Battery life dropped considerably on Mountain Lion.

That seems to have worked for me. Thanks Straydan!

OK, so I've been having this problem ever since I reinstalled Mountain Lion. The only thing I did different this time was not disable the Notification Center.

I have a Macbook Air 2012. After my first upgrade to Mountain Lion I turned off the Notification Center right away because I thought it to be annoying.

This time around I left it enabled to check it out, then quickly forgot about it.

Then I noticed that my power was draing much too quickly. Even when in sleep mode, which I KNOW it wasn't doing with my previous install.

I'm going to disable Notification Center right now and I'll repost tomorrow whether or not this helped. If anyone else wants to try, here are the instructions. (You can always re-enable it, so no worries.)

Here is how to disable Notification Center:

First open up Terminal (Applications > Utilities), and then type the following command:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

Push Enter, then type:

killall NotificationCenter

I would reboot after this.

I got these instructions here:

http://lifehacker.com/5942898/permanently-disable-notification-center-in-os-x-mo untain-lion

Alright, nevermind.

I disabled Notification Center and rebooted. I then unplugged my MacBook Air and the battery charge is still dropping like a brick.

I love Mountain Lion, but I think I love having a long battery life a little bit more.

I'll go back to Lion and see if that helps.

My late 2010 MacBook Air was giving me a solid 5 hours before I upgraded to ML. Seems to me that its Apples job to fix this problem, but I don't see any input on this site from Apple?

I can't help but wonder how many people Steve Jobs would have been burning the midnight oil to fix a problem that generates 222 pages dedicated to a critical issue. Either the BOD at Apple need to find a new leader or Apple should expect their stock to continue to plunge if this is their idea of support.

Chinaexpat22 wrote:

My late 2010 MacBook Air was giving me a solid 5 hours before I upgraded to ML. Seems to me that its Apples job to fix this problem, but I don't see any input on this site from Apple?

I can't help but wonder how many people Steve Jobs would have been burning the midnight oil to fix a problem that generates 222 pages dedicated to a critical issue. Either the BOD at Apple need to find a new leader or Apple should expect their stock to continue to plunge if this is their idea of support.

This is not an "Authorized" support center. This is a community discussion area contributed by both new enthusiasts and experts who have experience with the products and services ranging from the beginning of Macintosh, however, no employees of Apple, Inc are within these pages. According to Apple, Inc, according to many various Apple Store employees, any of the writings and information within the community pages are by Apple users, only, and do not contain Apple, Inc authority.

We assist each other in understanding our Apple hardware/software clearly. Other than an interesting social experiement, this is peer-assisted support, and networking.

There are so many Apple Macintosh experts within this discussion community. People here have provided me invaluable answers not achieved from Apple Authorized Support, they have helped me solved many, many conundrums that I've run into, this Battery topic being one, of course, though is still on-going as I use so many different versions of the portable laptops. At the same time as these very reliable and ingenious community members, I've been urged continuously to not rely on the answers, here, as the final correction, I've been urged that some of the resources may harm my laptop and remove the usability of product(s) interactivity.

This community center would be amazing if we did, indeed, have Apple employees dedicated to each area. By doing something like that, the brand would depreciate, in my opinon. Apple, Inc is famous for their extended learning classes and human-to-human "Apple Experience" maintaining enjoyable, productive usability (and keeping major issues out of the public-eye.)

I do, however, rely on this discussion community and am still "troubleshooting" the battery issues. You'll notice within these pages of replies, answers and "fixes" are presented and work, then, someone troubleshoots with a new angle, keeping the dicussion(s) going in circles.

I've found that maintaining my product cache, using Adobe Bridge properly, turning Airport off when not using it, closing applications and keeping software minimized helps the battery to lengthen, though, the notification centers and constant interactivity with incoming/outgoing information from Mountain Lion seems to be the main issues I have. Running in "Safe-Mode" is a temporary fix and helps to slim down to a minimalist approach of software running, however, Apple is constantly serving up new "APPS" which are the continuously being installed by users, causing the battery to be used in excess. In my opinion, the Apps are promoted too heavily. I'd rather web-based applications rather than "self-contained" apps that are created by third-parties.

Same problem. Battery life was outstanding pre-ML. Now I can watch it visibly drop. Did someone post how to revert to Lion?

There were serveral posts about how to return from 10.8.x to 10.7 or 10.6. I posted a method that did not require using TM or reinstalling. However, while it seemed to work in moving from 10.8.2 to 10.7.x, it did not work in moving from 10.8.3 to 10.7.x as some of the System Preference options did not work properly. So, if you're gong to do it, I recommend either the Time Machine Restore method or a reinstall.

10.8.4 is now out. Installed, cleared caches, fully charged. Now for some use to see how it behaves.

I can't detect any super useful features, with the 10.8.4, as at least I can I understand and from what it is stated at the update information. I can't tell for the security improvements, though, since I haven't looked there and I don't believe I would be able to evaluate them, even if I had done so. For example, in my system (and other similar ones) there are issues with the graphic drivers and ML, which I doubt Apple has looked into.

I am cautious about the following observation, since it could be the result of coincidence and, moreover, its gravity is limited by being just one. Before updating to 10.8.4 I checked the power usage and it was laying around 3200mAh. After updating I check again and it has fallen to around 2000mAh, with exactly the same applications open. However, there has been a restart of the system between the two states, which might be the explanation for such a decrease. I would generally "blame" the management of Flash content in web browsers for consuming energy greedily.

I am on my first battery cycle since updating to 10.8.4 and there seems to be improvement. I usually got about 3-3.5 hours of use while only using Safari and after an hour, I have an estimated 3:36 hours left on the charge. My MBP is a Late '08 with a new battery with only 41 cycles on it, 8GB of RAM and the original 250GB HD.

Now that I've been on 10.8.4 for about 24 hours, including a few hours of battery time, I can offer a preliminary report on my observations.

1. While in "sleep" mode, I will still drop a few percentages in power even when the laptop is plugged in. While I do not recall this happening on Lion, it is consistent with the experience on 10.8.3.
2. Battery life "feels" a bit improved over 10.8.3. I have noticed that my battery statistics, using the 3rd-party Battery Health app, seems more consistent. For example, on 10.8.3, my current usage time remaining was always lower than the corresponding estimate for it respective use (e.g, Internet Browsing, Music, Movie) On 10.8.4, my current usage is 4:12 remaining and my Music estimate is 4:05. Since I'm listening to music, the estimate and the current usage match. In the past my current usage might be an hour less than the estimate for a particular use.

I installed the Combo Pack and did not bother with downloading through the appstore. I also cleared my caches after performing the update. While the estimate is not near the 7 hours advertised, it is now only slightly lower than my Windows 8 laptop that gets me about 5 hours on the battery. Neither machine has battery intended to be replaced by the user.

Good luck to all who are still having trouble.

Estimates are useless for this (especially over such a short time period). Do a real test, how long will it run on battery, then repeat it and after you have a few you can 'test' the estimate to see if it is accurate or not. Right now your inadvertantly getting a guess.

Csound1 wrote:

Estimates are useless for this (especially over such a short time period). Do a real test,...

Agreed. If anyone is looking to "know" how long their battery will actually last, the best way is to time it yourself and not look at estimates. Of course, if after 90 minutes of battery use, an estimate started at 5:30 and ended at 4:00, then you can feel good that the estimates are in the right ballpark.

Csound1 wrote:

... Right now your inadvertently getting a guess.

I would strike the word "inadertently" and add that for my purpose these guesses are useful. I am seeing a positive difference on 10.8.4, which for me is an improvement over 10.8.3. Specifically, since the "guesses" match in 10.8.4, I conclude that it has better reporting consistency than 10.8.3 using the same battery reporting app (given that the battery app did not change). Over the course of 90 minutes on battery, the current usage estimate and the usage by type (e.g., Internet, Music, Movie) estimate matched. These application-level reported "guesses" did not match in 10.8.3.

The consistent thing that I have noticed is that the estimate is almost invariably longer than the reality. +10 to +30 minutes is the range. Very rarely does the battery outlast the estimate. 10.8.4 has not been installed long enough for any conclusions to be drawn yet, but it does not seem to have got any worse

Csound1 wrote:

The consistent thing that I have noticed is that the estimate is almost invariably longer than the reality. +10 to +30 minutes is the range. ...

It might help if I provide a bit more clarity on my 10.8.3 observation. I might see an Music estimate of 4:30, where the Current Usage estimate was 3:30. At the time if all I was doing was listening to music, then the estimates were not consistent. Furthermore, at that time the reality (as measured using my wristwatch) would have aligned with the Current Usage - or 3:30.

The improvement I'm communicating with respect to 10.8.4 is twofold. First, when I was listening to music not only was the estimate 4:30, but the current usage also reported 4:30. They matched. This is the consistency to which I refer. Second, over the course of 90 minutes both "estimates" changed from around 5:30 to around 4:00. While they are estimates, or "guesses", these estimates matched and were consistent with what I would have expected to have seen, given 90 minutes of actual use.

Csound1 wrote:

... 10.8.4 has not been installed long enough for any conclusions to be drawn yet, but it does not seem to have got any worse

Agreed. If this were a PhD thesis defense, I should have said "...it is strongly suggested that 10.8.4 has better reporting consistency..." since I do not have sufficient mathematical evidence to statistically support my statement. Point taken.

Overall, I think 10.8.4 fixed a few more things in the battery area. Hopefully, for those still haveing trouble, it will help.