Apple’s latest desktop OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion may have gotten off to a good start in terms of the features it offers, but it seems to have hit a speed bump with the way it affects the battery life of some devices.
Since July 25th (the launch of Mountain Lion), Apple’s forum has been flooded with users reporting that their MacBook Pro and MacBook Air devices seem to drain faster than usual. As of writing this article, the forum has gone up to 31 pages with 450 replies.
The effect on the battery life of the device seems to be different for different users. Some say the battery life has been affected by an hour or so where as other claim that the battery life has dropped to half its original capacity.
Users have tried a variety of options to rectify the issue such as reinstalling the OS or disabling some of the features of the OS but all in vain.
One of the users, qwertzy4711, says on the forum, “My mid 2011 13″ Macbook Pro i5 2.333GHz 128GB harddrive, faces since the update to Mountain Lion as well a dramatically lower battery lifetime. I would estimate that the battery drains some 40-50% faster. I don’t determine a warmer bottom or a higher fan activity since the update so far. Best regards from Germany.”
Apple has recently acknowledged the problem and is looking into the issue. The boys at Cupertino have started contacting users who complain about the battery issue and have been asking users to log activity monitor data and gather system information in order to determine a cause for the problem.
If you are one who has been affected by the Mountain Lion battery problem, you can participate in the Apple forum here.