What exactly is a charge cycle?

Hi, everyone! So I recently just bought a MacBook Pro with Retina display (about 4 days ago) and I'm really trying to take of it, and it's battery especially. I've tried looking up some information on the best ways to take care of it, and I always come across people taking about things like "charging cycles" and "calibrating the battery" and I have absolutely no idea what those mean!
I don't mean to sound like an idiot, but keep in mind that I am completely new to the world of MacBooks. I've tried to research what these terms mean, but I've found nothing.
Please help and give me advice on how to properly take care of my precious MacBook Pro. I adore it so much and I want it to last as long as possible.
Thank you so much!

despite anything Apple.com has listed, the lithium-polymer battery is a KNOWN entity and its technical behaviour is a known entity, regardless of inside an Apple product or not...
having it plugged in everytime you use it is one thing, ....but some leave it plugged in 24/7 ALL THE TIME,...not a good idea,.....no hard, it just doesnt do the battery any good, and does minor wear on its lifespan.
Exactly lIke permanent magnets..., lithium polymer batteries dont like HEAT ,......perpetual trickle charging (leaving it plugged in alllll time time) is the unwise choice. "
"trickle charging is NEVER recommended for lithium polymer batteries" --- PowerStream.com, 2010-03-17

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What is the max charge cycle?

What is the max charge cycle?
If it reach the max, will apple replace it under warrenty? or it not covered, and I have to buy new battery?
Like when you go to System Pref > About this mac > Power > Recharge Cycle.
It will tell you the amount of charged you made. What is the max you can recharge?

A properly maintained Apple notebook battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity after 300 full charge and discharge cycles. See http://www.apple.com/batteries for lots of good info on Apple batteries.

What EXACTLY is a "battery cycle"?

Hi all,
We have 3 MacBook Pros. My battery has 516 "cycles" and is beginning to act a bit flukey. I've read quite a bit about his and everyone talks about the Apple warranty is good for up to 300 cycles, average life should be 500 cycles - everything looks normal that mine is dying! It's 2 years old anyway. My question . . .
WHAT EXACTLY constitutes a cycle? If I use 1/2 a charge, down to 50% and then charge it full . . . does that count as a cycle? Or . . . should I drain it to zero if I can and recharge that - and that is 1 cycle? Does it count as a cycle everytime I top it off? Or doest it have to be drained to a certain point to be considered a cycle?
What is the magic % if that's so? Does anyone know how Apple does this? I'm just curious? Why run up the "cycles" if you don't have to? Thanks a lot, if anyone knows this!
Larry

A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could use your notebook for an hour or more one day, using half its power, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so you may take several days to complete a cycle.
Perhaps the following will help with questions about laptop batteries:
About Batteries in Modern Apple Laptops
Apple - Batteries - Notebooks
Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery
Apple - Batteries
Determining Battery Cycle Count
Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
Battery University

What exactly is the "smooth cycle algorithm" preference?

Under global preferences -> Cycle tab is the "Smooth Cycle Algorithm" checkbox. The user's manual explanation of this setting does not make sense to me - might someone help me understand what it does?
I quote the manual:
"Smooth Cycle Algorithm: This improves the timing of cycle jumps, making it easier to set the length of sample loops while in Cycle mode—although this is somewhat mitigated through the use of Apple Loops. If your computer has a very slow CPU, this setting reduces the processing requirements for graphic operations. In general, you’ll want to keep this on, whenever possible, especially if you’re working in a style which involves frequent cycling of musical sections. If you find that your cycled sections are not as smooth as you’d like (assuming that your loops are actually perfect), you might achieve better results by disabling this parameter."
I'm confused because this seems to imply that the setting will save CPU and make loops sound better, but sometimes can make loops sound worse? Also note that the setting is called "smooth cycle algorithm" but seemingly in contradiction with the feature's name, the manual says to turn it off if your loops don't cycle "smoothly"
Does anyone know what this is really doing more precisely? Any additional info would be great. Thanks!
-Josh

A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could use your notebook for an hour or more one day, using half its power, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so you may take several days to complete a cycle.
Perhaps the following will help with questions about laptop batteries:
About Batteries in Modern Apple Laptops
Apple - Batteries - Notebooks
Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery
Apple - Batteries
Determining Battery Cycle Count
Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
Battery University

What counts as one charge cycle?

I read today about charge cycles, what counts as one?
Because if im upstairs with my macbook(i will be buying in a few weeks) and i want to move it downstairs i need to unplug it, so will that count as one?

When you use the battery for 50% then charge it and then the next day use it again for 50% and charge it again. The two uses add to 100% charge and discharge. That equals one cycle. This can occur over weeks if you use yours like I do. I use it for 10% discharge on one day and then charge it. A week later I use it for 50% and charge it. This occurs over the next few weeks and finally reach 100% total. This is also a full cycle just took longer to get there.
When you calibrate your battery you also use a full cycle.
I have had this battery about 8 months and have 15 cycles on it and it is in great shape.

I send my iPhone to apple because my standby button doesn´t fit, what exactly should i send to apple? earphones and charging cable too?

I send my iPhone to apple because my standby button doesn´t fit, what exactly should i send to apple? earphones and charging cable too?

No! All Apple needs is your actual phone. Do not send the box or anything else as they will throw it away and you won't get anything back except for a phone! Do not send the sim card either and make sure you backed it up!

My Macbook Air 11 (late 2010) not charging "battery replace now) message 28 months old only 6 charge cycles. what could cause this?

I've unplugged plugged in. Checked the charger. Nothing runing. I've Shut down rebooted ran diagnostics and just about everything resolution I could find on-line. Its almost always plugged in and has not been used on battery power in a long time. Its not run down to zero power before. Just suddenly shut off the other day and won't charge now. Says replace battery now, but I just want to see if it could be something else. Hard to believe the battery went bad like that.
Thanks
Model Information:
Manufacturer:    DP
Device Name:    bq20z451
Pack Lot Code:    0
PCB Lot Code:    0
Firmware Version:    301
Hardware Revision:    1
Cell Revision:    173
Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh):    0
Fully Charged:    Yes
Charging:    No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh):    0
Health Information:
Cycle Count:    6
Condition:    Replace Now
Battery Installed:    Yes
Amperage (mA):    0
Voltage (mV):    5104

mattk68
always plugged in and usually in sleep mode.
So it was always plugged in, never discharged, and was never really OFF, just in sleep mode.
Sounds like you got some half-true 'advice' from some people.
It DOES shut down when fully charged and you cant "overcharge" your macbook....., and the "others" were correct that your battery should be cycled every couple weeks at least.
what they didnt tell you is "plugged in and OFF is one thing.......plugged in ALL THE TIME...AND in sleep mode (for years)......NO!"
Heres some info for the "next battery" :
Keep it plugged in when near a socket so you keep the charging cycles DOWN on your LiPo (lithium polymer) cells / battery.
*Contrary to some myths out there, there is protection circuitry in your macbook and therefore you cannot 'overcharge' it when plugged in and already fully charged
If you leave your macbook plugged in all the time, take it off charge and drain the battery down to 15 or 20% every couple of weeks or so.
LiPo (lithium polymer, same as in your macbook) batteries do not need conditioning. However...
LiPo batteries do NOT like to be dropped down to 15% or so often,....key word being "often"
A lot of battery experts call the use of LiPo cells the "80% Rule" ....meaning use 80% of the charge or so,.. then recharge them for longer overall life.
Never let your Macbook die from power, you can corrupt files that way, and the batteries do not like it.
**Also new evidence suggests that sudden loss of power can adversely affect data on a SSD (solid state drive).....again, dont let it ever shut down from total power loss
The only quantified abuse seen to LiPo cells is instances when often the cells are repeatedly drained very low.
Contrary to what some might say, LIPo batteries have an "ideal" break in period. First ten cycles or so, don't discharge down past 40% of the battery's capacity.
Same way you dont take a new car out and speed and rev the engine hard first 100 or so miles.
*Also, if youre going to store your macbook away for a few weeks or more,... make sure it has at least a 50% or so charge.
*Cycle count / use/ lifespan is one thing that cant be countered.
Proper treatment is another thing. Just because LiPo batteries dont need conditioning in general,.. does NOT mean they dont have an ideal use / recharge environment. Anything can be abused even if it doesnt need conditioning.
Just use and enjoy your new macbook,
From Apple on batteries:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1446
but really all you would keep in mind is --"consider 15-20% is the same as 0% and recharge it"
and best "tip" is if its near a socket, .....plug it in as long as you can (especially at home) since cycle count on the battery are the "miles that wear out the tires (battery)"

What on earth is a charge cycle when it's at home?

Hi
is a full charge cycle 5 hours?And how many would be good? When I got it I looked in the instructions and it said 5hrs or until it says fully chraged, I didn't do 5 hours but until it said fully charged. Also how can you tell the actual status of the battery ie if it shows red, does that actually mean that it is on the verge of running out or will it last a while.
I would appreciate your help
PS.I charged it on an adaptor from my mums 20GB iPod photo ( 4G). Don't know if this makes a difference. I think I also had it in a cover for atleast some of it.
P.P.S Since I originally posted this message I have started to as recommended by apple and a few of you lot on this forum, test the duration of the battery and just let it repeatedly play an album until it dies. Will try and remember to let you guys know how it went.

You can find out how long your battery lasts by doing this:
Plug your iPod into your computer and reset all of your Play Counts. Then unplug it from your computer and set your iPod to repeat one song. After the battery dies, plug it into your computer and open up iTunes, and there should be a tab (Name, Artist, Date Added, etc...) that is either there or that you can add by right clicking on Name, Artist, Date Added, etc... that's called Play Count. Just multiply how long the song was by how many times it played.

What exactly does 'zpool iostat' measure?

Hi there,
I am wondering what exactly get measured wher i do an 'zpool iostat [-v]' on a machine, especially regarding the write values. Do those consist only of the writes to the ZIL or do they include the following commits, too?
Thanks in advance,
Felix

A brand new Li battery can store a certain amount of current. For a 15" MBP battery, the nominal value for the maximum amount of current it can hold is 5500 mAh (individual batteries will vary). Over time, the max amount of charge a battery can hold (full charge capacity) drops. Your "health" is the full charge capacity of your battery divided by the full charge capacity of a new battery. You can see your full charge capacity in Utilities > System Profiler > Power.
So, 50% health is a full charge capacity of ~2250 mAh. Less charge in the battery means less run time. Apple states that a battery should maintain 80% of it's capacity for 300 cycles. So, if your battery has less than 4400 mAh full charge capacity, and less than 300 cycles on it, call Apple for a replacement. Read this for details of the warranty extension to two years for these known battery problems:
http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/
Hope this helps...

Older (removable) MBP batteries: adaptive charging, cycles?

Apple is touting how new built-in batteries have "adaptive charging" and go "up to 1000 cycles, which is 3x industry standard". I noticed they aren't saying "3x previous MacBook models", but are referring to some vague "industry standard" so I was wondering if anyone knows what's the expected number of charge cycles on a removable 15" unibody MBP battery? Is it 300, or do these also have "adaptive charging" that allows more cycles?
I remember Apple was releasing battery firmware updates for earlier MacBook Pros (2005-2007), so I was always under impression even older-generation batteries were "smart", as they too had a processor and firmware in them for "adaptive charging". What's the truth?
(Although I also have to say that my old, 2006 MacBook Pro is now on its 3rd battery. The previous ones degraded really quickly; over about one year; nothing too lasting or smart about them...)

Hi, Attila. All Apple notebook batteries have been "smart" to the extent of keeping track of their own charge levels, preventing overcharging, and counting charge cycles fractionally. Exactly what Apple means by "adaptive charging," I don't pretend to know.
Apple's stated expectation for battery longevity prior to the non-user-replaceable batteries was that a properly-maintained battery should retain 80% of its original full charge capacity after 300 charge-discharge cycles. In the real world, few batteries are maintained ideally or even "properly" throughout their working lives, and many don't live up to that expectation. Others exceed it. On average, the older batteries were typically usable for 300-500 charge cycles or 2-4 years, though the actual range of variation ws much broader than that. Both cycle count and chronological age take their toll on a lithium-based battery; a five-year-old battery will have a greatly diminished capacity even if it only has 100-200 cycles on it.
The highest cycle count I've heard of in any of the older removable batteries was a little over 1000 — but that same battery had reported a cycle count of zero about 24 hours earlier, so I don't believe either readout. Another poster here reported a cycle count of 900+ for a battery that was on its very last gasp. That may have been true, and if it was, it was certainly extraordinary. I don't remember ever hearing of any other battery surviving more than 650 cycles.
Apple, like other computer makers, has had trouble in the past few years with defective batches of batteries produced by their manufacturing partners, notably Sony. Many defective batteries have been replaced free of charge.
Message was edited by: eww

Charge cycle??

I'm a new mac user and I want to take care of my macbook as much as possible. Can someone explain exactly what a charge cycle is and how its done..

A charge cycle is the equivalent of a full discharge and full recharge of the battery. The discharge can be cumulative over several less-than-full-discharges of the battery. For example if you discharge the battery 50% then recharge it, then discharge it another 50% and recharge it that's the equivalent of one full cycle.
About Batteries in Modern Apple Laptops
Apple - Batteries - Notebooks
Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery
Apple - Batteries
Determining Battery Cycle Count
Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
MacBook and MacBook Pro- Mac reduces processor speed when battery is removed while operating from an A-C adaptor
Battery University

What exactly are unscaledWidth and unscaledHeight in mobile item renderers?

Hello,
What exactly are unscaledWidth and unscaledHeight that get passed to the measure() method for a mobile item renderer?
I am guessing renderers start at "default" width and height (so unscaled) which get scaled based on DPI. Is that it?
Thank you.

measure() doesn't take any parameters so I assume you mean the layoutContents() and/or drawBackground() methods.
If you look at the code in LabelItemRenderer (and MobileSkin) for updateDisplayList() you'll see that it just delegates the work to the drawBackground() and layoutContents() methods:
    override protected function updateDisplayList(unscaledWidth:Number,
                                                  unscaledHeight:Number):void
        // clear the graphics before calling super.updateDisplayList()
        graphics.clear();
        super.updateDisplayList(unscaledWidth, unscaledHeight);
        drawBackground(unscaledWidth, unscaledHeight);
        layoutContents(unscaledWidth, unscaledHeight);
This was done to make it a little bit easier for people to subclass LabelItemRenderer/IconItemRenderer by breaking the positioning logic apart from drawing the background visuals. Check out the documentation for UIComponent.updateDisplayList and look around on Google for more information on how updateDisplayList fits into the Flex component life cycle.

What exactly does the AppleCare cover for MacBook Pro with Retina Display?

I purchased the extended protection plan for my MacBook Pro with Retina Display 15" and my question is what exactly does it cover in what kind of situations (i.e. viruses, damaged ports, damaged charger, etc.)? I want to be able to take full advantage of the protection plan since it was a pretty big whole in my wallet.

AppleCare covers all the problems you have with your MacBook Pro with Retina display and the peripherals which came with it (your charger) if you have a hardware problem that you didn't cause. For example, after 2 or 3 years and 1000 charges, OS X says that your battery has to be replaced: in this case, you have to pay for the battery, because batteries have got a lifetime, and Unibody Macs batteries have got an average lifetime of about 1000 charges.
However, if the RAM gets damaged and you haven't done anything to cause it, you will get your computer repaired or replaced for free. AppleCare in a MacBook Pro with Retina display is very important, because near all the parts are soldered into the logic board and repairs are expensive

What exactly does the Radio Beacon Indicate

I have seen cases where the Radio Beacon is black and when it is gray. When it's black you may or may not be able to go through the wireless router to the modem and then to the internet. When it is gray, you cannot really do anything except be in a local mode. However there are instances when the Radio Beacon is black, rather than gray, and you still cannot access the internet. So, what exactly does the activated Radio Beacon Indicate, i.e., that the wireless network is working and the modem is down, or something else entirely ?

Assuming you're referring to the Airport icon in the menu bar, 'clear/empty' means Airport is turned off, gray bars means Airport is on but not connected to a network, and black bars means Airport is on and connected to a network. Other possible icon states are solid gray with a little computer inset, meaning you're connected to a computer-to-computer created on the Mac, and gray bars with an exclamation point (10.6 only), meaning connected to a network but not authenticated (e.g. wrong password for an 801.2X corporate/university network).
To your question, it's perfectly possible to be successfully connected to a network (black icon) and unable to access the internet. Situations like that would include the network requiring a proxy server, for which you haven't set up the details on in Network Preferences, or you're connected to an open network that requires you to enter information or agree to terms (e.g. a hotel network, where you need to put in your room number and agree to the charges before you can connect to the internet).

Can someone explain this chart about Li-ion charge cycles to me

I consider myself a pretty smart guy, but i couldn't figure this out. I'm thinking that apple just provided this graph without any real explanation of what it means. I'm talking about the one on .. http://www.apple.com/batteries/ that has a caption starting with "Charge Cycle." They provide a general explanation of cycles below, but don't seem to address the same thing the illustration they provided does. What does the 40% 20% 30% 20% 50% 60% mean? Why is "1 Cycle" in the middle and what is the difference between cycle 0-1 and 1-2. basically that illustration makes no sense to me and i'd love for someone to explain it

That charge is telling you how the charger charges the battery. The voltage charge is the green line and the amperage is the orange line. Voltage goes up to its full extent in the first couple of hours. The amperage starts at full charge strength and goes down as the batery charges so it will not overheat the battery. The most important thing to know about charging a Li (Lithium-ion) battery is that it has two different charge times, quick and full. most Li batteries get about an 80% charge at the quick charge time and 100% charge at the full charge time. when you first charge any rechargable battery make sure you do a full charge and then a full discharge with another full charge afterward. If you do not do this the life of the batery will be significantly diminished.
I hope this information helps. If you want more information in this subject ask a more direct question.

What exactly is a charge cycle?

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