
Battery life: Apple's solving for x - mmastrac
http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/01/battery-life-apples-solving-for-x/
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alkonaut
To me, a 2-3 day battery life wouldn't be worth much. I did like having the
old dumbphone weeks worth of battery, but believe it or not, that thing was
without battery way way more often than my smartphone is. Why? Because
smartphones you charge every night. It's a habit. You brush your teeth and
charge your phone. So actually, unless they make the battery life
_substantially_ better, I'm going to take Apples side here: it's better to
make the phone slightly cheaper/lighter/brighter/faster/..., than to make the
battery life slightly better.

Of course, this may vary with location and usage pattern and I can see how
someone in an area where battery drains in less than a day is very frustrated.
I'm nowhere close to draining my battery in a days worth of near-constant use.

~~~
mrfusion
You're completely right but I think it's more about <always> getting through
one day. Even if there's heavier than usual usage, or even after your phone is
a year or two old.

So we actually need a phone to last for 2-3 days of regular usage so it's up
to the task of lasting a full day in the worst case.

~~~
exelius
Also for periods of heavy battery use. My iPhone 6 gets roughly 3-4 hours of
playtime on games (most recently Knights of the Old Republic). I'm not
complaining because that's great for a phone today; but 8-10 hours of playtime
would be nice a few years from now. I take a lot of long flights and it's nice
not to have to carry a spare battery or plug into my laptop.

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seanp2k2
This is basically the reason I got a 6+ over a normal 6. Previous iPhones have
been great, except they saved a few mm and made me carry a cable around with a
playing-deck-sized external battery. Real stylish.

I think many people would want something like an iPhone 6S with the option of
having a bigger battery and built-in case at the expense of a few mm of
thickness. Basically, make the back removable (even if just when ordering or
at Apple stores) and make a more rugged version which also contains a second
battery. The fronts and guts can all be exactly the same for manufacturing
efficiency, then the wrap-around back can be swapped out to change color / if
it gets smashed or bent / if the user wants to replace the battery etc. I
really think this could work while retaining their fit and finish +
manufacturing efficiency, and it's surely make consumers happy. And again, I'm
not talking about a user-replaceable part, just an ordering option or possibly
a paid in-store swap.

~~~
STRML
I wish most phone manufacturers would start to pay attention to this. I don't
need to save the last few mm. My pocket can handle it. But there are times
when I definitely do need the extra battery life.

Marketing wins, actual practical use of the product loses.

~~~
swombat
In my experience, those days when I need the extra bit of battery life are
almost always at events, or while travelling. I can spot those days in
advance, they're not surprises.

So I found a remarkably simple and obvious solution: I spent £50 and bought an
external battery pack, something like
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/RAVPower-15000mAh-External-
Generatio...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/RAVPower-15000mAh-External-Generation-
Portable-Black/dp/B00OJXVDAU/ref=sr_1_14) . It charges overnight, weighs not
all that much at the bottom of a shoulder bag, but on those crucial days when
battery is getting slim, I can just pull a cable out, plug it into my phone,
and bingo: the phone is charged.

It's capable of charging an iPhone several times over so _easily_ solves the
problem for you and even some of your friends.

~~~
moe
_and bingo: the phone is charged._

Isn't it more like "Bingo: now I have a battery pack dangling from my phone
for the next few hours"?

~~~
swombat
Nope. iPhones tend to charge most of the battery in about an hour with a
decent charger, so you sit down for a presentation or two, while still
tweeting/etc, and by the time the presentations are done your phone is charged
again.

------
wodenokoto
I've noticed that battery life changes dramatically on where you are. When I
visited the US, I bought a local SIM card and my 4S died long before the day
was over. The same in Japan. But in Denmark I have no problem lasting a day.

~~~
girvo
Yes, this definitely happens. I live in Australia and have gone out to north-
west Queensland many a time, when you do your battery life is halved compared
to being in the city. You'll even find the same thing catching a train from
Gold Coast to Brisbane. Basically, anywhere there is spotty coverage, you'll
see your battery life drop dramatically, this is because the phone will
increase power to the cell radio to keep you connected when there is low
signal. I've always found it fascinating.

~~~
freshyill
Back in the dumb phone days, driving through New Jersey, of all places, used
to kill my battery. If you're not familiar, NJ is the most densely populated
state in the US, but the northwest part of the state is mostly wooded, fairly
mountainous, and sparsely populated.

I'd be driving from Pennsylvania the NYC suburbs, but northwest Jersey at the
time had spotty service and a lot of analog networks. It was a real battery
killer.

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spiralpolitik
I think Apple's focus up until this point has been to make the devices
thinner. That's meant that as the SoC has been getting smaller and more
efficient, the battery has also been getting smaller due to the reduced phone
size.

Now in the case of the iPhone 6 it can't get any smaller as its only slightly
thicker than the headphone jack. Removing the headphone jack only gets you an
extra few millimeters before you hit the Lightning port. So without a major
redesign it's as thin as it can get for the moment.

So from this point onwards I would expect so see battery life increase as
extra space in the case grabbed from size reductions from the SoC goes to
battery. The 6 plus seems to follow this design pattern.

(Assuming there isn't a major advance in battery technology)

~~~
skywhopper
It won't go to battery life, it'll go to higher performance, more screen
brightness, additional sensors, more allowed background processing by apps,
more GPS check-ins, more chatting with your connected devices like the Watch,
and more awareness of the radio-transmitting devices around you. There's a LOT
more our phones could be doing if they had 2x, 3x, 10x battery life, that
would eat up every bit of juice within a typical day.

------
song
For me, the iphone 6+ has been the first iphone with a truly confortable
battery life. It lasts 2-3 days on average for me when my iphone 5 often
didn't even last a single day.

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mcmancini
It seems reasonable to assume that Apple, being a competent design house, did
some research and listed "x hours of battery life for function y" on their
market requirements docs. I guess I don't understand how meeting their design
goals is a profound observation.

As far as battery life goes, the one feature I'm jealous of on Samsung phones
is the extended battery life mode. Do they still do that? Anyone know if it's
on other Android phones? I'm happy to compromise with a sleeker phone, a la
Apple, if I can get some extra battery life while traveling.

~~~
marcosdumay
They still have that, and other Android phones have different apps with the
same goal. But turns out that it's not really needed at the latest models -
both my wife's Moto G and my LG G3 have plenty of battery for lasting a few
days in light usage, and it does not help in heavy usage anyway.

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hkln
his own graphic says that the 3G has 7h while the 4S has 11h. This is a huge
difference. It only looks like small changes in battery life because the 6+
was included in the graph.

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xutopia
I think a lot of people don't understand why the iPhone 6+ lasts that long. It
does so because the battery is specced out to last a certain amount of hours
with the screen on. Because the screen requires more energy they've put in a
larger battery. The standby and talk usage getting a bump is just incidental.

------
tuananh
Using Apple's promo material? Really?

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shurcooL
I'm extremely satisfied with the battery life of my iOS device. Even after a
day of above average use, it will have more than 50% remaining.

------
tluyben2
I keep going back to the iPhone as all Android phones are empty while even
hardly using them and they take forever to charge. I have an iPhone 5s and
Galaxy s5. The s5 takes hours to charge fully while the iPhone is full very
quickly. And while actively using them, the s5 is empty far before the 5s.
Both have had this since they came out of the box.

I had similar issues with the iphone 4 vs galaxy s2 and iphone 5 vs nexus 5.

~~~
mirsadm
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/7903/samsung-
galaxy-s-5-review...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7903/samsung-
galaxy-s-5-review/5)

The galaxy s5 charger pretty quickly compared to most phones.

~~~
tluyben2
Interesting I get downvoted for something which just happens to me and I can
prove if you sit next to me. It's slower, much slower. With any charger
including the original one which came with the phone. I create apps and have a
ton of devices; it's not like i'm an Apple fanboy or whatever, it's just an
observation.

~~~
mirsadm
I didn't comment on battery life because it is almost impossible to measure
since it depends on many factors. Charging time on the other hand is easy to
measure. The Galaxy S5 charges very quickly compared to other phones. I'm not
suggesting that you are lying but that your charger probably didn't let the
phone charge as fast as it can.

~~~
tluyben2
I do not know the reason but I would love to know it; I use the 5s + s5
together every day, all day for business. And it is very simple; after about 5
hours the one I used most will be dead (it differs per day which one that is)
and for the s5 the day will be over; it will take more too long to charge to
even put in the loader, while if it's the 5s, it'll be fully in a jiffy. Now I
could have a faulty model (I can rule out chargers as I have many of them,
always use wall chargers and official cables) but I have the same experience
with every other non-Apple phone I have. For tablets I have; iPads + Windows 8
tablets take the longest to charge, Android the shortest.

Anyway; it does not really matter; I like Android phones but for me short
battery life (like you said, depends on many factors and is about similar on
iPhones) life is killer and then long charging adds insult to injury.

