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An iPhone mystery

mongobongo

mongobongo

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 1, 2007
338
569
Stockholm, Sweden
So the iPhone has a proximity sensor that is meant to prevent the display from lighting up when faced down. But whenever you interact with Siri, the display always lights up, even when the phone is in your pocket.

How much battery life is wasted by this?
 
Newtons Apple said:
Unless you are bothering Siri all the time, it would use very little.

Get married and have some kids and your screen lighting up when using Siri will be forgotten.
Click to expand...

Unless you use Siri a lot to start handsfree phone calls and to control your new AirPods. Then when your battery runs out you can't call your wife and coordinate dropping the brats off at soccer practice.
 
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mongobongo said:
Unless you use Siri a lot to start handsfree phone calls and to control your new AirPods. Then when your battery runs out you can't call your wife and coordinate dropping the brats off at soccer practice.
Click to expand...

Well if this is your biggest problem in the world, you are doing good. the battery use would be very small and nothing to worry about.

You must be one of those "power users" I hear about!
 
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Newtons Apple said:
Just try to cope with it.

Merry Christmas!
Click to expand...

Thanks! You should get a job in tech support!
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jav6454 said:
None. It is a none issue.
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I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. With wired EarPods giving Siri the command "shuffle all my music" results in the display lighting up for 35 seconds for no reason what so ever. We all know that the display is the nr 1 component in terms of power draw. The hit to battery life is not going to be negligible to anyone who uses Siri even moderately.
 
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To answer your question, sure it uses power.

Is it significant? Probably not...unless you ask Siri many times per hour.
 
It's still pretty weird because it serves no purpose to light up the display of a phone in your pocket. And Apple already uses the proximity sensor to make sure notifications don't light up the display when the phone is facing down. So why not implement the same functionality for Siri?
 
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mongobongo said:
Thanks! You should get a job in tech support!
Click to expand...
He'd do fine. Hysterical alarmists on the other hand would be pretty fail at tech support...

Ask yourself; Siri came out how many years ago now? With the 4S, wasn't it, that's over half a decade ago. Have there been a lot of people running out of battery because of it since then?

I think if this was actually a problem, it would have manifested itself naturally by now! ;)
 
Lennyvalentin said:
He'd do fine. Hysterical alarmists on the other hand would be pretty fail at tech support...

Ask yourself; Siri came out how many years ago now? With the 4S, wasn't it, that's over half a decade ago. Have there been a lot of people running out of battery because of it since then?

I think if this was actually a problem, it would have manifested itself naturally by now! ;)
Click to expand...

Wait are you really calling me a hysterical alarmist?

And are you really questioning if battery performance of our smartphones is a problem for a lot of people?
 
mongobongo said:
Wait are you really calling me a hysterical alarmist?
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...If the shoe fits?

You did claim - without any actual supporting evidence I might add - that 'moderate' Siri use would be a not negligible hit to battery life. You don't even quantify what "moderate" in your opinion means - five times a day or five times an hour? If the latter, I think you'd qualify as an overindulging user rather than a moderate one.

In fact I doubt most iphone users even use Siri five times per day, and I doubt that level of Siri usage would even be noticeable. Maybe Siri shows up in the battery usage app list. If yes, then that would be one way to tell for sure.

And are you really questioning if battery performance of our smartphones is a problem for a lot of people?
Click to expand...
I agree many people today fiddle with their phones too damn much, yes. If they could just control themselves better, their batteries would last longer.
 
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Lennyvalentin said:
...If the shoe fits?

I agree many people today fiddle with their phones too damn much, yes. If they could just control themselves better, their batteries would last longer.
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Oh battery performance is fine, it's actually the users who are the problem. I see

Look heres my point, it's very simple; the iPhone display should not light up when it's in my pocket. It's pointless. Regardless of how much battery it is actually wasting or how many times per day I query Siri.
 
With such variable sizes of portable batteries available today, I don't worry about my battery performance on my 7Plus. I use the phone at will, and if I need to charge it off of a battery-which I never do-I keep that spare battery and a 6 inch Lightning cable handy for a few hours of backup.
 
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I'm sure there's instances where people query siri and want the info to pop up on the screen no? I guess they could make it an option but that's not the Apple Way.
 
mongobongo said:
Oh battery performance is fine, it's actually the users who are the problem. I see
Click to expand...
Well, yes. If you run your battery down, then you just ran your battery down. A battery lasts longer if you don't use your phone quite so much. These things are fairly obvious, really.

You can't really ask to never ever run out of battery on your phone, regardless of how much you use it. That way we'd have smartphones with ipad pro-sized batteries costing half again of what they do now if not more, and even then you'd still have some vulture-necked mofos managing to burn it all in a single day, constantly staring down into their phone screens.

Look heres my point, it's very simple; the iPhone display should not light up when it's in my pocket. It's pointless.
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And your phone would always know it is in your pocket, and say, not on a table in a dark room? Phones aren't omniscient. I would think the screen lights up so you can read Siri's interpretation of your query and its response, and interact with it if necessary. The screen turns on in your pocket in case you want to haul your phone out and read what it says, or poke at a map or whatever.

Anyhow, since you seem to have survived thus far with the battery consumption you experience right now, is this really such a problem?
 
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Lennyvalentin said:
Well, yes. If you run your battery down, then you just ran your battery down. A battery lasts longer if you don't use your phone quite so much. These things are fairly obvious, really.
Click to expand...

I use my phone. Not the other way round. So if it runs out of battery that means the battery is not sufficient for my use case.

Lennyvalentin said:
And your phone would always know it is in your pocket, and say, not on a table in a dark room? Phones aren't omniscient. I would think the screen lights up so you can read Siri's interpretation of your query and its response, and interact with it if necessary. The screen turns on in your pocket in case you want to haul your phone out and read what it says, or poke at a map or whatever.

Anyhow, since you seem to have survived thus far with the battery consumption you experience right now, is this really such a problem?
Click to expand...

Yes the phone has a proximity sensor so it knows if it is face down or in a pocket. It does not need to light up until a user raises it to look at the screen.

Quantifying just how big of a problem this is seems pointless.
 
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