The battery woes that had dented the image of the latest MacBook Pro devices seem to be a thing of the past if the latest Apple announcement on this is to be believed. The Cupertino company also explained the inconsistent battery rating has been the result of a bug in Safari that has since been rectified with the latest beta 3 of macOS Sierra version 10.12.3.
Worth mentioning, the MacBook Pro had received a ‘not recommended’ rating from Consumer Reports, which also happens to be a first ever for any MacBook Pro device. Apple, however, worked with Consumer Reports over the holidays and had identified the issue in the Safari browser setting that the company said led to grossly inconsistent battery ratings.
Explaining further, Apple said the demon lies in the ‘browser cache’ setting in Safari which Consumer Reports turns off while making its battery tests. The company also stated the setting is rarely likely to be turned off in real world conditions and is actually designed to allow for faster page load times.
Consumer Reports does its battery tests by setting the brightness to a specific level and loading a set of websites over and over again till the battery has lost all its charge. Also, it turns off the browser cache setting to ensure data is actually downloaded over the net instead of the page getting loaded from the cache each time.
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This way, the battery life was found to wary as widely as 19.5 hours to even just about 3.75 hours as well in some cases.
Consumer Reports stated they would be conducting the tests again with the software update installed before it makes any changes to its recommendations.
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Apple, however, said the disabling cache is never likely to be practiced by general users and hence battery life is never going to be affected adversely.
Unfortunately, that still fails to explain the numerous instances where the MacBook Pro has been found to vary widely with the battery times even when the Safari cache setting has remain unchanged. Maybe Apple has some more explaining to do in future on this.
Quick Recap
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- FAST RUNS IN THE FAMILY — The 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro or M5 Max chip brings next-generation speed and powerful on-device AI to personal, professional, and creative tasks. With all-day battery life, double the starting storage,* and a breathtaking Liquid Retina XDR display, it’s pro in every way.*
- BUCKLE UP — Along with a next-generation CPU, faster unified memory, and up to 2x faster SSD storage,* M5 Pro and M5 Max feature a more powerful GPU with a Neural Accelerator built into each core, delivering faster AI performance and on-device training capabilities. So you can blaze through demanding workloads at mind-bending speeds.
- BUILT FOR AI — Apple silicon, and every major component that powers it, is designed to run demanding on-device AI workloads like LLM inference and training. And Apple Intelligence helps you write, express yourself, and get things done effortlessly with groundbreaking privacy protections at every step.*
- ALL-DAY BATTERY LIFE — MacBook Pro delivers the same exceptional performance whether it’s running on battery or plugged in.*
- MACOS RUNS APPS FAST — All your go-to apps run lightning fast in macOS, including built-in apps like FaceTime and Messages. Plus, built-in virus protection and free software updates help keep your Mac running smoothly and securely.
Shopping ad
- FAST RUNS IN THE FAMILY — The 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro or M5 Max chip brings next-generation speed and powerful on-device AI to personal, professional, and creative tasks. With all-day battery life, double the starting storage,* and a breathtaking Liquid Retina XDR display, it’s pro in every way.*
- BUCKLE UP — Along with a next-generation CPU, faster unified memory, and up to 2x faster SSD storage,* M5 Pro and M5 Max feature a more powerful GPU with a Neural Accelerator built into each core, delivering faster AI performance and on-device training capabilities. So you can blaze through demanding workloads at mind-bending speeds.
- BUILT FOR AI — Apple silicon, and every major component that powers it, is designed to run demanding on-device AI workloads like LLM inference and training. And Apple Intelligence helps you write, express yourself, and get things done effortlessly with groundbreaking privacy protections at every step.*
- ALL-DAY BATTERY LIFE — MacBook Pro delivers the same exceptional performance whether it’s running on battery or plugged in.*
- MACOS RUNS APPS FAST — All your go-to apps run lightning fast in macOS, including built-in apps like FaceTime and Messages. Plus, built-in virus protection and free software updates help keep your Mac running smoothly and securely.
Shopping ad
- SUPERCHARGED BY M5 — The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 brings next-generation speed and powerful on-device AI to personal, professional, and creative tasks. Featuring all-day battery life and a breathtaking Liquid Retina XDR display with up to 1600 nits peak brightness, it’s pro in every way.*
- HAPPILY EVER FASTER — Along with its faster CPU and unified memory, M5 features a more powerful GPU with a Neural Accelerator built into each core, delivering faster AI performance. So you can blaze through demanding workloads at mind-bending speeds.
- BUILT FOR APPLE INTELLIGENCE — Apple Intelligence is the personal intelligence system that helps you write, express yourself, and get things done effortlessly. With groundbreaking privacy protections, it gives you peace of mind that no one else can access your data — not even Apple.*
- ALL-DAY BATTERY LIFE — MacBook Pro delivers the same exceptional performance whether it’s running on battery or plugged in.
- APPS FLY WITH APPLE SILICON — All your favorites, including Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud, run lightning fast in macOS.*
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