Several Macbook owners have been complaining that after installing OS X 10.8, or Mountain Lion, the number of hours they are able to use their MacBook Pros and Airs without being plugged to a power source plummeted by up to 50% of the original capacity.

Owners have been posting complaints on Apple support forums regarding battery life issues after installing the new OS as early as its launch date, July 25. In the forum, users complain that the battery life of their units was only about 50% of what was specified by Lion, with one claiming that he could easily watch the battery level drop.

Mountain Lion OS is reported to reduce the battery life of Macbooks. (Image: thomasbellili (CC) via Flickr)

In a rough research done by a user, he observed that with the usual number of programs operating, the battery life indicator loses 1% every 2 minutes, with the unit able to work for just below 3.5 hours, compared to the previous Mountain Lion version which allows users to work for up to 4.5 hours under similar circumstances.

Possible causes are errors with file permission, more CPU utilization while programs are slowing down, and issues with network access. On the bright side, Apple is now checking in on the said matter.

This week, the gadget giant began to reply to complaining users, with Cupertino representatives asking users to keep track of activity monitor data and to compile system information to pin-point the culprit of the problem. As of the moment, there are no definite solutions to the said problem.

About Neal Alfie Lasta

I enjoy learning and writing about social media and the latest in mobile updates.