Apple fixes battery life bug that cost the MacBook Pro a ‘recommended’ tag from Consumer Reports

By tech2 News Staff /  11 Jan 2017 , 13:15

The latest MacBook Pro from Apple has received a great deal of criticism for its lack of USB-A ports, smaller battery and limited RAM. Topping this criticism was a damning report from Consumer Reports, which cited inconsistent battery life as the reason for not giving the new MacBook Pro its ‘recommended’ tag.

In the course of its testing, Consumer Reports (CR) noted that the MacBook Pro’s battery life varied between under 5 hours to over 19 hours. This inconsistency failed to impress CR.

Apple, understandably puzzled by the widely varying results, approached CR to understand the test process and hunt out the cause for the variation in battery life.

Apple’s investigations unearthed a bug in Safari’s (the default browser on macOS) developer mode which affected the test results. The mode specifically disables the browser cache and is enabled by CR as part of its test process. Apple says that this mode is not used by the average consumer and hence, will not affect the average user.

Describing its test process, CR explains that it disables features like browser cache, automatic screen dimming, etc. to establish a reliable base line for battery performance. Following Apple’s findings, CR ran the tests again with caching off and found that battery life was now consistent.

Apple has since published a patch to fix the issue, but it’s currently only available to subscribers to Apple’s Beta program. The fix will be released to the general public sometime later as part of a larger software update for macOS, says Apple.

In a statement, Apple said, “This is the best pro notebook we’ve ever made, we respect Consumer Reports and we’re glad they decided to revisit their findings on the MacBook Pro.”

CR has promised to report its findings once it finishes retesting the MacBook Pro.

The new Apple MacBook Pro offers much less battery life than claimed: Report

By tech2 News Staff /  09 Dec 2016 , 15:01

Apple’s new MacBook has earned more than its fair share of complaints since its launch. Apple’s “revolutionary” new device introduced the world to dongle hell and that alone has drawn more ire than any other issue with the device.

Folks, including ourselves, have complained about everything, from its exorbitant price to the lack of an SD card slot, USB port and even the much-loved MagSafe connector. One more complaint to add to this growing list comes in the form of a report on 9to5Mac.

Apple promises a “up to 10 hours iTunes movie playback” with the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and also specifies that the test was conducted on a “2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-based 13-inch MacBook Pro with a 512GB SSD and 8GB of RAM.”

As far as test systems go, that’s a bog-standard system to test on and a claim of 10 hours video playback is commendable.

When put to the test, however, 9to5Mac discovered that in practice, the battery life rarely crossed the 8-hour mark.

You can find the full details of the test setup on 9to5Mac, suffice to say that the test was run at 50 percent brightness and that the test MacBook Pro used a 3.3GHz Intel i7 (vs the i5 that Apple used) and 16GB of RAM.

A more powerful CPU does equal less battery life, but  it must be noted that both the CPUs in 9to5Mac’s reports are essentially the same, offering a 28W TDP and Intel Iris Pro 550 graphics. The only notable difference between the two comes in terms of clock speeds.

Given this information, one can expect the i7-based MacBook Pro to perform slightly worse than the i5-based MacBook Pro that Apple used, but only in light workload scenarios, like video playback on iTunes.

If the results are to be believed, the 13-inch MacBook Pro offers significantly worse (20 percent) battery life than Apple claims.

Yes, this is nit-picking at its finest. No manufacturer in our experience has ever precisely quoted battery life for their offerings and our regular workflows differ so wildly from laboratory tests that claimed battery life is nothing more than, well, a guideline.

The bigger problem here is that Apple is officially claiming less battery life than their 2015 MacBook Pro (12 hours of video playback), which uses the same CPU architecture used in the current MacBook Pros.

Here’s a Pro-tip, Apple: When it comes to battery life, less is never more.

iFixit teardown reveals 13-inch Macbook Pro with Touch Bar difficult to repair

By tech2 News Staff /  17 Nov 2016 , 12:45

iFixit has got its hands on the 13-inch Macbook Pro with Touch Bar, and did what it does the best, rip it apart to know what it holds within. Comparing it with the 13-inch Macbook Pro without the Touch Bar, there are some significant differences.

To begin with, both MacBook Pros come with same dimensions, but the one with Touch Bar is 20 grams lighter due to the smaller battery. It gets a very poor score of 1/10, highlighting how the device is not easily repairable. Though the trackpad can be removed without first removing the battery, there are just too many sore points. The internal elements have been redesigned in such a way that there is room for the Touch Bar. The flex cable that connected the Touch Bar to the mainboard is wrapped under it and that made removing it all the more difficult.

The iFixit report also pointed out that fixing a faulty power switch will need replacing the entire logic board. “The Touch ID sensor doubles as the power switch, and is paired with the T1 chip on the logic board. Fixing a broken power switch may require help from Apple, or a new logic board, iFixit explains.

Moving to the battery, the report adds that the battery assembly is entirely, and very solidly, glued into the case, thus complicating replacement. Moreover, proprietary pentalobe screws continue to make working on the device unnecessarily difficult. You can read the complete report here.

Microsoft has announced that it will be bringing the entire Visual Studio IDE to macOS this month

visual studio microsoft

By tech2 News Staff /  14 Nov 2016 , 18:07

Microsoft has announced Visual Studio for Mac at the Connect(); conference this month.

For the first time in its history, Microsoft is bringing its Visual Studio development tool to the Mac. As Microsoft explains in its blog, “At its heart, Visual Studio for Mac is a macOS counterpart of the Windows version of Visual Studio.” The IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is designed to feel familiar to a macOS user, while still offering the cross-platform and cloud-based development capabilities of its Windows counterpart.

This IDE will reside alongside Visual Studio Code for macOS, which is a stand-alone, cross-platform text editor for developers.

Microsoft’s sudden interest in cross-platform development seems to stem from a deeper desire to connect with developers, regardless of their OS of choice, and offer them a common, connected platform to work on.

Microsoft has shown tremendous interest in cross-platform development this year, notably with their acquisition of Xamarin. Xamarin started out as a cross-platform development tool for developing iOS, Android, Windows and Mac apps. With its acquisition, Microsoft integrated its workflows into Visual Studio itself.

As TechCrunch suggests, Microsoft has realised that the future depends on cloud-based tools and services like Azure and that’s also where the company is making its money. If more developers start using Visual Studio, more developers will inevitably start using Microsoft’s Azure cloud services.

For developers, this is a win-win anyway.

Apple may be addressing biggest problem with new MacBook Pro

By Conner Forrest | November 1, 2016, 7:05 AM PST

A new report from KGI Securities said that Apple may be dropping prices on its new MacBook Pro line and adding a 32GB RAM option in late 2017.


When Apple unveiled its latest MacBook Pro line in late October, there was one glaring problem with the listed specifications—the RAM tops out at 16GB. For an average user, that should be more than enough, but for power users (the target market for the machine), it may fall short.

However, according to a report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that was obtained by AppleInsider, this may only be a temporary problem. In the report, Kuo predicted that the second half of 2017 will see a refreshed MacBook Pro line that will include price cuts and a 32GB RAM option.

The memory option is dependent on the release of Intel's Cannonlake processors, Kuo said. If the Cannonlake processors don't ship in time, Apple would likely have to use the Intel Coffee Lake processors and would still be limited to a 16GB option, AppleInsider reported.


Kuo's report notes that the switch to USB-C and the limited memory options seem to be a disappointment to users, and he predicted that older MacBook demand would remain steady through mid-2017. However, in late 2017, when he predicted the prices will fall and the memory options will expand, he said he expects the demand to increase. This will

Apple issues a major refresh to its MacBook Pro lineup with Touch Bar and Touch ID in keyboard

  28 Oct 2016 , 11:16

Apple’s high-end Mac laptops are getting a touch control strip above the keyboard, part of a long-awaited update aimed at reviving interest in a product often overshadowed by newer gadgets like the iPad and iPhone.

The new Touch Bar, which is both a narrow display and a control panel, replaces the old physical function keys on a traditional laptop. It will offer a variety of controls that change according to the app or website that’s open. It also has functions that will be familiar to many iPhone users – showing word suggestions as you type, for example, or letting you scroll through a library of emojis.

New features, higher price

The company unveiled the laptops at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, where executives showed how the Touch Bar works with a variety of apps and software – providing playback and editing controls for videos or music, for example, and search functions for Apple’s maps and photos apps. Apple is also opening the Touch Bar to work with outside software, including Adobe’s Photoshop editing program and Microsoft’s Word, PowerPoint and Skype.

Along with faster processors and brighter screens, two of Apple’s new laptops will also get a fingerprint sensor, similar to the one on iPhones. The sensor can unlock the device, authorize software installations or recognize a different user and quickly switch to that person’s settings. It works with Apple Pay, so users can authorize an

Apple is expected to refresh MacBook Pro at the end of this month

By tech2 News Staff /  04 Oct 2016 , 11:56

Apple is expected to refresh MacBook Pro according to reports by PetaPixel. This refresh will be the first significant overhaul of Apple’s MacBook Pro laptop lineup in last four years as reported by Bloomberg. There have been numerous rumours about Apple expected to refresh Apple MacBook Pro at the end of this month with no concrete evidence. Earlier rumours stated that the refresh is slated for late 2016, after the Apple iPhone 7 event.

Some of the reports point to an imminent early October release while others point to an end of October release. According to MacRumours, the launch date for the updated version will be after 7 October as the company is aiming to