Graphics Issue Affecting New MacBook Pro Models May Be Fixed in Latest macOS Sierra Beta

The recent graphics and battery issues affecting the 2016 Retina MacBook Pro may be fixed in an upcoming macOS update, an email from Apple suggests.

That email, reportedly sent by Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of software engineering, was a response to a customer’s inquiry about the graphics anomalies discovered on the new 2016 Touch Bar MacBook Pro models. In the email, Federighi states that Apple has “addressed all of these graphics issues in the latest beta of Sierra 10.12.2.” The email was posted to MacRumors by forum member StratoMAC. Notably, the email doesn’t mention any specifics about the problems that macOS 10.12.2 would resolve, or any fixes that would be implemented, according to AppleInsider.

Apparent issues with the 2016 MacBook Pro’s graphics processing unit started surfacing in recent weeks. The issues have been seen on both the 13- and 15-inch models of the new machine. Users reported that their laptops crashed, flashed red and green, had glitchy boot-up processes, and suffered from screen tearing and flickering issues. The symptoms came about when users were doing anything from using Adobe applications to syncing images in the Photos app, according to MacWorld. The symptoms can be seen in several videos posted by 9to5Mac.

In addition to the graphics and display glitches, many users have reported issues with the new MacBook Pro’s battery. One user, who posted on Apple’s discussion boards, said that the estimated battery remaining for his machine was three hours — well below the stated 10-hour battery life that the machine is supposed to have. “I ran the battery down in 3 hours last night only browsing the web,” the user, cab5g, wrote. “I wasn’t watching videos, just browsing.”

But despite some of the inconsistencies among reports and the unknown cause of the problem, macOS 10.12.2 may indeed fix at least the graphics issues. According to AppleInsider, the newest Sierra update modifies a lot of the operating system’s GPU drivers. Of the eight MacBook Pros the team had access to, macOS 10.12.2 did seem to resolve the graphics issues one user experienced with Adobe apps.

The fourth public beta version of macOS 12.12.2 was released to public beta testers on Monday and is now available to download from Apple’s beta portal.