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Bloomberg: Apple Working on MagSafe Battery Pack for iPhone 12

Ha, reintroducing phones with replaceable batteries through the back door.

iPhone 14 will be 4mm thin and sold without internal battery. "Everyone has multiple MagSafe packs already anyway, just slap one on and you are good to go. It's also better for the environment..." ;)
 
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Grey Area said:
Ha, reintroducing phones with replaceable batteries through the back door.

iPhone 14 will be 4mm thin and sold without internal battery. "Everyone has multiple MagSafe packs already anyway, just slap one on and you are good to go. It's also better for the environment..." ;)
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It probably would be to a point. My wife’s iPhone 7 battery has broken below the 80% mark. An easy replacement (new external battery) beats the current alternative of spending 2 hours hanging around an Apple store to get the internal battery replaced.

I’m not saying I want Apple to take this route or anything, just positing.
 
The MagSafe is not strong enough controversy was "much ado about nothing". I have used the MagSafe wallet since launch and it has never once come off my phone unless i intended to take it off, but then again I don't cram my phone into tight pockets that can't properly fit the phone to begin with. I would expect the battery to behave similarly.
 
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This rumored 'MagSafe Smart Battery' could be a winner, assuming Apple can cram reasonable juice while accommodating the iPhone Mini footprint.

It would have the potential to achieve what previous Smart Battery cases couldn't do for many years to come: be universal and be not confined to a particular iPhone model/year... assuming iPhone MagSafe lives long enough.
 
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What I REALLY wish this was is a battery pack CASE... WITHOUT that crazy stupid bump like what we've seen in previous generations. Put in stronger magnets so I can safely use magsafe in my car. The battery pack basically stays on the phone all the time and protects it from drops and elements, and also intelligently learns your habits and manages the batteries to make sure you’re never low on juice, and extends the life of the actual phone battery by reducing the number of charge cycles it goes through. SUPER easy to code, really easy to build and make it look sexy for every phone color and size, and an overnight MUST HAVE iPhone accessory for a lot of people.
 
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So first apple reduces available space for battery with these useless coils and magnets for charging with the speed of a snail, then sell snap-on external batteries. Brilliant. Just kill wireless charging.
 
TechRemarker said:
Let's just hope it's availlable for the Mini. I've used the Pro's for so long and can't remember the last time I ran out of a charge during a normal day. With the mini I constantly need to recharge later in the day, sometimes early. Overall the smaller form factor is absolutely amazing, and so still worth it, but the battery issue because of the obvious smaller size, it's the only issue I constantly run into.
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I always wonder how some people (a minority of the Mini users i've seen!) manage to run out of juice so often! What's your use case? Are you glued to the phone all day? Or are you simply doing a lots and lots of phone calls? No blaming, just wondering about your use case!

My mini provides me with great battery life so far, in my experience much better than an iPhone 8, X and XS. Even on active days when I'm everything on this list:
  • Background GPS logging during longer mountainbike rides (I often take a big Anker powerbank with me, but ever since upgrading to the Mini I rarely use it)
  • Some navigation & Google Maps lookups
  • Taking plenty of photos
  • Daily use of messaging apps, safari searches, some email, news, banking, some Youtube watching, some twitter reading, some Clubhouse audio listening, and maybe like 15 minutes of daily chess play.
  • Using it to stream music to Airplay speaker in the evening
After doing all that, I still have plenty juice left at the end of the day. A few disclaimers:
  • I have a European spec Mini, which doesn't have the power-consuming mmWave antenna.
  • For Photos, I have live-photos disabled, but still have geo-tagging enabled.
  • I have 5G turned off on mine, because that actually slightly reduces mobile data speeds compared to 4G in my area (for now...).
  • For navigation the car, I always have it charging since I have a wireless charging dock in there. But the example usage day above is a day without having it charged in the car, or anywhere else.
  • I stopped using most social media daily to 'consume', I now mostly use it get updated on some topics, and a lot less frequent.
  • I have disabled notifications for most apps except a few essentials, also for most groups in messaging apps except a few. I see E-mail as something that was never intended to expect instand replies, so I check it when it suits me. Disabling notifications for email a few years ago was maybe one of biggest reliefs. As for social media apps: everyone will at some point learn that most notifications are simply designed to lure you into the app. Anyway long story short: Being selective on notifications has a the welcome side effect of improved battery life.
 
I am pretty excited about this. I like to have the option to have some extra battery without having to keep a case one. I don't use a case on my phone so this is great. I also have used the MagSafe Wallet since it launched and have loved it so for me, MagSafe has been a good thing and hope they keep developing it more and more.
 
contacos said:
probably delayed until this years iPhone with a stronger magnet. However, I am still stunned about the lack of 3rd party mag safe accessories in the meantime.
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Clearly so - it may also be due to our imposed home living... Nevertheless magsafe technology leaves the door open to quite a lot of third-party innovation
 
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