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   OS X 10.8.1 Targets Bugs, Improved Battery Life

   Agen G. N. Schmitz

   Apple has released the first update to OS X Mountain Lion (version
   10.8.1) with fixes for a variety of specific issues that have been
   reported by users since the big cat was released in July. However, the
   [1]release notes fail to mention perhaps the biggest tweak in the
   update ' a substantial improvement in battery life for Mac laptops.

   Shortly after Mountain Lion was released, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
   owners reported on [2]Apple's support forums that running 10.8 caused
   significant battery drainage issues, with some complaining that battery
   life was reduced to almost half the normal amount. [3]Ars Technica then
   ran what they called 'real world' tests on its MacBook Pro with Retina
   Display (which, according to Apple, should have an 8-hour battery life
   on a full charge), and their testing results never yielded more than 5
   hours and a few minutes of run time. Then, earlier this week, a
   [4]Softpedia article quoted an unnamed developer running the 10.8.1
   developer seed who said that the update has fixed the battery drainage
   issues and should return battery life back to normal.

   In its published Mountain Lion 10.8.1 release notes, Apple states that
   the update squashes a bug that prevented iMessages from being sent,
   improves Mail's connection to Microsoft Exchange servers, addresses an
   issue with playing audio through a Thunderbolt display, and improves
   stability with Migration Assistant. The update also fixes problems with
   connecting to SMB servers that have long names, Safari's inability to
   launch when using a Proxy Automatic Configuration (PAC) file, and
   Pinyin input (used for typing Chinese characters) making the system
   become unresponsive.

   The Mountain Lion 10.8.1 update is relatively small: just over 7 MB via
   the Mac App Store or 24.2 MB via direct download from Apple's site.

References

   1. http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1571
   2. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4135250?start=0&tstart=0
   3. http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/08/tests-show-mountain-lion-may-indeed-degrade-battery-life/
   4. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Exclusive-Developer-Confirms-OS-X-10-8-1-Resolves-Battery-Drainage-in-Mountain-Lion-287166.shtml

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