Mac 101: Keep your battery happy and healthy

How do I reverse mouse movements?

I'd like to mount a trackball upside down and perhaps you can help me out.

Also, where do webclips (user created widgets) reside?

Regards/J

just FYI, I was told by apple that after 300 cycles they no longer will replace your battery. AppleCare dogs also refer to the battery as a consumable item.

100% at 631 ... battery will be 2 years old next month. I am on the go a lot, so most of these are full discharges.

I have never seen a laptop battery like this behave so well and last so long... but i wont complain ;)

A lot of this seems to differ from battery to battery. I have a two year old Macbook and my battery has gone through 400 cycles and is at 97%. I don't know why some batteries will last forever, and some quit after 80 cycles or so. I wonder if it has to do with the batch of chemicals they mix up. At any rate, all the tips and tricks to get the most out of your battery seems to be a bunch of voodoo to me.

@ John-Erling

I would contact Apple and let them know about the problem. I had this happen with 2 MBP batteries in 2 years. They both got to about 80 cycles and suddenly lost health. I was hardly getting an hours battery life. Worse still, the machine would shut down abruptly well before the battery hit 0%. I contacted Apple on both occasions and had the battery replaced for free. You may be without your computer for a day or two, "they need to test the machine to see if it is a motherboard problem." You should also check the Apple support pages for the battery exchange programs.

http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro
http://www.apple.com/support/macbook

Your battery should last a minimum of 300 cycles before you notice any major deterioration.

Hope this helps

I've been regularly letting my battery run down a bit, as I use it a lot with the power adapter at my office. Once a month (or so), I've also let it run completely dry. The battery health was fine from the day I got it in January and up until recently when it suddenly dropped to around 50%. I'm very disappointed with this, and wondering if there is anyway to bring the health back up once it's down, or if this is more of a permanent thing. How long should I expect my battery to have good health?

I am wondering what the bar next to the cycle number in iStat means...
I got 160 cycles on a 10 months old MBP with the bar completely to the right (does this mean I completed a cycle recently?) and a health of 79%. I have no idea if this battery performance is rather good or bad...

Great story about this. My girlfriend's 3 year old 12" Powerbook's battery died, and since it was only about 70 charge cycles, they replaced it, no question. Keep in mind that the Laptop was out of warranty for almost 2 years, and they didn't even charge a dime to look at the laptop.

Other companies would love to see you buy a new battery, or better yet, another laptop as she's purchased 1 apple device in 3 years and they basically brought it back from the dead for maybe years to come.

That's the apple tax right there, and we love it.

A LiPo battery like those found in almost every battery-powered device Apple sells today measures its life in full charge-discharge cycles. These batteries do NOT suffer from "memory" effects, meaning that by letting the battery run down fully and recharging it, you are using up more cycles, and thus -shortening- your battery life.

LiPo batteries like being discharged a bit, say down to 70% or 80%, and then recharged. If they get too discharged, crystallization begins and can cause premature battery failure. Below a certain voltage, the battery can get internally shorted and thus fail-safe circuitry will not allow the battery to be recharged again, rendering it unusable.

Excellent resource on battery do and don't from Battery University:

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-21.htm

100% at 452 cycles