Q: Lion - Horrible MacBook Pro Battery Life

Same story here -- don't ask me how, but according to my acitivy monitor, USB Printer and Storage Center was using 103% of the CPU. Only noticed it when trying to figure out why my normally cool MBP was suddenly running seriously hot a couple of days after upgrading to Lion. As with DGaryC's report here, I use only wireless printing anyway so I have no idea why that process would even be there. A Flash process was also supposedly using another 17% of the CPU; apparently some strange math is at work here. After reading this thread I quit the USB Printer and Storage Center process and the Flash one, and the machine immediately started to cool back down. Everything seem sto be normal again now. Even after rebooting, printing, browsing around, playing a Flash movie, etc., to test whether those process would go nuts again, the Activity Monitor isn't reporting anything unexpected now, CPU usage is back to normal and nothing's warm to the touch. Time will tell if it starts back up over time though. I hadn't noticed whether I'd lost any battery time -- the MacBook had been plugged in most of the time the past couple of days -- but now that I've read this thread I'll be watching it.  But for now I'm at 50% and over three hours remaining, which seems fairly close to normal for me. Thanks for sharing the information, DGaryC !

My battery is still epicly bad.

I get 4 hours at max, even tried a clean reinstall of lion.

This needs to get fixed soon, it is not a way to treat us all :-(

Also did the upgrade from SL to Lion on my MBP 13" 2010. Did get about half the battery time as before. System felt much more hot than in SL. So I checked activity monitor, but no big differences in CPU. Very strange. Didn't like all that and went back to SL (10.6.8) after two weeks with my time machine backup. Now I have none of the Lion issues, battery time is back and the system doesn't run hot.

So, how does that logic work?  Your own research identifies several third-party apps which appear to be compatible with Lion but which actually have an error which saps battery life.  Even though this is not Apple's responsibility,  rather than lobby the authors of the software who are responsible, you decide to instigate a defamatory campaign to insist that it is Apple's responsibility to fix - on one of the very software titles that is incompatible.

Amazing Franc.  Even though yourself and Dr Chandra consistently state 'views' as a significant measure of the extent of the problem it's really only you who repeatedly repost these comments so we can only assume you to be trolls.

Unfortunately all this noise may hide the information easily revealed in a more succinct thread so for anyone with a real problem, please be aware that not all existing software is actually compatible with OSX 10.7 (Lion).  Please isolate the offending titles and lobby the software authors whos responsibility it is to update with a compatible version.  Applications are written for the platform, not the other way around.

Same situation here.  Steps I've taken to resolve issue (in order):

1) Battery memory reset.  No improvement.
2) AppleCare.  Suggested battery memory reset.  No improvement.  Made local Genius Bar Appt.
3) Genius Bar Appt.  Verified problem.  Ran full system diagnostic test.  Battery checked out fine.  Battery replaced.  Suggested Lion install wasn't performed properly, and recommended Lion reinstall.
4) Lion Re-install.  No improvement.

Like other posters, I am running only key apps (Mail, Safari, Calendar). 

Prior to Lion (under SL) - average battery life was 6+ hours.  Now it is 3.

What happens if you start in Safe Mode, so that only essential services are running?

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

Nickofari wrote:

 

Same situation here.  Steps I've taken to resolve issue (in order):

 

1) Battery memory reset.  No improvement.
2) AppleCare.  Suggested battery memory reset.  No improvement.  Made local Genius Bar Appt.
3) Genius Bar Appt.  Verified problem.  Ran full system diagnostic test.  Battery checked out fine.  Battery replaced.  Suggested Lion install wasn't performed properly, and recommended Lion reinstall.
4) Lion Re-install.  No improvement.

 

Like other posters, I am running only key apps (Mail, Safari, Calendar). 

Prior to Lion (under SL) - average battery life was 6+ hours.  Now it is 3.

Open Activity Monitor, sort by CPU load and post a screenshot here of the top 10 items in the list.

Sorry McDave, your logic is also ill founded.  I have a new Macbook Pro, only Lion installed with Pages, that's all.  Battery life is half what it was under SL.  I do not use the battery monitor, I have been actual logging use.

Safari, Mail and Pages use, 30% screen brightness, keyboard lights off, still crap.

lesliefromstockton-on-tees wrote:

 

Sorry McDave, your logic is also ill founded.  I have a new Macbook Pro, only Lion installed with Pages, that's all.  Battery life is half what it was under SL.  I do not use the battery monitor, I have been actual logging use.

 

 

Safari, Mail and Pages use, 30% screen brightness, keyboard lights off, still crap.

Open Activity Monitor, sort by CPU load and post a screenshot here of the top 10 items in the list.

Start up in safe mode and observe the changes, if this brings an improvement it will point you to which processes may be 'running away'

Kill the Flash Player process and observe the machine over the next couple of hours for changes in behaviour

From today new MacBook Pro's available at the Apple Store. Apple again promise 7 hours of Safari (25 tabs open) WiFi working time. It is interesting is there is the same battery used as in previous model or not? And is it really keeps 7 hours with Lion?

Apple also emailed me once and made arrangements to take the telemetry of my mac to resolve this problem. 

Over the course of the conversation, the person said that even if I have any questions, he will be more than glad to answer them.  My emails were never answered.

It has been over a month since then.  Now I see that people are complaining that apple is not minding this thread and at some point deleting some entries.

They have just released the new line of macbook pros claiming battery life up to 7hours.... They have a good writeup in CNET.  Maybe we can make our comments there if they are not answering this here.

I hope apple addresses this soon.