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Has battery technology reached a plateau?

machpost

machpost

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 28, 2010
435
569
Washington, DC
Longer battery life seems to be one area where the iPhone has failed to make any technological leaps in recent years. I'm still using an iPhone 5 that I bought the day it was released, and friends with the 6s don't seem to achieve appreciably better battery life than my ancient device. And there really haven't been any hints that the next major iPhone release or two will make any advancements in the field, either. I realize it's a huge difference in computing power, but I sure do miss the era of cell phones going days without needing a charge.
 
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I've never understood the need for days and days of battery life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against it. I'm just as happy to put my phone on to charge at the end of the day and have it charge overnight. My phone is never down below 70% or so at the end of a day. No, I don't listen to music, watch YouTube or play games. Just some texting, email, and a few calls. I realize my workflow isn't the same as everyone else, but battery just isn't an issue for me.

That said, I do think battery tech has improved, it is just the demands on the battery increase with every new device released and it eats up the gains.
 
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I don't think battery technology has developed much since the original iPhone to be honest. Most gains have to do with the efficiency of the rest of the hardware.

Comparing s flip phone to a smart phone is different in many ways. Even if we forget about computing power, the simple fact that most people use their smartphones more than they ever did their flip phones and the fact that they have giant color screens has a lot to do with faster battery drain.
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MacDawg said:
I've never understood the need for days and days of battery life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against it. I'm just as happy to put my phone on to charge at the end of the day and have it charge overnight. My phone is never down below 70% or so at the end of a day.
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I don't know that most people who want more battery want "days and days". I can say that in much below 70% on any given day but generally don't run out of power. Though I do try and top up at a desk if I know I'll have a particularly long day. Just going to the gym pretty much ensures more than 30% daily drain.

I will say that it makes sense that you don't see the need for more battery. You don't use your phone as much as some others do. I'll liken this to fuel efficiency. Some folks are perfectly content with s vehicle that goes 12mpg. Those people usually aren't the ones commuting an hour back and forth to work each day using Said vehicle.
 
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machpost said:
Longer battery life seems to be one area where the iPhone has failed to make any technological leaps in recent years. I'm still using an iPhone 5 that I bought the day it was released, and friends with the 6s don't seem to achieve appreciably better battery life than my ancient device. And there really haven't been any hints that the next major iPhone release or two will make any advancements in the field, either. I realize it's a huge difference in computing power, but I sure do miss the era of cell phones going days without needing a charge.
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Id like Apple to stop making all these gadgets thinner. They keep on making the technology smaller, which is good, but they need to stop following up the smaller technology with making everything thinner. Reduce the size of the components and replace all that saved space with more battery, in my opinion.
 
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machpost said:
Longer battery life seems to be one area where the iPhone has failed to make any technological leaps in recent years. I'm still using an iPhone 5 that I bought the day it was released, and friends with the 6s don't seem to achieve appreciably better battery life than my ancient device. And there really haven't been any hints that the next major iPhone release or two will make any advancements in the field, either. I realize it's a huge difference in computing power, but I sure do miss the era of cell phones going days without needing a charge.
Click to expand...


Apple has kept status quo or even lessened the battery life to accommodate a slimmer device. The processor is more efficient, and the OS is getting more efficient, but the chassis is shrinking and thus the volume of the battery.
 
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MacDawg said:
I've never understood the need for days and days of battery life.
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Days and days? I'm sorry, but we haven't even reached the ability to have phones last through a full 24 hour day yet, let alone multiple days. Sure some people can manage to go 2 days on a single charge barely using their phone, but the vast majority of people need to charge their phone at least by the evening, with many having to charge it in the afternoon as well.
 
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machpost said:
Mail, Facebook and Safari, all of which drain the battery heavily. By the end of the day, I'm usually down to around 20% if I stick to those apps. If I choose to watch video or listen to live audio streams, I need to recharge at some point during the day.
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Facebook caused some major battery issues last fall and it was reported that they "fixed" it. I really don't think they did much. Friendly + app (connects to both FB and instagram) seems to be better.
 
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machpost said:
Mail, Facebook and Safari, all of which drain the battery heavily. By the end of the day, I'm usually down to around 20% if I stick to those apps. If I choose to watch video or listen to live audio streams, I need to recharge at some point during the day.
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Ah. Facebook. Yeah that will do it haha. What's your actual usage though? What's draining the most? I find Facebook drains NYC more than anything else, which stands to reason.
 
machpost said:
I realize it's a huge difference in computing power, but I sure do miss the era of cell phones going days without needing a charge.
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lordofthereef said:
I don't know that most people who want more battery want "days and days".
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geoff5093 said:
Days and days? I'm sorry, but we haven't even reached the ability to have phones last through a full 24 hour day yet, let alone multiple days.
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Just to clarify, my comment about days of battery life was based on the OP's comment above (in bold)
Carry on
 
MacDawg said:
Just to clarify, my comment about days of battery life was based on the OP's comment above (in bold)
Carry on
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What? The OP makes no mention about days of battery life, hence my response to you. The OP simply points out that we haven't seen improvements in this field, which is absolutely true.
 
lordofthereef said:
What? The OP makes no mention about days of battery life, hence my response to you. The OP simply points out that we haven't seen improvements in this field, which is absolutely true.
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Did you read the original post
Did you see that I put it in bold
WTF
"I sure do miss the era of cell phones going days without needing a charge."
 
Remember those rumors last year?

"This hydrogen fuel cell-powered iPhone 6 delivers an entire week of battery life"
 
MacDawg said:
Did you read the original post
Did you see that I put it in bold
WTF
"I sure do miss the era of cell phones going days without needing a charge."
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Wow. That was... Hostile lol.
He was talking about cell phones. Perhaps my mind differentiated that from a smartphone as stated in my response.

Sorry to upset you. That really wasn't the goal. But you obviously left a few people scratching their heads.
 
Battery tech has absolutely been at a plateau for many years now, and stands to make massive gains in the near future.

That said, the 6/s Plus has fantastic longevity. iOS with that raw battery capacity is doing very well, for now. It easily gets one through a day, even in poor signal conditions despite any usage pattern. Simply fantastic. While I do think there are diminishing returns to higher battery life, I don't think we're quite there yet - my Plus has done me well the few times I've forgotten to charge the night before. And fast charging tech emerging has definitely helped greatly.
 
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Battery tech hasn't improved materially for decades. We're very much limited by the physics. Unless some bright spark makes a breakthrough, it will continue its stasis, which will help to perpetuate the plateau in tech that we have seen for the past four or five years.
 
Benjamin Frost said:
Battery tech hasn't improved materially for decades. We're very much limited by the physics. Unless some bright spark makes a breakthrough, it will continue its stasis, which will help to perpetuate the plateau in tech that we have seen for the past four or five years.
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Pretty sure it has given that we have all kinds of battery technologies out there from alkaline, to NiCd, to lithium-ion, there have definitely been improvements from how long they can last, to whether or not they are rechargeable, to how their recharging ability holds up, etc.

As far as leaps of evolution or breakthroughs, that perhaps hasn't quite been happening as much.
 
lordofthereef said:
Wow. That was... Hostile lol.
He was talking about cell phones. Perhaps my mind differentiated that from a smartphone as stated in my response.

Sorry to upset you. That really wasn't the goal. But you obviously left a few people scratching their heads.
Click to expand...

LOL, sorry, not upset at all
I apologize it came off that way
I just thought it was pretty self evident what I said and clarified
Just one of the many hazards of written communication

I get your point, and we really are in basic agreement, even though it didn't seem like it I guess
 
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I think battery technology just evolves slower than other areas. So for us, it looks like battery technology does boot evolve much. Maybe based on current structure, drastically improved battery is impossible. But we are far from reaching saturation point yet.
 
I am kind of surprised that nobody has developed a better battery than we have now. I would love to have a battery that would last all no matter what you were doing like listening to music, playing games, surfing the Internet and talking the phone. My iPad Pro doesn't get nearly as good battery live as my original IPad Air did. It would last all day and I would still have battery life at the end of the day. But the pro sucks the battery life way more even though it is supposed to get better battery life. Would be cool is someone could develope better battery technology that could double the battery life. Maybe one day. If Apple would leave the iPhone the same thickness it was and use the extra room for a bigger battery would help.
 
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The main issue is physics. You just can't increase the amount of energy stored in a small battery cell without increasing its volatility. Lithium technology is probably very close to its limit. Better technologies will hopefully come around, but for next few years at least lithium will still be the best as its cheap, has lots of infrastructure and business set up around its production, relatively safe, and very energy dense.
 
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