Apple has released macOS Catalina 10.15.5, the update is now available via the Mac App Store using the Update feature in the System Prefere...
Apple has released macOS Catalina 10.15.5, the update is now available via the Mac App Store using the Update feature in the System Preferences app.
macOS 10.15.5 introduces the Battery Health Management feature to the Mac, which aims to improve the battery life of the MacBook and reduce aging. It works by analyzing the temperature of the battery and the charging patterns it has experienced. For example, does the laptop frequently get drained most of the way and then recharged fully, or is it mostly kept full and plugged in?
In the latter scenario, when a Mac is plugged in and the battery is kept full, Battery Health Management will kick in to stop a bit short of full capacity to preserve the battery's lifespan (All charging data on the MacBook is confidential. Unless the Mac chooses to share anonymous analysis data with Apple).
Modern laptop batteries are charged to 100% and stored there for a long time, particularly at relatively high temperatures, which will greatly degrade the battery life. Apple has managed to tweak the default battery charging behavior of the MacBook so that it will not thoroughly charge the battery too extreme in some cases to extend battery life.
The full release notes:
macOS Catalina 10.15.5 introduces battery health management in the Energy Saver settings for notebooks, an option to control automatic prominence of video tiles on Group FaceTime calls, and controls to fine-tune the built-in calibration of your Pro Display XDR. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.
Battery Health Management
- Battery health management to help maximize battery lifespan for Mac notebooks
- Energy Saver preference pane now displays battery condition and recommends if the battery needs to be serviced
- Option to disable battery health management
- For more information, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT211094
FaceTime Prominence Preference
- Option to control automatic prominence on Group FaceTime calls so video tiles do not change size when a participant speaks
Calibration Fine-Tuning for Pro Display XDR
- Controls to fine-tune the built-in calibration of your Pro Display XDR by adjusting the white point and luminance for a precise match to your own display calibration target
This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements.
- Fixes an issue that may prevent Reminders from sending notifications for recurring reminders
- Addresses an issue that may prevent password entry on the login screen
- Fixes an issue where System Preferences would continue to show a notification badge even after installing an update
- Resolves an issue where the built-in camera may not be detected when trying to use it after using a video conferencing app
- Addresses an issue for Mac computers with the Apple T2 Security Chip where internal speakers may not appear as a sound output device in Sound preferences
- Fixes a stability issue with uploading and downloading media files from iCloud Photo Library while your Mac is asleep
- Resolves a stability issue when transferring large amounts of data to RAID volumes
- Fixes an issue where the Reduce Motion Accessibility preference did not reduce the speed of animations in a FaceTime group call
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