Do you really think it would be only solar powered? Nothing wrong with charging a bit any time its in sunlight to get as much battery life as possible.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Patent Applications: Input Device Gestures, Solar-Powered iPods and iPhones
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Do you really think it would be only solar powered? Nothing wrong with charging a bit any time its in sunlight to get as much battery life as possible.
I'm surprised how many negative comments regarding solar powered iPods/iPhones. Apple wouldn't replace a traditional battery and run it solely on solar power like the ghetto calculators from the 90's. It would serve as an additional method of charging without the need for a power adapter. If you honestly think thats dumb you must be out of your mind. Its a genius idea to allow our devices to run longer. Imagine charging your device at home, using it throughout the day and not have it completely dead by the end of the day. Anyone with an iPhone knows its battery life could be drastically improved. This would be a perfect alternative. Although I believe under the LCD is the best use of them as it wouldn't affect cases. That being said I don't use a case on mine so I wouldn't care if the entire phone was wrapped in solar panels.
Do you really walk around with your iPod in your pocket while it's charging via USB? No, of course not, it'll obviously still have a battery and not be dependent on the sun all the time. There's plenty of time when I could easily place my iPod in direct sunlight when I'm not using it.
Here's an idea...
Instead of trying to figure out how to put solar into the iPod casing, which is absolutely useless given the size, how about Apple buys some panels and covers their parking lots and the roof of their campus? That would generate much more power than 100 million iDevices, and offset more carbon. It would also pay them handsomely, whereas it seems unlikely people would pay extra for something that I guarantee you won't work.
Maury
Instead of trying to figure out how to put solar into the iPod casing, which is absolutely useless given the size, how about Apple buys some panels and covers their parking lots and the roof of their campus? That would generate much more power than 100 million iDevices, and offset more carbon. It would also pay them handsomely, whereas it seems unlikely people would pay extra for something that I guarantee you won't work.
Maury
Which will do just about nothing. The back of my iPhone is 4.5 by 2.5 inches, which is 11.25 square inches, or 0.00725 square meters. You get 1000 watts per square meter in direct sunlight, which means you get 7.25 watts falling on the case. The best flexible thin-film solar cells are about 8 to 9% efficient. So let's say at 10% you're going to get 0.725 watts. Now you run that into your conversion electronics, and in this case I'm going to guess with that low power you're looking at 50% at best. So, lets say 0.35 watts.
The iPhone battery is 1400 mAh @ 3.7V, or 5 watt-hours. That runs my phone for about one day. The solar panel, best case, is going to need about fourteen hours to get you that. That's more sunlight than in one day.
So in other words, you need more than one day's worth of sunlight to keep it running for one day. See the problem? Your phone is draining the battery faster than the panel could charge it under the best case scenario, god forbid you should tilt it or put it behind a window.
Given that you can deliver that same amount of power in about 10 minutes of plug-in time, the solar panel is utterly and completely useless. And expensive.
Maury
I honestly think it's dumb. Maybe I'm out of my mind, or maybe that's because I'm a physicist who writes about solar cell technology?
http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/solar-cell-technology/
To put this in perspective, there's no one that would like this to work more than me. I do long-distance cycling in areas where there's lots of cell towers, but no plugs (rural Peru for instance). If I could charge on the go that would be great!
But you can't. The power is so low that even large panels don't supply enough juice to recharge an iPhone. There were companies selling roll-up panels for just this purpose, but 100% of the reviews noted that even they didn't have enough power to get the recharge working. And these were tens of times bigger than the iPhone.
Sorry, physics is against you. It would be nice to have a solar power iPhone, but it would also be nice to live forever and have flying cars. Don't hold your breath.
Maury
I agree... nothing wrong with extra charging wherever you can get it.
The patent was to integrate solar with battery. (applied to casing)
The prior patent, was to place solar panel behind the LCD.
It would be convenient just take the iPod/iPhone out or my pocket when I get home/office and place it in the light and it'll begin to recharge the battery. I don't have to worry too much about attaching it to a cable each time.
If your battery is only 10-20% drained it should be able to charge it up in a reasonable amt of time.
Everyone seems to think this only affects battery life while the device is in use. Yes, I agree that it might enhance battery life a bit. That would be nice when I travel extensively.
What about for the casual user. Someone who only uses their ipod for music a few hours a week. Meanwhile, their ipod is sitting on their desk slowly gathering a charge. Conceivably, they would never need to plug it in.
What about for the casual user. Someone who only uses their ipod for music a few hours a week. Meanwhile, their ipod is sitting on their desk slowly gathering a charge. Conceivably, they would never need to plug it in.
Don't be silly. It would have a battery, and sunlight would help keep the battery charged. If you run out of power, you'll do what you do now: plug it in to recharge. But the solar cell would give you a longer period before that happens.
This being Apple I assume they have thought this through. They must know something we don't, perhaps a new very low light level or even artificial light level system. Yes and the need for clear cases
Well for some, the sun shines out of their....
Only useful in the back pocket.
Who the hell is saying solar powered only iphone? think of it as topping off the tank or merely combating the minimal battery drain in sleep mode. We all know you can't leave something in the light for 5 minutes and expect a full recharge, we aren't idiots.
Running exclusively off of collected sunlight for heavy users of mobile electronics isn't, at this point, likely. It doesn't have to do this, however, to be useful.
Light users, as another person said, may be able to keep their iPod on their desk, and collect enough juice to meet their minimal activities.
If heavier users can get an extra 10-20% of usable life per charge due to a little bit of solar power, that's useful.
If light coming off the screen itself can be partially "captured", this recycling may add some efficiency that makes it useful.
Light users, as another person said, may be able to keep their iPod on their desk, and collect enough juice to meet their minimal activities.
If heavier users can get an extra 10-20% of usable life per charge due to a little bit of solar power, that's useful.
If light coming off the screen itself can be partially "captured", this recycling may add some efficiency that makes it useful.
Hi,
As I said earlier, my Sony Solar Walkman was completely usable with the solar panels. I was able to run the cassette deck solely on solar when the batteries died (although Sony said it was not possible). It had an internal rechargeable battery that would charge in about 5-6 hours from the sun. It also had a separate battery pack if you wanted to carry AA's around. I'm not an expert in electronics but I know that the iPod/iPhone uses much less power than a 25 year old mechanical cassette deck. If Sony could accomplish this almost a quarter century ago there is no reason why something similar couldn't be done today.
There is also no reason why a device would have to be exclusively solar. It could charge by plugging it in or leaving it in the light.
s.
Well this is interesting. Suspect we will see these features soon like the 27 of January. If you have not seen the videos of the islate then google to see what it will probably look like (plus/minus some features since the device pictured in the first video is from around august 2009). There are two videos or three videos if you consider the first video to be two videos since it was split in to two parts. If you notice on the videos there are three equal distance ports on the top of the screen. Those ports are more than likely for air gestures like moving from left or right, up or down, pinch/zoom, rotate. Also you will be able to get velocity since the device can calculate the movement speed from one point to the other. Thus, you will get the same capacitive screen effect without touching the screen. You can move one cover or ten covers depending on how fast you move your finger/wrist.
The only thing that does not make sense is the first gesture. The only way the device can calculate velocity above the screen is via multiple cameras/photodiodes behind the screen (some what similar to the MIT BiDi screen concept).
I want to see what this thing can do. Do I suspect the same game change that the iphone brought to the stage. Yes & no. The device will have cool features but I suspect that google will still the show with less features but a better price point for college students & regular people. The economy is not in any better shape than it was in 2007 and the bubble created will not last long (1-2 years max).
The only thing that does not make sense is the first gesture. The only way the device can calculate velocity above the screen is via multiple cameras/photodiodes behind the screen (some what similar to the MIT BiDi screen concept).
I want to see what this thing can do. Do I suspect the same game change that the iphone brought to the stage. Yes & no. The device will have cool features but I suspect that google will still the show with less features but a better price point for college students & regular people. The economy is not in any better shape than it was in 2007 and the bubble created will not last long (1-2 years max).
I'm glad you're talking about the gestures and not the solar panels, but again, I think you're misreading this patent. This patent refers to signals interpreted by the input device. That is, the DEVICE which controls the machine. That means the mouse.
This patent is about the methods in which a future mouse would be used to control a future version of Mac OS X. This is not a patent about hand or tablet surface gestures.
I imagine a more sensitive mouse would be required to navigate through a more advanced and sensitive version of Mac OS X. What we're seeing here are gestures to be performed by this future mouse.
Have you people NOT heard of Citizen Eco-Drive watches?
The thing can be put in a dark drawer for 6 months and it will still work! It's an amazing way to always have an electronic device that works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-Drive
The thing can be put in a dark drawer for 6 months and it will still work! It's an amazing way to always have an electronic device that works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-Drive
Battery drain in sleep mode is just that...minimal. "Topping off the tank"? Is it really cost-effective to cover the iPod with solar cells, design a power management system, and otherwise put the effort into something to top off that last 5% when 30 seconds plugged into the wall or computer will do the exact same thing?
Or they could plug it into their computers, also on their desk.
Sure, just wait 2-3 hours for that extra 10-20% and you're good.
No. This would make the screen virtually unusable.
The solar casing is a great idea, solar panels are constantly evolving so sooner or later it will work very efficiently at a fraction of a price. Apple if once of the companies that once in a while come out with something bold and revolutionary. The big difference between apple and other brands is that apple knows how to make things appealing to customers.
Maybe iPods sell really well in nudist colonies?
you know no pockets, lots of time outdoors, no reliable power access.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)
Well, I have. In fact, I have the Calibre E870 on my wrist right now. You're right: it's an amazing piece of technology. I'm not sure how applicable it is to iPods/iPhones though, since the power requirements for a watch are tiny. My watch probably uses less power in those six months than my iPod Touch does in a couple of hours.
lightpeak said:
Well, I have. In fact, I have the Calibre E870 on my wrist right now. You're right: it's an amazing piece of technology. I'm not sure how applicable it is to iPods/iPhones though, since the power requirements for a watch are tiny. My watch probably uses less power in those six months than my iPod Touch does in a couple of hours.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)
I would love to see this. It would essentially solve many battery life issues not to mention it would be environmentally friendly. I hope they put it in the next generation iPhone.
I would love to see this. It would essentially solve many battery life issues not to mention it would be environmentally friendly. I hope they put it in the next generation iPhone.
