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Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

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Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#91

Post by adav »

snowwrestler wrote: post #45
adav wrote: post #39

Hey 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 mo…

I didn't think the USB-C / Thunderbolt port situation could get any more complicated and confusing [1], but congratulations, this would certainly do it. [1] https://www.macworld.com/article/3535896/how-to-tell-whether...

We aim to please! :)

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#92

Post by lloeki »

ben_w wrote: post #23

Huh. 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.

Probably there’s build up inside the battery simply given its age, and it’s unable to provide a steady power output, which also makes the reading wrong.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#93

Post by jb775 »

lilyball wrote: post #58
jb775 wrote: post #44

Why 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.

> 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 privac…

> 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.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#94

Post by adav »

Someone1234 wrote: post #51
adav wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can see what state the laptop’s in from across the room.

I 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 physica…

It’s a good point. Maybe I just really miss the little green or orange light on the MagSafe chargers. Then it was just a case of picking up the laptop and going, now I have to open it, give it a second to refresh its status, just to check. I’ve left the house a couple times with a dead laptop since getting the newer machine. Sorry for conflating two issues because I still wouldn’t know if the battery is full or not just from the different port.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#95

Post by machello13 »

monadic2 wrote: post #35

I 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.

Not 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.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#96

Post by rubber_duck »

haxxorfreak wrote: post #89
rubber_duck wrote: post #53

I 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 fan…

I use a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro with the six-core i9 at work and Turbo Boost Switcher[1] has been my favourite discovery. It lets you disable the turbo boost function of the processor which means the fans never spin up and the battery lasts longer. I pretty much always leave it disabled unless I am going to be transcoding video or compiling something and can't notice a performance hit even with a couple of VMs running.…

I have the same machine and I used this option with volta - it was the most reliable in turning down the heat while keeping the system stable but at the same time it made the system considerably slower even in day to day tasks (with just a few of background build watchers and server + a YT video on the second screen the RubyMine become unresponsive regularly)

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#97

Post by Lammy »

cmckn wrote: post #80

Why 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…

Reminds 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.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#98

Post by flyingswift »

KarlKemp wrote: post #63
wrs wrote: post #42

I'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…

That's been the default behaviour for as long as I can remember. I'm fairly certain of my 2008 Macbook Air doing this. Less so (but still better than even odds) for my 17" PowerBook. You'd want some minimum charge to, at least, safely start up and immediately shut down again. Maybe throw in a little extra to be on the safe side. The higher-performance MacBooks also operate within a an extreme width of power requireme…

I have one of these for work and it's the first Macbook I have used

I have never experienced this behavior on any other laptop I have ever used. When I ran into this for the first time, I was completely appalled, it is a horrible user experience

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#99

Post by kg »

cmckn wrote: post #80

Why 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…

Some samsung tablets (and phones, I think?) have an option that does this - it remaps 80% so it appears as 100% and won't charge past it. Nice way to improve battery health for a device that spends a good chunk of every day plugged in.

A fun side effect of this is that the tablet can boot while at '0%' battery, and then it will automatically shut off a little bit later to avoid dipping below the safe range - presumably '0%' is actually like 10% or so.

Re: Apple changes default MacBook charging behavior to improve battery health

#100

Post by rubber_duck »

mjayhn wrote: post #90
rubber_duck wrote: post #53

I 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 fan…

If it makes you feel any better I branched off to a XPS 13 2in1 4 months ago in between jobs (where I use the latest mbp) and used the thing for 2-3 months with no MBP as backup. I absolutely hate it. It throttles constantly even after undervolting it. I had to do a bunch of black magic to get it to sleep properly (which is evidently happening to every Dell) and eventually gave up on that and just set it to hibernate…

I know what you mean - had my share of random issues with Lenovo, HP, Dell - but at the end of the day Windows/Linux/Android are more customisable and I'm missing that a lot when I switched ecosystems.
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