In a first for MacBooks, Consumer Reports won't recommend 2016 MacBook Pros after testing reveals inconsistent battery life
here's why Bogdan Popa / Softpedia News : Apple's MacBook Suffering from Battery Inconsistency, Loses Top Recommendation Oscar Raymundo / Macworld : MacBook Pro is the first Apple laptop to lack a recommendation from Consumer Reports Rajesh Pandey / iPhone Hacks : Phill Schiller: Apple Working with Consumer Reports to ‘Understand’ Their MacBook Pro Battery Tests Husain Sumra / MacRumors : Phil Schiller: Apple Working With Consumer Reports to Understand MacBook Pro Battery Test Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider : Apple working with Consumer Reports on MacBook Pro battery findings, says Phil Schiller Brian Heater / TechCrunch : Phil Schiller says Apple is working with Consumer Reports in wake of MacBook Pro battery issues Gary Ng / iPhone in Canada Blog : Apple Working with Consumer Reports to “Understand” Their MacBook Pro Battery Tests David Goldman / CNNMoney : Consumer Reports: Don't buy the new MacBook Pro Joel Hruska / ExtremeTech : Apple's new MacBook Pro is the first MacBook Consumer Reports won't recommend Iain Thomson / The Register : Spotty battery life costs Apple's MacBook Pro its gold-star rating John Gruber / Daring Fireball : Rene Ritchie on Consumer Reports's MacBook Pro Testing Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post : MacBook Pro buyers freaking out about battery life may want to try this tip Socialnomics : New Bionic Eye Could Allow the Blind to See Mike Murphy / Quartz : The new MacBook Pros are the first ones Consumer Reports isn't recommending Aaron Pressman / Fortune : Here's Why You Should Wait a Year for the New MacBook Pro Bruno Ferreira / The Tech Report : Consumer Reports pans MacBook Pro over battery life issues William Turton / Gizmodo : Apple's MacBook Pro Battery Problems Are Getting Embarrassing Michael Tsai : Consumer Reports on the New MacBook Pro's Battery Life Killian Bell / TechnoBuffalo : Consumer Reports won't recommend new MacBook Pros due to battery life Chris Barylick / O'Grady's PowerPage : Consumer Reports cites varying battery performance on 2016 MacBook Pros, holds back recommendation on new notebooks Ina Fried / Recode : In a first, Consumer Reports won't recommend Apple's newest MacBook Pros over battery issues Rob Thubron / TechSpot : Apple's new MacBook Pros fail to receive Consumer Reports' recommended rating for the first time Philip Elmer-DeWitt : MacBook Pro: The Consumer Reports fiasco Mark Wilson / BetaNews : Major battery life concerns mean Consumer Reports does not recommend the new MacBook Pro MacDailyNews : Consumer Reports says do not buy Apple's new MacBook Pro, citing erratic battery life Jon Swartz / USA Today : It's not just you: ‘Consumer Reports’ has battery problems with new MacBook Pro Peter O'Kelly / Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check : In a first, Consumer Reports won't recommend Apple's newest MacBook Pros over battery issues - Recode Jack Purcher / Patently Apple : Apple's MacBook Pro gets Two Thumbs Down from Consumers Reports and Gets No Respect Lewis Wallace / Cult of Mac : Consumer Reports slams new MacBook Pros' terrible battery life Mark Coppock / Digital Trends : Apple's Phil Schiller wants to ‘understand’ MacBook Pro battery issues The Wirecutter / Engadget : The Wirecutter's best deals: UE's Boom 2 Bluetooth speaker drops to $130 Ed Carson / Investor's Business Daily : Apple's New MacBook Pro Has ‘Inconsistent’ Batteries: Report Shawn King / The Loop : Consumer Reports has battery problems with new MacBook Pro Tweets: Philip Schiller / @pschiller : Working with CR to understand their battery tests. Results do not match our extensive lab tests or field data. http://www.imore.com/... @stevesi : Really, @imore should not be talking about patches and suggesting test configuration issues. http://www.imore.com/... Walt Mossberg / @waltmossberg : I said the same thing: Consumer Reports won't recommend the new MacBook Pros over battery inconsistency. http://www.recode.net/... via @Recode http://twitter.com/... Mike Murphy / @mcwm : My new 13-inch MBP is getting about 5 hours of charge http://qz.com/871368/ http://twitter.com/... Dieter Bohn / @backlon : .@jake_k's battery tests for @verge review were wildly inconsistent, enough that apple sent a 2nd unit. Same results http://www.consumerreports.org/ ... Matthew Panzarino / @panzer : Apple hasn't given me anything on this, but I've had folks in know tell me that big data scoop (all MBP users) is NOT showing these results. Peter Steinberger / @steipete : Conclusion: Safari has some 100% CPU bug that caused troubles? “If we use Chrome all is well” http://www.consumerreports.org/ ... David Ruddock / @rdr0b11 : http://www.consumerreports.org/ ... current status of the Mac team http://twitter.com/... Paul Haddad / @tapbot_paul : #MacBookProBatteryLifeGate I still can't quite get a feel if its a pure software problem or just bad hardware. http://www.consumerreports.org/ ... CP Digital Darkroom / @cpdigdarkroom : The battery issue is silly for Apple to keep saying it doesn't exist. Instead they disable the time-remaining indicator LMFAO what a joke http://twitter.com/... Mike Rundle / @flyosity : What?? This is insane. There's something deeply broken with the new MacBook Pro batteries. http://www.consumerreports.org/ ... http://twitter.com/... A Walking Man / @craigmod : How will this not turn into a class action lawsuit? We've all been lied to on the battery claims: http://www.consumerreports.org/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
For the first time since Consumer Reports began rating MacBooks, an Apple laptop has lost the magazine's recommendation: testers found battery life on the 2016 MacBook Pro varied widely between runs, and the no-confidence call landed mid-holiday season. Phil Schiller responded within days, saying Apple is working with Consumer Reports to understand the test while disputing that the results match Apple's own lab data and field data.
The stakes were reputational as much as commercial — Apple had just redesigned the MacBook Pro around thinner batteries, and an unexplained inconsistency pointed at either hardware or firmware. Three weeks later Consumer Reports restored its recommendation after a software fix, confirming the fault was fixable in code rather than a recall-grade defect.
First-order effects
- Holiday shoppers lost the independent recommendation signal at the exact moment the 2016 MacBook Pro was Apple's marquee gift product, putting pressure directly on December sales of the new lineup.
- Apple was forced into an unusual public negotiation with a testing outlet — Schiller engaging Consumer Reports by name rather than dismissing the finding — because a withdrawn recommendation could not be answered with marketing alone.
Second-order effects
- Apple shipped a macOS software update specifically to stabilize battery behavior, converting a potential hardware credibility problem into a patch-cycle story once Consumer Reports retested and re-recommended the machine.
- The episode raised the bar for Apple's pre-launch validation: reviewers who later tested the 2019 two-port 13-inch model still flagged battery life as merely average and keyboard reliability as an open issue, showing quality scrutiny on the Pro line persisted well past this incident.
Third-order effects
- Independent labs became a de facto post-launch QA gate for flagship hardware — a withdrawn recommendation now functions as enough leverage to force a same-quarter software response from Apple, a dynamic that did not exist when laptop reviews moved slower.
- If the pattern holds, first-generation redesigns carry a structural risk where firmware-level defects surface only under third-party test conditions, pushing vendors toward longer validation cycles or faster remediation pipelines before reviewers define the narrative.
The trend: Consumer testing organizations are becoming real-time quality gatekeepers whose verdicts can force major vendors into public dispute and emergency software fixes within weeks of launch.