Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

Thanks Beisarius

Thanks for checking in regularly, Beisarius.

This whole thing is now striking me as one of the nastiest little problems we have in IT: simultaneous failures.

It sounds as though there has been a batch of bad batteries and the problems with these batteries only become evident when charging algorithms used by Mountain Lion stress the tolerances of these batteries beyond what previous OS's did. This could explain both Beisarius' good results from battery replacement AND the success had by those who downgraded their OS.

The battery problem was there all along, but Mountain Lion's charging mechanisms triggered it in far higher numbers.

For my part, our institute's contracted Apple repair vendor is coming soon to replace my end user's Macbook battery. Given what I've been reading, I expect we'll either fix the issue that way or keep getting another battery until we get one that has the 5 hour battery lfe we're told to expect from a Macbook.

For any perfectionists out there, I'm still interested in seeing whether battery drain is still ghastly when booted from the recovery partition and surfing the web with Safari. My guess is that it will STILL be bad. If it isn't, it would be less cut and dried and some Mac eggheads may want to ponder that data point.

Imho a defective battery makes no sense. Why is the battery working normal with Lion? If the battery is the problem, the problem should appear with Lion too.

btw: They changed my battery, but I had the same problems with ML again. So I downgraded to Lion and my battery life is 7-8 hours, ML it was 3-4.

What is sure is that my battery is not fine any longer and is drowning at an amazing rate since I "upgraded" to ML. Typically I am now left with about 1 hour battery life capacity for basic web surfing and screen at max luminosity.

I do not believe Samsung will treat its customers better (bad experience with Samsung Blue-Ray discs player) as the others they'd just won't take responsibilities first. Profits first.

It indeed appears to be so. Let's say, and a good bet- my current MBA came from factory via Fedex- plane. Let's assume Apple shipps SO MANY units that it can ONLY ship by vessel and train. Ok, so here's the instant problem. In the pacific, containers vary a lot in temperature (and links on this topic abound).

If you notice those above 40C fluctuations, I do not doubt that, region and container relative, it can even go higher. In the end, I would never want a Li Ion battery stored in such heat, ever, unless using it on the go and that equipment is expendable.

"When transporting overland, or storing in a container yard, the interior temperature of the container may be exposed to extensive fluctuations as a result of direct sunlight, or radiant heat from the ground. Also, when the transport of a container involves different altitudes, the interior temperature of the container can be affected by changes in the outside temperature. During ocean transport, the temperature of seawater can affect the interior temperature of a container; however these instances are virtually few, when compared to overland transport. However, if the container is subjected to direct sunlight, the temperature will manifest similar changes as those seen during land transport."

And from battery science university:

"

How to Store Batteries

The recommended storage temperature for most batteries is 15°C (59°F); the extreme allowable temperature is –40°C to 50°C (–40°C to 122°F) for most chemistries. While lead acid must always be kept at full charge during storage, nickel- and lithium-based chemistries should be stored at around a 40 percent state-of-charge (SoC). This level minimizes age-related capacity loss while keeping the battery in operating condition and allowing self-discharge."

SO checking that transportation graph, I would not want any Li Ion powered device which had its battery exposed beyond the maximum allowable storage temperature, especially for days.

Another things is that the new batteries are SO THIN that they are less protected. Apple staff imediately speculated that a new discharging MBA, that was not flat, its battery had swollen inside. And we all know of people that wrecked cell phone batteries leaving them in sunlight. Even if powered off, the properties of that battery are altered. Its supposed to heat up when used and that is it.

Samsung? I do not know, they ship a lot less products, so much less that I do not even know how they ship. Vesse and train no doubt. But without stores in my Canadian cities, and from experience, would never buy anything but TVs from them. Apple is just better at customer support.

I owed a Samsung Galaxy for 3 hours. The cam was off focus. The customer service was so bad (Samsung Canada was so not informed of their product that they suggested I take it back). I returned it all together to the store and got my first iPhone.

DO not know about hardware failure, batteries are a consumable that we expect easily to fail- within design specs.

BINGO after nearly 2 years - 10.8.3 FIXES my BATTERY ISSUES. I am getting 7+ hours - UP FROM 4 1/2

2 Days in a row, I am now getting on my nearly 2 year old MAC BOOK PRO, around 8 hours with EVERYTHING running (EMAIL, CAL, SKYPE, ADIUM, SAFARI (flash), Twitter, WORD, EXCEL, TRILLAIN, GOOGLE MUSIC, GOOGLE DRIVE, DROPBOX, JAWBONE, POWER POINT

So, to be clear, I haven't changed ANYTHING and it was so OBVIOUS after the upgrade, the differerence. IMMEDIATELY. I didn't do an SMC reset (although the udpate might have done one). I am using the ORIGINAL 2 year old battery (hot, cold, warm, whatever, I don't care)... I am using the same apps, in the same way, all open, all running. Look, I am talking a solid 4 1/2 hours surfing, writing, working. Virtually NO idle time. The fan has not kicked on ONCE! I think that's the sign!

The 10.8.3. seed for me (and I don't think Apple will care I've shared as I am not providing any other intel) - is what I originally brought my $4k Mac for. Also, FWIW - the battery inidcator and percentage has been spot on all day. When I close the lid, and open it an hour later, it's where it was and stays there. I am at 4 hours and 45 mins right now with 2hrs 35 mins remaining (35%).

So, if you had battery problems before or after LION - I will pray that once 10.8.3 is released, YOU will see the battery life leap - as always possible. Forget all the other replies you've had trying to help you - it was, as we all along knew, something needed to be fixed and finally APPLE seem to have addressed.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

10.8.3 is released?! Oo

No, it's the seed as I said. It's imminent - probably!

I'm cryin!!!! 🙂

Waiting 10.8.3 (MacBook5,1 2.4Ghz)

Please do let's know if it indeed fixed the problem, i downgraded to lion.

Thanks.

I'm trying to figure out why my battery with 317 cycles and about 82% health suddenly jumped to 100% health and the "Replace Now" warning appeared yesterday. The upside is that I supposedly have 44 hours of battery life left according to iStat. Dear Apple, perhaps OS10.9 should be more thoroughly tested or a warning given or a little less hyped.

Can anyone tell me what is the expected 'Time remaining' after fully charging a new MBP? I believe it has to be close to 7 hrs. Mine never goes above 3:44, which is half of what should be!

Many of you are facing the same issue I think.

I have got my battery replaced once in the Genius bar but still get the same battery performance. Not sure if this is an issue with ML. I will again head to the Genius bar and see what they do next. Am going to dump my MBP there and will not take it back until I get the promised Battery performance.

3.5 hrs in a MBP. What a shame Apple :-/

So, here I am, still on the 10.8.3 latest seed (beta). I posted 4 days ago and I haven't had to do a single SMC reset or anything. I am still seeing right now, 8 hrs and 10 mins remianing (98%). With Mail, Skype, Drop Box, Music, Twitter, MS Word, Ical and this safari running... One of the Safari's is running a flash app that used to kill the battery.

I haven't rebooted in 2 days. Remember, even after an SMC reset, a few days later, I would go back to a paltry 3 1/2 hours max. In the office the other day (after the 10.8.3 upgrade), I let it go to 10% and had used the machine for over 6 1/2 hours for email, web and skype. The machine was on all day from 9am to 6pm before it reached that 10%

I have HIGH hopes for all of you. The machine is about 18 months old. Same battery and I haven't changed anything else in the last 3 months (except this seed). Sure, we've recieved great advice from thousands of people and Apple Stores but I am growing more and more confident, every single day, as I first thought, there were bugs in earlier releases that killed battery life that have been addressed. HOORAY. I can also confirm, after using it everyday for the last 4 days, just as over the past 18 months, the estimated time closely matches the actual time still unless I start something major like a full-screen video but the then the new estimate is virtually spot on exact.

I don't work for Apple but I sound like I do because I am soooo Happy.

this really sounds good, looks like apple folks found one or more major bugs!! Thanks for the feedback, i will wait for the public release.

Do you notice other performance gains?

No speed up but since I've had zero performance issues on my top-of-the range 512 SSD I wasn't looking for any. This thing flies as fast as the day it was new. Battery life WAS it's only achillies heal along with bugs in Ical and Mac Mail.