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 \u2014 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\u2019s hard to get the exact same battery life every time. That\u2019s why benchmark lovers run a test multiple times to find the average result.
And yet, battery life shouldn\u2019t vary from 1x to 5x. Many early buyers have already been complaining about the battery life of the new MacBook Pro. That\u2019s why Apple removed the \u201cbattery time remaining\u201d estimate in a macOS update.
But it doesn\u2019t explain Consumer Reports\u2019 benchmark. It turns out that Consumer Reports turns off Safari\u2019s local cache for their browsing test. It means that the browser will fetch a website\u2019s data from the internet every time. When the cache is on, Safari stores images on your hard drive so that you don\u2019t have to load them up every time.
\u201cConsumer 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,\u201d 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 \u2014 not just Mac laptops. This way, it\u2019s 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 \u2014 this should improve benchmarks.
But it makes you think about Consumer Reports\u2019 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:<\/p>\n