I HATE APPLE

Holding out for a 12”…fuck 13”

it's probably worth saving that laptop if u don't need a faster machine right this second.

i think that's the thing...i just got this new mac mini, and i'm only planning on using this mbp for another 2-3 years before getting a new one.

but I’ve done MacBook surgery tons of times and that would be the trickiest I’ve ever done

i have only done it a handful of times, but i still aspire to be good at that kind of stuff some day, so i guess it makes me more willing to take a small risk on it, because the tradeoff is feeling good about reaching a new PR for mac-craftiness

MacBook Pro = Honda Accord

KM, no chance you can ride this out until you can buy a new M1 machine?

already got one! i'm using a mac mini as my main computer these days. the 2014 MBP is more of a recovery operation, but it really would be handy to have a functional laptop. i've had a lot of power-related incidents recently, and really, other than that it's still chugging along, so i'm thinking replacing the battery would get me the rest of the way until i get a newer one a few years down the road?

ah, gotcha. so if this explodes you're still OK

I had my own come to Jesus moment with a battery replacement for my 2015 MacBook pro some months back. It ended up that because of things I'd changed in the machine, neither Apple nor any of the other local repair shops would do the battery replacement for me. So it was either I do it or it doesn't get done. I opted to postpone the surgery myself, because it seemed like a huge pain in the ass, but I imagine at some point between now and battery failure I may reconsider.

I remember the brief window of glasnost from Apple around the early Intel MacBooks when they went to more standard connectors and fasteners and easier disassembly, then the skies started to cloud over when they went to unibody construction. By the time of the retina models it was back to "fuck you buddy" to those of us who wanted to do any fixes or upgrades.

2014 macbook pro, 15" retina. the battery is at 2000 cycles. if it's not plugged into a power source, it can crash anytime it gets below 50%, and it goes from 100% to 50% in like 20 minutes, depending on what you're doing. Not only that, but the OS itself seems to be telling me that there's a problem. REPLACE BATTERY SOON, it says.

Exactly the same model as you, and same issues (except I'm "only" at 985 cycles). I can't import into Lightroom on <70% battery any more (it's the convert-to-DNG step that kills it), launching Chrome can also trigger a shutdown if the battery's <40%. It's perfectly happy to pootle along for 1.5-2 hours on battery without these kind of spikes. I'm sure rendering video in DaVinci Resolve or iMovie would kill it too, but I don't go near video editing without AC power. The only time it's left the house in the last year is when my daughter borrows it for video/graphics school work, and she takes the power cables, so no great hardship being mainly AC.

Resigned to a paying for a professional battery replacement some time in the next six months. Whenever I do the first couple of repair steps on the Apple site, it shows me a handful of still-trading affiliates within a few miles, so once we're out of lockdown I'll book it in. I read Josh's tale of "we gotta swap out the things *you put in there* too, a thousand dollars please" in horror, but I think mine is as supplied.

Um, where does it show the cycle count?

System info - About This Mac, then System Report, choose Power from the list of categories

I too have the same model with the same battery woes. I'm waiting for the second iteration of M1s. (M2s?)

pretty incredible though that after 6 years the machine is still usable for a 1-2 hour stretch doing basic things. You'd never see that on a PC laptop.

My wife is currently using a 2013 MacBook Pro (with SSD) to do design work with the latest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Safari all running at once. I'm not going to say she hasn't met a spinning beach ball but she seems to be not complaining too much. I keep asking if she wants us to buy a new one but she hasn't bitten so far.

Sorry, wrong thread.

Yeah, it's still fine for my ideal rainy day hobbyist-pretending-its-his-job scenario of editing a few dozen photos at a local cafe (sadly not currently an option), tethered to my phone's 4G. This 2013-vintage HP Ultrabook has been a great office workhorse (better since W7>W10), but if I take it out of its dock it will die within minutes. As I've discovered to my cost when trying to take a Zoom meeting in the garden.

xp

my laptop (and the previous one) has never *not* been plugged into the mains and that kills the battery regardless. (after 3 years it's complaining about being at 44% of capacity even when fully charged). i took the battery out of the previous laptop in the end, it was just dead weight, but this one isn't removeable.

I never know where I am with battery health advice. Folk wisdom about it seems to have been challenged by advances in technology, or just differences between machines/batteries.

When my dad's Macbook battery died I advised him to stop leaving it plugged in all the time and unplug it at night at least. But I've lost faith in that advice and I think it's too much hassle for him to remember anyway.

I thought devices were supposed to be smart enough these days to taper off charge to yr battery as it got close to capacity, and not to touch it all if you were at 100%? So, in theory, you shouldn't be shortening battery life at all if you're always on AC? I guess heat is a factor. I dunno.

Yeah, I think you're right, but not sure how far 'these days' goes back. I think his MacBook (a cast-off of mine) is about 2010 vintage.

yeah - modern chargers - especially fancy-pants ones like Apple makes - are supposed to automatically drip charge and stop as you get to 100%

IIUC it’s not the chargers. It’s the electronics in the laptop in front of the battery, so you don’t need an expensive charger for that.

Find a 3rd party repair shop. I bet they do the battery replacement for ~$100.

Plus the cost of the battery, I'd guess

The battery itself costs £90/$90. Maybe cheaper to businesses/in bulk. But I'm happy to go with an authorised reseller/repair shop and get the warranty. As far as I can tell, they all charge the Apple price. Saving a few quid to go with a local guy seems risky in the long run.

I've used the dude at the mall to do a few iphone batteries and screens and it went great...

right but look at the ifixit instructions for batter replacement on an iphone compared to KM's mbp

this guy is the best and the prices are fair(er than apple), but battery replacement is probably a little beneath him https://www.rossmanngroup.com/

oh no, he does battery replacement

https://www.rossmanngroup.com/battery-not-charging/

i suspect with shipping to NYC the local apple store is going to be cheaper

love this guy (his politics vids are suspect)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF82VA-Z96Y

FWIW, I just had a similar situation with the battery in my 15" 2017 MBP and bought the MacFixIt kit (Apple wanted $199, a local shop was going to charge $350, so I went for the kit)

It does suck and is time-consuming but the MacFixIt guide was great (the comments on each step were valuable). I did it, it worked out OK, and it's one less thing to worry about until the Apple-processor MBPs finally ship.

― Elvis Telecom, Monday, February 8, 2021 6:23 PM (yesterday)

Hey look at that humblebragging chump up there. If you just calmed down and waited you could have had it done for free.

Apple to replace batteries on 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pros unable to charge past 1%
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/10/apple-to-replace-batteries-on-2016-and-2017-macbook-pros-unable-to-charge-past-1

Apple has identified an issue that renders 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro models unable to charge above 1%, saying it will replace compromised batteries for free.

Outlined in a support document on Tuesday, the problem also triggers a battery health status warning that indicates "Service Recommended." Apple says a "small number" of 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro computers are impacted by the issue.

Huh, I was being prompted to update to Big Sur 11.2.1 last night and that supposedly resolves the 2016-17 battery warning from a software PoV. But I guess this is actually a hardware issue.

Ok I'm newish to macs - I've used them before at work but am a PC guy really and have been working from home on PC for the last two years; now they've provided me with an imac. For the last two days (maybe I should wait longer before complaining), when I start it up in the morning I find that in Chrome I've been logged out of all the websites I was logged into, including gmail, even the ones where I definitely had 'remember me' checked. I don't have any cookies blocked except third part cookies in incognito mode, which I'm not. Any I HATE APPLE reason why this might be happening?

maybe you've got some weird build of the OS that your work has provided that clears cookies or something? idk, never experienced this

Probably not Apple - sounds like domain control from your administrators forcing the setting. Does it save your tabs etc on Windows?

Big Sur has not allowed me to save one password in Chrome since I updated.

(Or more likely, Chrome hasn't allowed me to save one password since Big Sur came along.)

Either way, Chrome still asks if I want to save the password, I always say yes, and then .... nothing happens.

I'm still on High Sierra at home where everything's cool with this Chrome.

Stop using chrome. Firefox is better these days. And safari is great if you don’t care about extensions.

sounds like it might be a chrome + big sur thing, will download firefox and see what happens.

tangentially, what's the deal with this window that pops up when you install an program showing the app icon and an arrow and the application folder icon. finally figured out it's asking me to do something, so i dragged the icon into the folder. nothing seemed to happen. i've already installed a few other programs without doing that step (i thought it was just a non-interactive window just showing me what was happening), they work and show up in the applications folder.

lol it’s this insane metaphor left over from the days of the classic macos where an installer creates a “virtual disk” that you copy your app from. the folder that you drag the icon to is a shortcut to the applications folder on your hard drive. it looks like nothing’s happened but it has copied the app to your hard drive. you can then “eject” the virtual disk from the finder 🙄

Stop using chrome. Firefox is better these days. And safari is great if you don’t care about extensions.

I bounce back and forth between Chrome and Firefox. Firefox and one of my CMS sites has a "handshake" problem that loops without end. Chrome gives me notifications from Hangouts, which my company uses as its "Slack."

They're both great and they both suck and they're both better than whatever shitty desktop Safari is trying to pull.

things increasingly don't support firefox, things like web skype and web zoom, probably a camera / mic thing.

i also have weird problems in firefox with london transport zoomable map and the three website, which just look like the text settings are all wrong.

i'm still a heavy Firefox user (Tree Style tabs for life) but still have to use Chrome for a lot of work stuff

I only use Safari and I think using another browser on Mac is kind of ridiculous tbqh

I have a lot of Chrome extensions unavailable on Safari that I use for work and some for fun. But yes, otherwise, Safari runs best.

Chrome is where I do google apps and a couple of other work things that don’t like safari. Safari for everything else.

I only use Safari and I think using another browser on Mac is kind of ridiculous tbqh

What on earth do you need to “sync”

History, open tabs

Safari syncs to iOS, and you can sync bookmarks and passwords to Chrome on Windows now (but not tabs/history)

the last thing i need is more unread tabs following me around!