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Juice: iPhone 5 is 99 percent done!
The iPhone 5 launch has stalled out at that same awkward moment where your iPhone’s battery displays itself as being 99% full and you find yourself holding your breath for that last bit of the stretch. You know you’ve basically arrived at your destination, but now the anticipation is even higher. All the pieces are already in place: we already know iOS 5 will arrive this season, and Apple loves early September press events for retail product unveilings, so the press invites should begin surfacing the last week of August. Which of course is a week from now. And the “leaked” iPhone 5 photos, while thus far all too grainy and phony-looking to be taken overly seriously, are typically a sign that the proverbial pot is in the process of boiling over. But back to that iPhone battery analogy, because it’s quietly the area in which Apple has the most room to run with the iPhone 5, the most opportunity to turn the next iPhone into a transformative device. And history shows that there’s a major battery breakthrough about to unfold.
A year ago Apple tried to split the difference on battery life. The iPhone 4, whose new A4 processor used less power, was twenty-five percent thinner than its predecessor and offered forty percent more juice. Apple passed up the opportunity to perhaps double battery life by simply keeping the iPhone 4 the same thickness as the 3GS and using the extra space to cram in a larger battery unit. But as it was, the last iPhone was simultaneously the longest lasting smartphone on the market and yet another smartphone which couldn’t get you through the day if you performed a large amount of activity with the screen turned on. Yet there’s hope that the iPhone 5 will deliver significantly more daily staying power…
The first hint at a major iPhone 5 battery life breakthrough comes at the hands of its expected A5 processor. The A4 was Apple’s first attempt at delivering high speed mobile processing power while using as little power as possible; the A5 is its second. So even as the iPhone 5 will run significantly faster thanks to the dual-core A5 processor, it should be able to do so on less power. That means that the same-sized battery will last longer. Then there’s Apple’s penchant for miniaturizing the various components. That means the internals of the iPhone 5 should be sufficiently smaller than the iPhone 4 that Apple can once again split the difference by packing in more hardware features, making it thinner, and including a physically larger battery. But another trend within the company points to that balance shifting more in favor of superbly increased battery life…
Actually it’s Apple’s MacBook line which gives hint to impending iPhone 5 battery advances. Somewhere along the line Apple realized that (outside of geeks and tech enthusiasts) almost no one removes their laptop’s battery, ever, and that the hinges involved in making the battery removable were wasting precious space which could have been used for a larger battery instead. As such, recent MacBook Pro laptops have about fifty percent more battery life thanks simply to the fact that the battery now takes up the entire compartment rather than fighting for space with the pins and hinges. This move, however, was Apple’s first tacit admission that laptop battery life is something of a joke in general. Visit any coffee shop and count up the percentage of laptop users who’ve brought their power adapter with them, and it’ll offer a hint about the disparity between the kind of mobile battery life consumers are looking for and what their devices are actually offering. But the extra effort which went into massively boosting the battery life of Apple’s laptops shows that the company understands the absurdity and does in fact want to do something about it. That means there’s another shoe ready to drop on the iPhone side as well, perhaps as soon as the iPhone 5. In fact it could come in the form of reduced power demands by the iOS 5 software itself, as a more efficient OS can be programmed to use less power per command, or just as importantly, use less power while on standby.
Granted, the iPhone already employs a permanent battery which doesn’t waste any space on removable mechanisms. But with Apple having made it clear that one of its ambitions is to significantly expand the battery life of its portable products, let’s just say that the company’s highest engineering priorities tend to come through in a big way before too long. So what specifically does Apple have in mind for jacking up the battery life of the iPhone such that it becomes the first true all-day mobile device to ever hit the market? We’ll have to wait and see. But while such market-stunning innovations may ultimately have to wait for the iPhone 6 and beyond, it’s a safe bet that the iPhone 5 will take a major leap forward with regard to battery life one way or the other, even while finding a way to get thinner in the process. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.
A year ago Apple tried to split the difference on battery life. The iPhone 4, whose new A4 processor used less power, was twenty-five percent thinner than its predecessor and offered forty percent more juice. Apple passed up the opportunity to perhaps double battery life by simply keeping the iPhone 4 the same thickness as the 3GS and using the extra space to cram in a larger battery unit. But as it was, the last iPhone was simultaneously the longest lasting smartphone on the market and yet another smartphone which couldn’t get you through the day if you performed a large amount of activity with the screen turned on. Yet there’s hope that the iPhone 5 will deliver significantly more daily staying power…
The first hint at a major iPhone 5 battery life breakthrough comes at the hands of its expected A5 processor. The A4 was Apple’s first attempt at delivering high speed mobile processing power while using as little power as possible; the A5 is its second. So even as the iPhone 5 will run significantly faster thanks to the dual-core A5 processor, it should be able to do so on less power. That means that the same-sized battery will last longer. Then there’s Apple’s penchant for miniaturizing the various components. That means the internals of the iPhone 5 should be sufficiently smaller than the iPhone 4 that Apple can once again split the difference by packing in more hardware features, making it thinner, and including a physically larger battery. But another trend within the company points to that balance shifting more in favor of superbly increased battery life…
Actually it’s Apple’s MacBook line which gives hint to impending iPhone 5 battery advances. Somewhere along the line Apple realized that (outside of geeks and tech enthusiasts) almost no one removes their laptop’s battery, ever, and that the hinges involved in making the battery removable were wasting precious space which could have been used for a larger battery instead. As such, recent MacBook Pro laptops have about fifty percent more battery life thanks simply to the fact that the battery now takes up the entire compartment rather than fighting for space with the pins and hinges. This move, however, was Apple’s first tacit admission that laptop battery life is something of a joke in general. Visit any coffee shop and count up the percentage of laptop users who’ve brought their power adapter with them, and it’ll offer a hint about the disparity between the kind of mobile battery life consumers are looking for and what their devices are actually offering. But the extra effort which went into massively boosting the battery life of Apple’s laptops shows that the company understands the absurdity and does in fact want to do something about it. That means there’s another shoe ready to drop on the iPhone side as well, perhaps as soon as the iPhone 5. In fact it could come in the form of reduced power demands by the iOS 5 software itself, as a more efficient OS can be programmed to use less power per command, or just as importantly, use less power while on standby.
Granted, the iPhone already employs a permanent battery which doesn’t waste any space on removable mechanisms. But with Apple having made it clear that one of its ambitions is to significantly expand the battery life of its portable products, let’s just say that the company’s highest engineering priorities tend to come through in a big way before too long. So what specifically does Apple have in mind for jacking up the battery life of the iPhone such that it becomes the first true all-day mobile device to ever hit the market? We’ll have to wait and see. But while such market-stunning innovations may ultimately have to wait for the iPhone 6 and beyond, it’s a safe bet that the iPhone 5 will take a major leap forward with regard to battery life one way or the other, even while finding a way to get thinner in the process. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.
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