14 DAY TRIAL // It’s confirmed! OS X 10.8.2 will restore battery life to Lion levels, according to the results of thorough testing carried by Mac enthusiasts. Apple is currently still ridding the software of bugs, but it should have it out in about a week.
Build OS X 10.8.2 build 12C35 completely restores battery life to the levels recorded when running OS X 10.7 Lion, according to The Mac Observer.
The battery lasted approximately 380 minutes, compared to 260 minutes on OS X 10.8.0, and 280 minutes under OS X 10.8.1.
“Just as we saw in our previous tests, the upgrade to 10.8 Mountain Lion decreased battery life significantly, by about 1 hour and 45 minutes, or 30 percent,” reads the analysis.
“The upgrade to 10.8.1 restored about 30 minutes of battery life for our MacBook Pro, an improvement for sure, but not nearly enough to regain lost ground.”
“The big change came with 10.8.2, which is still undergoing developer testing. Using the latest build, 12C35, we saw a tremendous increase in battery life, to the point where running time was a few minutes longer than even that of 10.6.8,” according to the testers.
A few weeks ago, we ourselves confirmed with the help of a developer that OS X 10.8.1 had already begun addressing the battery life issues. While our source experienced a spike of four added hours, many users were left with the same poor battery life.
Depending on each customer’s system configuration, it appears Apple’s incremental updates yield substantially different results.
We are yet to confirm with our source whether the latest 10.8.2 build acts any differently. For what it’s worth, here’s what the developer told us about the first 10.8.2 build.
“Although my battery is better, I seem to be having all kinds of issues with it. I'll leave it on charge all night and the next day it'll say 94% charged with 5:30 remaining. Don't know what apple are up to with the battery issues.”
In other words, 10.8.2 erased the battery drain fixes applied in 10.8.1.
Apple is coming out with iOS 6 this month, and OS X 10.8.2 should be released around the same time, to provide syncing compatibility.
