longer battery life for ipod?

[broaduscalvin]

forgive me if this is a question that has been asked many times before:

I'm thinking about buying an ipod or iriver. Battery life is a concern.

Why do some of these new players have battery lives twice as long as the ipod? Is apple going to do something about that? Many of these new players seem to weigh about as much (within an ounce or two) as the ipod but have significantly longer battery lives.

I've read the ipodbatteryfaq.com page but it doesn't seem to address the basic issue of why the battery life is so much shorter than competing players in the first place, and if that's going to change anytime soon. Thanks.

[virividox]

ipod is hard drive based, thus more moving parts more power consumption.

iriver isnt hard drive based thus less power needs

i doubt the battery life will go abouve 8 hours any time soon

[thehuncamunca]

the ipod already uses very advanced battery technology, short of making it larger so there's more room for a battery, switching to flash memory, or a new technology like fuel cells becoming available battery life won't increase

[jxyama]

Originally posted by virividox
i doubt the battery life will go abouve 8 hours any time soon

if apple increased the buffer RAM (currently 32 MB) in the iPod, battery life will go up for continuous play from the memory with minimal HD access.

i believe this is how dell jukebox gets 15+ hours of battery life.