Apple releases macOS Catalina 10.15.5 with new battery extending feature

Apple has released macOS Catalina 10.15.5 which includes a new battery health management feature to help improve the battery life of MacBooks.

Much like the feature that has been available in iOS for a little while now, battery health management helps to improve longevity by reducing the peak capacity of a battery. In addition to this, the latest update to Catalina also improves the appearance of Pro Display XDR monitors, and fixes various problems including issues in FaceTime and Reminders.

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While the battery-life extending options will be welcomed by many people, it's not something that everyone will want to use. Recognizing that batteries become less effective as they age, Apple automatically reduces the maximum charging capacity, which -- in the long run -- results in a longer-lasting battery.

If the new battery health management feature is something you'd rather live without, you can disable it:

1. Head to System Preferences and click Energy Saver
2. Click the Battery Health button
3. Uncheck the box labelled Battery health management
4. Confirm that you want to disable the feature by clicking Turn Off

The full release notes from Apple for macOS Catalina 10.15.5 read as follows:

‌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

Image credit: Lori Butcher / Shutterstock