100% relatively quickly?
- bluedino 7y agoQuite a few 16" owners have been reporting their battery capacity to be down to 90% already.
- sahoo 7y agoI wish they will give a, hey Siri charge to 100% command, if I am traveling.
- jonny383 7y agoMy 2017 13" Macbook Pro has seriously had garbage battery since the day I got it. I'm lucky to get 4 hours from it doing light browsing in Safari. Comparatively, my 2014 13" Macbook Air had the best battery I've ever had. Routinely got 10 hours + doing the same thing. And now, I have "service battery" in the tray icon. Cycle count: 101. After the battery is below 60%, any kind of "heavy load" (i.e. gcc) will just turn the thing off like a power cut. Worst part is I can't even take it to get repaired because I'm stuck in SE asia under lock-down.
- dnr 7y agoFor Thinkpads running Linux, you can do this (somewhat manually) with tpacpi-bat: https://github.com/teleshoes/tpacpi-bat https://github.com/teleshoes/tpacpi-bat I set mine to stop charging at 85% and not start again until it drops below 75%. If I know I'm going to be away from power for a while (e.g. traveling) I manually tell it to charge up to 95%. Anyone know if there's something like that for Android?
- zozbot234 7y agoIIRC, F-Droid has a battery charge limiting app but the support is quite hit-and-miss depending on your hardware and it generally requires root access. There are some Android phones that offer this as a stock feature, e.g. in the ASUS "Zenphone" M series.
- ohazi 7y agoSomewhat infuriatingly, Thinkpads with two batteries (e.g. T480) will discharge whichever battery appears "healthier" first, rather than taking the sensible route of discharging the external battery first so that your internal battery isn't completely dead when you're trying to hot swap. When new, the internal lithium polymer battery reports its nominal capacity conservatively, so that the measured capacity is a few hundred mAh higher than nominal, making it appear healthier. The external lithium ion batteries tend to report nominal battery capacity accurately. This means that for something like the first year of use, these Thinkpads will consistently discharge the internal battery to 5% before touching the external battery. By the time your external battery is low enough to warrant a hot swap, the internal battery is gone, and you have to power down or plug in. And of course 5% isn't a configurable threshold, so you can't change it to, say, 20% instead. Apparently this is baked into firmware on a charge controller IC somewhere, so it's not hackable with some i2c commands like the charge thresholds.
- sebastianconcpt 7y agoIt can make it pole dance if they like, I won't upgrade macOS during a lockdown. No way.
- alliao 7y agomy favourite laptop has to be Panasonic's Let's Note I had one wayyy back model W2D and they eventually had this physical button that let you charge up to 80% for longevity reasons. That being said, I still own a macbook pro from 2011 and it's battery is still 100% healthy so I'm quite surprised to see how much's changed...
- hunter2_ 7y agoI doubt you're really at 100%... if you go to "Apple menu > About This Mac > System Report > Power > Battery Information" you can look at "Health Information > Cycle Count" and see how many cycles you've been through... see "Cycle Count Limits" at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585 for expected lifetime. You could also look at "Charge information > Full Charge Capacity (mAh)" and compare that to whatever the original capacity was for that model.
- alliao 7y agosays 115 cycle... as it's plugged in most of it's life and full charge capacity is 6435mAh which sounds about 100% still.. oh and it's actually late 2012 rather than 2011 felt like I got an upgrade lol
- jimmcslim 7y agoIt would be great if they made this available for Mojave... Catalina seems like such a shit-show that I have yet to upgrade. God knows my laptop is spending alot of time on its charger at the moment. Given 10.15.5 is likely to be the last version of Catalina before whatever comes next... maybe it will be time to jump in?
- shawnz 7y agoRelease too many feature updates on Mojave and they'll just risk customers saying that Mojave is a shit-show. When 100 million users use the product, every patch breaks something for somebody.
- kevinherron 7y agoI've used Catalina since 10.15.1 and haven't had issues. On a 2016 15" MBP followed by a 2019 16" MBP.
- Etheryte 7y agoSome people being lucky and not having issues doesn't mean other people don't have them. As evidenced in many comment threads recently, plenty of people have issues with Catalina.
- kalleboo 7y agoYeah, Catalina actually fixed some bugginess I had with Mojave. Only major loss is that some third-party prefpanes I use broke due to signing requirements
- aj7 7y agoI have a loaded 2015 MacBook Pro. My wife insisted on it - we felt flush at the time. It spends 6 months unused, and six months as a desktop, plugged in. But if you go to use it mobiley, the battery life is about 40 minutes.
- hombre_fatal 7y agoSounds like you need to just get a new battery. That was 5 years ago. I got 4-6 hours on my 2015 MBP depending on what I was doing after two years. You could get a program like iStat Menus to keep an easy eye on your CPU to see if something is using it. I think it's required in 2020 where Spotify, Discord, Slack, Steam, a browser tab you opened last week, etc. will regularly decide to start eating a whole core in the background.
- Lammy 7y agoBecause newer Macs contain what is essentially an iOS device: the security processor. It’s the data broker for the encrypted internal storage among other things.
- EGreg 7y agoI suddenly started getting this notification: To reduce battery aging, iPhone learns from your daily charging routine so it can wait to finish charging past 80% until you need to use it What does that mean? The remaining 20% happens right before you wake up, otherwise the battery isn’t stressed so much?
- bumblebritches5 7y agoOnly for MacBooks from 2016 or newer unfortunately.
- justlexi93 7y agoApple should really work on the batteries of their product, most people hate their product because of the poor battery.
- shp0ngle 7y agoNow I am thinking for the first time about upgrade to Catalina.
- ddmma 7y agoSo the guys from sales enter in the engineering room and take some decisions on the way devices should behave, first months maximum usage and then degrade contantly until new releases to increase adoption. Oh my, was for your battery protection (no more juice) either was a bug (if privacy was jnvolved)
- AlEinstein 7y agoDid you even read the article? I’ve been wanting something like this for a while. It’s a solid engineering decision that needs good marketing to make sure people understand that it’s good for battery life.
- robocat 7y agoI hit a similar issue with an iPad today - there is no easy way to tell if it is charging slowly. It was showing the charging icon, although only charging at 1W. Horrific UI. I changed cables, it was charging at 5W. Shit, the charger was a 5W charger for an iPod (charger looks the same, need to read tiny low contrast writing to tell difference). Changed to a 10W charger, now charging at 7.5W. Change to another cable, finally 10W. Fortunately I had an in-line USB diagnosis tool (about $10, google for USB power meter) otherwise you are screwed trying to diagnose why your iPad seems to be charging slow...
- surround 7y agoIf I know I’m going to leave a laptop plugged in indefinitely, I would like to be able to set it to 50% battery manually instead of trying to “train” the software to get it right. Most (all?) operating systems lack this ability.
- Qub3d 7y agoOn Dell's laptops (at least, on my XPS), I can set a maximum charge in the BIOS, as well as select one from a few different charging strategies.
- ComodoHacker 7y agoWeren't other major vendors doing this since middle of 2000s at least?
- ekzy 7y agoI've got a Mid 2014 MBP Retina and I'm happy with it, except for playing video games. I tried to upgrade to one of the new MBP last year and I hated it. I sent it back. I tried a windows with WSL, as well as an ubuntu setup, on a very powerful and sleek laptop, but I sent it back too. I'm back with my good old 2014 retina. If I really need a new laptop, for now the only viable option is a MBP Retina 2015, how crazy is that?
- technotarek 7y agoSlightly off topic, but has anyone else noticed how simply starting Activity Monitor can bring your CPU and fan under control when they’re raging? True with both my 2013 and brand new 2020 MBA.
- rahkiin 7y agoAccording to Coconut battery, my MacBook Pro battery is now at 89% capacity after only 2.3 years and 140 cycles. I hope this change keeps me away from the dreaded 80%...