A developer who has gotten his hands on the new build for the first Mountain Lion update, 10.8.1, confirmed to Softpedia that one of the features of the update will be an improvement of battery life.
This developer claims that improvement will be quite substantial. Initially, after a full charge under Mountain Lion, he was showing just over four hours, yet after installing the update, he showed eight hours. Softpedia explains that Apple has been hard at work looking into the battery drain problem, talking to affected customers and trying to get a handle on it.
I don't work on my MacBook very often, so it's hard for me to gauge how Mountain Lion is affecting my battery life. I share it with my daughter, and she seems to have it constantly plugged in, but whether that's because Mountain Lion is draining the battery, I can't be sure. I did just go check it now, however, and after it being plugged in for the past several hours, it's only at 98%, and after sitting for awhile longer, it's still only at 98%. It would seem it's not getting a complete charge.
Apple is also looking into networking issues, and a sound problem that occurs with MacBook Air/Thunderbolt Display combos in the beta. They told the developers that downloaded the beta version of 10.8.1 to be sure to focus their testing on Active Directory, iCal, Microsoft Exchange in Mail, PAC proxies in Safari, SMB, USB, and Wi-Fi.
Photo Credit: Apple Stock Photos