Last month, Consumer Reports came up with some interesting battery test results with the latest MacBook Pro models. Results ranged from 3.75 hours to 19.5 hours. Many in the Apple community thought that something was off, either a software bug or a benchmarking issue — it turns out it was both.
Apple worked with Consumer Reports over the holidays to find out why the battery test results varied so much. It’s hard to get the exact same battery life every time. That’s why benchmark lovers run a test multiple times to find the average result.
And yet, battery life shouldn’t vary from 1x to 5x. Many early buyers have already been complaining about the battery life of the new MacBook Pro. That’s why Apple removed the “battery time remaining” estimate in a macOS update.
But it doesn’t explain Consumer Reports’ benchmark. It turns out that Consumer Reports turns off Safari’s local cache for their browsing test. It means that the browser will fetch a website’s data from the internet every time. When the cache is on, Safari stores images on your hard drive so that you don’t have to load them up every time.
“Consumer Reports uses a hidden Safari setting for developing web sites which turns off the browser cache. This is not a setting used by customers and does not reflect real-world usage,” Apple said in a statement.
This seems deliberate, and Consumer Reports explains why in a new post today. The publication turns off the cache settings on the default browser for all laptops — not just Mac laptops. This way, it’s like Consumer Reports is browsing thousands of different websites, and not just the same ten websites over and over again.
Apple has also discovered that there was a bug in Safari affecting icon fetching. This bug has been fixed — this should improve benchmarks.
But it makes you think about Consumer Reports’ methodology here. Using web browsing for battery benchmarks seems like a great idea. It imitates real life usage as most people use their computer to browse the internet, play music, write documents and spreadsheets and play movies. But deactivating default settings that positively affect battery life seems curious. Maybe Consumer Reports should consider leaving the cache on for future Mac and PC laptop benchmarks.
Apple sent the following statement to TechCrunch:

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Google’s somewhat aging VoIP calling service, Google Voice, is preparing to roll out a significant update, the company has confirmed. Several Google Voice users this week reported seeing an upgrade link touting “the new Google Voice” on the web version of the service, along with a link that would let them try it out. Clearly, the message was posted too early because the upgrade didn’t come through when the link was clicked.
However, its existence has been an encouraging sign for Google Voice customers, many of whom have felt as if the service has been abandoned in favor of Google’s many newer efforts in the communications space, including Hangouts, and more recently, messaging apps like Allo and Duo.
According to the Droid Life blog , which was one of the first to see the upgrade link appear, the banner popped up at the top of the screen when they logged into their account, with a message that read: “The new Google Voice is here. TRY NOW.” But when they tried it, the page just refreshed and they remained on the current user interface.
Google Voice hasn’t been updated in some time, making the product feel a bit been abandoned. Many are saying it hasn’t had any attention in years, but that’s not entirely true. It didn’t receive much attention in 2016, but before that, the last notable updates have included things like Google Hangouts’ integration with Google Voice back in fall 2014, and 2015’s update which improved Google Voice’s voicemail transcriptions.
Still, its updates have been few and far between, despite the usefulness of the service and its potential. Google’s failure to continue investing in the space has allowed other voice calling apps the ability to gain ground. Not only are voice messaging apps a popular category today, the idea to give users the ability share a public phone number that can ring them anywhere, on a line that has its own voicemail and filtering options, is now something other startups, like Burner or newcomer Listen , are handling instead.
These Google Voice rivals have succeeded in part by focusing on mobile users – an area where Google Voice has fallen behind, having not updated its iOS and Android apps since the first half of last year.
After the flood of reports, Google confirmed that it’s working on some updates to Google Voice, but declined to give us further details ahead of the launch.
Google’s strategy with regards to its communications apps has been messy, so it will be interesting to see what the new Google Voice entails. The company has a number of communication products, which seem to be in a constant state of flux.
Hangouts, for example, has just seen its API shut down, which will effectively shutter the app ecosystem on the platform for most developers. The apps that were allowed to remain have an enterprise focus instead, as Google explained to developers in an email that it’s moving away from its consumer focus.
Image Credit: Droid Life

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Today is the second Tuesday of the month, making it Patch Tuesday. This means that almost all versions of Windows 10 are receiving cumulative updates, including the Anniversary Update for PC and Mobile, as well as 1511 and 1507 for PCs.
The new build number for those on the Anniversary Update is 14393.693. It seems to be available to all phones that are already on build 14393, rather than just unlocked ones, which is sometimes the case.
The new build follows 14393.594, which was offered to the Release Preview ring a week ago , but the last one to show up for all users was 14393.576 .
As usual, the changelog combines the updates for both PC and Mobile, and the changes noted apply almost exclusively to PCs. Here’s what’s new:
Version 1511 (build 10586) also received an update to 10586.753. Some businesses still use the November Update, and believe it or not, some PCs haven’t even received the Anniversary Update yet, such as HP’s 2016 model of the Spectre x360. Here’s what’s new:
Finally, there’s an update for the original version of Windows 10, which is now called version 1507. The changelog in build 10240.17236 is the same as its 1511 counterpart:
These updates follow yesterday’s release of the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview for PCs in the Fast ring. Preview build 15002 brings a huge range of new features , including improvements to the Edge browser , enhancements to Cortana, additions to improve accessibility, new Settings features – such as Theme Management and blue light adjustment – and more.

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