Insights of the life of a MacBook Air battery

"12 hours of battery life" is the premise of the new MacBook Air. How does that hold over time?

Since my previous laptop bought in October 2012 (in Malaysia, one of the cheapest country to buy Apple products, ask me more), I started tracking (manually so far) the battery capacity and cycle counts on a monthly basis.
I found that after 6 months and 220 battery cycles (full charge), the battery capacity had dropped to 90%.



Jared Davenport found a similar pattern with 10% of battery capacity gone after 4-6 months of use.

Over the 19 months period, the drop in battery life is pretty regular.

Less cycles per day after leaving my startup.

To know more about my usage of the computer, I compared the number of battery cycles over the different periods. It appears that the number of cycle dropped after October 2013, which matches the change in my professional life (I stepped down from my startup flocations.com). While I believe I still spend most of my days in front of the MacBook Air, I probably changed the way I plug it.



The battery capacity of my 2012 MacBook Air now stands at 5,200 mAh, with around 5h40 of use time as per the battery indicator.
The new MacBook Air (2014) shows me 7,440 mAh and 12h40 use time (with no software running).

How to get the battery data on your Apple computer

Go to Apple Menu > About This Mac > More Info... > System Report > Power

Find the interactive charts on my site.

What is the iPhone 5 price difference between countries? up to 23%!

Since Friday, September 21th, the new iPhone 5 is available in 8 countries. I was curious to know the price differences from one country to another, so I published a comparator of iPhone 5 prices around the world:

The cheapest iPhone 5 is in the US, but the unlocked version it is not yet available.
Seven other countries have the unlocked version of the iPhone 5 with the following price in the Apple Store:

iPhone 5 prices, converted to SGD for comparison

Canada is the cheapest country to get an unlocked iPhone 5 at C$ 699.
An iPhone 5 in Hong Kong will just cost a few more dollars.
The iPhone 5 in Singapore is 8% more expensive.
Australia and the United Kingdom are following.
France and Germany are the two most expensive countries currently, 23% more expensive than Canada: (that's SGD 200 - EUR 125 more).

However, even if you wish to buy it, there is a 3-4 weeks waiting period currently. Hong Kong does not even allow online orders today (I'm sure some resellers around Wan Chai have some to sell though).

The iPhone 5 is unfortunately not yet available in Malaysia, which is the country with the lowest price usually for Apple product (iPhone 4S, MacBook Air...)

The full comparator is available here.

Impact of the Sales Tax

Going further in the analysis, by adjusting for the Sales Tax (or equivalent tax), Australia is the country where Apple gets the most money for the iPhone 5... 6% more than what it gets in the UK or Canada. It also appears that it is due to their high Sales Tax rate that France and Germany have the highest selling price.

iPhone 5 prices with Sales Tax adjustments

There is also a MacBook Air price comparator showing that Hong Kong, the US and Malaysia are the 3 cheapest countries to buy this computer, 51% cheaper than in the most expensive country: Brazil.