Sep 6 2010
Watts battery maintenance and calibration
So, in my last video, I showed you the test that Mac service techs run to determine whether a battery has failed or not and, sure enough, mine had. It was covered under warranty which was good news and the new battery arrived the next day, so it all was rather painless.
Now that I have a brand spankin’ new battery, I’d like to try to give it a better chance for survival than my previous one, so I’m going to be running Watts to keep me on schedule for regular charging and draining of the battery so that it gets some regular use. Batteries need to be used, not just charged and will deteriorate faster if they are left constantly tethered to an AC adapter.1What Watts does is keeps you on a schedule of charges and discharges of you battery to give it a good run once in a while and allow your Mac to see how much charge it actually holds so that it can more efficiently and accurately use and display its capacity.
No Flash?»Watts sells for just $6.95, which makes it a desktop application at an iPhone app price. You could save that money and just set up some iCal alarms but, who are we kidding, you’re just going to ignore those anyway. Paying a little money is almost like betting yourself $6.95 that this time you’re not going to burn out your battery through improper use.
- and really, what’s the point of having a Mac portable with wireless internet f you’re just going to keep it tied to a wall like a watchdog on a chain—let it free!! [↩]