A couple of weeks ago the new MacBook Pro line was the first product made by Apple to not get recommended by Consumer Reports. The decision came after lots of testing during which Consumer Reports found that the new laptop line suffers from variable battery life that can greatly affect user experience. Apple didn’t like the results and tried to find a reason behind Consumer Reports’ negative experience with the battery.
After working with Consumer Reports for weeks, the Cupertino giant believes that a “bug” caused the strange battery life results. Apple noted that Consumer Reports’ test of the latest MacBook Pro line included using a hidden Safari setting that most owners would never activate, thus never experiencing battery problems. The test “uses a hidden Safari setting for developing web sites which turns off the browser cache,” Apple claims. Turning on the said setting could ravage the battery, thus bringing inconsistent battery life.
After finding the source of problems Apple stated – “We asked Consumer Reports to run the same test using normal user settings” and that Consumer Reports “told us their MacBook Pro systems consistently delivered the expected battery life”. Apple will also ship a new software update to Safari in order to squash the bug.
On the other side, Consumer Reports says that it will run its series of tests on the MacBook Pro laptops for the second time, this time using Safari equipped with the latest update. Once it finishes testing the laptops, the organization will update its recommendation, but only if the battery life gets better.
The main problem regarding all this fuss around Consumer Reports refusing to give a recommendation for the new MacBook Pro line is that the site isn’t the only one to face battery problems when using new laptops. Many reviews, and users stated that they encountered inconsistent battery life and that those problems cannot be explained with the bug found in the developer mode cache setting. Apple, on the other hand, still refuses to confirm that there are battery issues present on the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar laptop series.