When you quit the power-hungry app, the machine is supposed to turn off the discrete card and switch back to the integrated graphics processor, which offers less graphical power but doesn’t chew as much battery life.īefore 10.12.3, macOS wouldn’t accurately sense that the changeover had happened and would continue to drive the display using the discrete GPU. When you launch a graphically demanding app, such as Adobe Photoshop, macOS switches to the Radeon processor, which consumes more power. (Although I’m writing specifically about the 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, the following discussion applies equally to any MacBook Pro with a discrete graphics card.)
One of those problems centered around the way macOS switched between the built-in Intel graphics processor and the discrete AMD Radeon Pro graphics card available in the 15-inch models. The upside of the tempest was that Apple was able to fix some graphics and battery life issues in the macOS Sierra 10.12.2 and 10.12.3 updates. For a while, Consumer Reports refused to recommend the MacBook Pro because of battery life, although their testing methodology was questionable (see “ Why We Should Care about the Consumer Reports MacBook Pro Rating,” 12 January 2017). Although Apple boasts up to 10 hours of performance per charge, I wasn’t seeing anything near that on my machine.
Shortly after the 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar began shipping, battery life became a hot topic.
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