Decreased Battery Performance when using SL. Apple states I am alone..

Question

This thread is mainly aimed at people that are using a mid 2009 unibody MacBook Pro 13" or upwards that came pre-installed with Leopard. Since upgrading to Snow leopard have you noticed a significant decrease in how long the battery lasts while using the machine in the same fashion?
Am I alone? I first reported this issue to the Dutch customer service team back in October 2009 and since then have fought it all the way to make Apple admit that there is a problem with a minority of customers. To this day according to executive customer relations, I am the only person who has reported this issue to them. I find this hard to believe as there is a mass of information/threads/blogs etc on the internet with many people complaining about the same issue.
The following is an email I sent to the [email protected] email as a last resort.
Dear Steve,
I am writing to you as a last resort hoping that my complaint will be dealt with professionally as I have actually given up all hope with the Apple customer service. I do not expect that you will personally read this letter but I just trust that someone will care and pass this to someone that will treat my complaint seriously as I really am losing all faith with Apple.
I purchased a brand new Macbook Pro 13" mid 2009 model at the end of June 2009. Around 3 weeks after I purchased the machine I received a message from Apple stating that I was eligible for a copy of Snow Leopard as it was compatible with my machine and because I had just purchased a new Mac. I upgraded the Mac to Snow Leopard without any issues. It wasn't until a few weeks later that I noticed a massive reduction in battery performance. When I ran the machine on Leopard I would easily get the advertised 7 hour battery life while doing basic web browsing with all the battery settings set to the Mac default recommended settings. On Snow Leopard I would not get anything more than 4 hours completing the same tasks.
I contacted Apple about this and was provided with the following reference number XXXXXXXXX I was basically told that I should monitor what I was doing etc and try using the screen on the lowest setting to see if this would improve the performance, it did not. I am a busy man and work in graphic design so unfortunately I put up with the battery issue until my Hard Drive decided to die in April. I contacted Apple again about this and was again provided with a reference number XXXXXXXXXX this time I was asked to do various steps to help fix the machine which did not work. Eventually I had the machine booked in for repair. When the machine was booked in for repair I also stated that I would like the battery issue addressed once and for all as I still only get around 4 hours charge. I was told this would be looked into. After 2 weeks of having no machine (and losing out on work) I received my Mac back with a new Hard drive installed as the old one was corrupted. I asked the Apple employee if my battery had been addressed and it had not. I refused to except my machine back as the battery issue was not resolved. After another 2 weeks of not having my Mac (more loss of work on my account) I received it back this time a new battery and motherboard had been installed.
I returned to my office and reinstalled Snow Leopard, my Adobe Master Collection and charged to 100% I then tested the machine on battery. Again I received no more than 4 hours using BELOW recommended Mac battery settings. I contacted Apple again by telephone (another 0900 number call at my expense) and was messed around left right and centre. The employee on the telephone did not know what to do so transferred me to one of the Mac level 2 agents. I have never been spoken to so rudely and was even told that the only way I could expect 7 hours battery life from a MacBook Pro 2009 model is to use it with the lid closed. Ridiculous hey? I was also even told by one of the previous customer service agents that I could try using the machine with the battery disconnected. Even more ridiculous considering it is a unibody model.
At this point I started doing research on the issue and found that I was far from alone with the battery issue. I have found numerous people suffering from the same issue. Below are a few links containing the same issue.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10337524&#10337524
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11365892&#11365892
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-21565_102-0.html?threadID=357366
At this point I decided to try something different, something that was not recommended or mentioned by any Apple employee, sales or technical. I decided to reformat the HD and install Leopard back on the on the machine. I then completed a battery test and low and behold my 7 hours of battery life were fully back. I think this can safely say that the issue is clearly with the OSX and not the hardware.
I then contacted Apple customer service by phone (more 0900 numbers at my expense) I spoke to a senior Applecare advisor called XXXXX XXXXXXXX and explained my issue in full. I told xxxxxxx that I wanted this matter looking into and that I wanted a machine that would give me what is advertised using Snow Leopard, as know where on the Apple site or in the Snow Leopard documentation does it state ' Expect to lose 3 hours '
I provided xxxxxxxx with a system info file and he sent it the Apple engineering team. A week went by and I received an email from him with the report from engineering. Engineering basically blamed it ALL on 3rd party applications, they even blamed it on the weather widget stating that it is constantly updating and will drain power. My remote access software was also blamed which was not even running in the background.
1: The weather widget updates when you select it not constantly.
2: The weather widget is by DEFAULT installed on a machine so thus would be classed as an Apple product in my opinion.
That evening I decided to reformat my HD and reinstall Snow Leopard. This time I installed ONLY Apple software updates and nothing else. I then tested the battery again (getting very boring now) using the same settings as previous tests. This time I managed to have 4 hrs and 15 mins. Just 15 minutes more than what I had previously had. I then contacted xxxxxxx again and provided him with another system information file from the clean install. I explained that I had tested this with just the airport on and basic web browsing on various sites (my exact words) Another week went by and I received a call from xxxxxxx with his report from engineering. He said that Engineering wanted to know if I had tested this with basic web browsing or sat on Youtube or other flash based video streaming sites for 4 hours as this could reduce the battery life.
As you could imagine I was furious. I repeated myself to xxxxxxx about my tests and was told that he would go back to engineering. I received another call from xxxxxxx stating that engineering are looking into it. I asked how long it would take for an answer on this and we agreed on a 2 week time frame. It is now over 2 weeks and I have sent 2 emails to xxxxxx and still have not received a reply.
This issue has been going on since October 2009 when I first reported it. We are now in July 2010 and I am still suffering with this, as you can imaging this is unacceptable and not what one would expect from a company like Apple. My complaints summarized are below, I believe the obvious speak for themselves.
1: There is no disclaimer on the Apple site stating that Snow Leopard will decrease the performance of a battery on a machine that did not come preinstalled with Snow Leopard. Neither is this information provided on the installation PDF instructions that come with the Snow Leopard disc.
2: If there were such a disclaimer on the Apple site then why would I have my battery and motherboard replaced by the Apple repair team when there was clearly nothing wrong with them in the first place. Why was I never told this by any agent on the phone or in the Mac store? The answer seems clearly that this information is not available to the public or to Apple staff which is a big waste or my time as well as theirs.
3: I have missed out on work because of having my Mac in for repair for a total of 4 weeks. As mentioned above there was clearly no need to have had the battery or motherboard replaced.
4: I have spent money calling the 0900 numbers on numerous occasions simply getting passed around from Apple employee to Apple employee and still have no answer to my problem.
5: I have wasted so much of my own time clean erasing my hard drive including zero out of sectors and reinstalling operating systems, not to mention other software and Apple updates. All of this comes to many hours of total wasted time at my expense when I could have been working.
Where we stand now is that I am on the verge of taking legal proceedings with the Dutch Consumentenbond as this machine is not suitable to run with the Snow Leopard OSX when Apple advertise that it is.
I expect either a full refund of my MacBook Pro 13" mid 2009 or an exchange for a Macbook Pro 13" that comes with Snow Leopard preinstalled with the disc in the box. I also expect to be compensated for my loss of time, money I have spent on the phone to Apple and the loss of work while the machine was in for unnecessary repair.
I am really at the end of my patience with this issue and feel that I have been much more than fair with my reports, honesty and patience.
I trust to hear from somebody soon regarding this issue so that we can finally put it to a close once and for all in a professional manor.
Regards
I received a phone call within 14 hours of sending the email from executive customer relations. They came back with new information from engineering but did not think it was acceptable as engineering were now blaming my battery decrease on the assumption that my apartment might be too hot this causing the CPU to run at a higher temperature making the battery decrease quicker. We both agreed that it was an unacceptable answer.
The day after I received another call from them stating that engineering had now finished tests and came to the conclusion that when testing on Leopard and Snow Leopard on the MacBook Pro 2009 there was no difference in battery run time whats so ever. I found this hard to believe so asked exactly how the test was conducted. Was it conducted in the same fashion that I had spent the last 9 months talking about. ' Using below default energy saving settings with only airport on while completing basic web browsing '???
They confirmed this was not the case, engineering had basically turned the machines on, turned the screen right down to 1 bar and left them on screen saver over night. As you can imaging I was speechless (for a few seconds)
Apple seem consistent on NOT admitting that there is an issue with battery performance for a minority of customers. As is stands now engineering in Europe have now passed the case over to engineering in the US for further ' in-depth ' tests.
I know there are people out there that are suffering the same issues as myself and I welcome you to please contact me with your experiences. As the more of us that complain about this make it harder for Apple to deny this and brush it under the carpet.
Please feel free to reply to this thread or email me directly on [email protected]

Answer 1

Thomas A Reed wrote:
I mean this in the kindest way but please read the post
Please, nobody's going to waste their time reading all that! I don't know what you possibly could have said about this issue that took up so much space, but if you can't express it more concisely, it's probably not worth reading.
I have used SL on both a unibody MBP and an older MBP. On the older MBP, when I upgraded from Leopard to SL, I got a noticeable increase in battery life immediately. I have no such comparison on the unibody MBP, since it had SL installed to begin with, but I'll put it this way: I haven't come close to running out of power on it. I used it once for about 4 hours and still had more than a 1/3 charge. I could have easily used it for another couple hours, at least. And this was with a 17" MBP, which uses more power than your 13", and without much in the way of battery-saving going on. (Screen at full brightness, AirPort on and in use, Bluetooth on, etc.)
It's difficult to say that SL is the problem when it clearly isn't for everyone. What your problem is, I don't know, but maybe if you posted a more concise question you'd get some answers.
I think ..
This thread is mainly aimed at people that are using a mid 2009 unibody MacBook Pro 13" or upwards that came pre-installed with Leopard.....
at the beginning of the thread I made it pretty clear, if you are not affected by this then I'm happy for you, but then the thread is clearly not aimed at you. I can guarantee that I have tested this exactly the same way I did with Leopard and there is a significant decrease. I also know there are people out there that have gained battery life but there have also been many threads containing people who have lost battery life.