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I'm sorry but I can't be the only one who immediately screamed ELECTRIC CARS, DUH. I can't believe they didn't put it in a Tesla and made a NY-LA trip. Come on, man! No problem with water (A/C already releases water in cars). What am I missing???
 
Once again, here comes the question if it ever leaves the lab. So many new shiny battery tech has been announced over the years that promises super long battery life yet they never see the light of day.
 
I'm thinking the iPhone 7 will have fast-charging capabilities, so I would assure that this technology would not be ready until the iPhone 8. Event if it was ready, they wouldn't give us both in one generation, after all ;)
 
How do I recharge, though? If it were as simple as plugging it into the wall as you do with today's rechargable batteries, I'd consider it.

But instead it sounds like you have to refuel these batteries to reuse them. Having to refuel on a weekly basis instead of recharge on a daily basis is a step backwards, not a step forwards, for everyday consumer electronics. The only place refueling on a weekly basis is better is if you're someplace where you won't have daily access to an outlet.

On a related note, I feel like the whole hissing and blowing steam out a vent sounds very steampunk. I'm sure there's some sort of hipster market for a steampunk iPhone.


It's a design specifically for the Apple Hipster Market. ;)
 
What if you drop it? Will the hydrogen explode? Small mushroom cloud on the floor?
I really blame incompetent science teachers for comments like this.

People drive around in vehicles with tanks full of much larger amounts of a potentially explosive liquid. These vehicles actually are driven by mixing that liquid with air and triggering mini-explosions. How many people get killed by gasoline explosions each day? And what if you drop a car? Does the gasoline explode? Huge mushroom cloud on the highway?
 
I've never been a friend of hydrogen fuel cells. I don't want to keep H/O-Tanks at my place and I don't want my phone to slowly exhaust water into my pocket. The additional heat does not help either (The efficiency of fuel cells is about 50%. That means that 50% of the generated energy goes into heat right away, whereas 50% goes into electricity, which eventually goes into heat as well. All in all your phone produces twice as much heat as before. That's a big problem). Also, the whole thing doesn't sound particularly ecological: Say you use electrolysis to get H and O out of water. That has an efficiency of like 50% as well. Then those two components are recombined in your phone with an efficiency of again 50%. So all in all of the electric energy you put in, only 25% can be used to power your phone. The rest is wasted. On the other hand, Li-Ion-batteries can store that energy with an efficiency of up to 90%. That should be the standard.

Besides, it's kind of dangerous. Without looking anything up, seven weeks lifetime means that the capacity is at least seven times that of a traditional Li-Ion battery. As the efficiency is 50%, that means that the fuel cell holds an energy of at least 14 times that of the battery. Exploding batteries can be scary, but an exploding fuel cell sounds a lot scarier to me. I don't like the thought of keeping that kind of energy in my pocket.
 
I don't think we'll ever see this tech in an iPhone. You have to buy hydrogen cartridges at stores like buying Alkaline batteries for your phone. You can't use a Lifeproof case. They would have to use a nanocoating technology to protect the electronics from water.

However, I can see this with cars. Instead of getting gas at the gas station, you just switch out a power pack. Hopefully your local station has power packs in stock.
 
Ooooh, hydrogen cells; All we need now is something capable of a spark... something involving electricity... maybe contacts that mate with a battery, and this technology could EXPLODE!
 
Intelligent Energy plans to sell a disposable cartridge that will attach to the bottom of a smartphone and provide enough hydrogen-releasing powder "for a week of normal use," and the company's corporate finance chief Mark Lawson-Statham vaguely mentions having a "partner" on board -- speculated to be Apple, although both companies declined to comment as expected.The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are powered by 1,810 mAh and 2,915 mAh lithium-ion batteries respectively.

Article Link: Intelligent Energy's Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology Can Now Fit Inside an iPhone


Bold: POWER ;)
 
Honda made a Hydrogen fuel cell car nearly ten years ago.

I'm sorry but I can't be the only one who immediately screamed ELECTRIC CARS, DUH. I can't believe they didn't put it in a Tesla and made a NY-LA trip. Come on, man! No problem with water (A/C already releases water in cars). What am I missing???
 
I'm calling it.
The technology is not for iPhone, but for the supposedly "Apple Car / iCar"
_
Anyone else think the same?

I think quite possibly both. I believe the company's first product was for an electric motorbike. The great advantage over batteries for cars is that the fuel cells and fuel weigh far less, plus you don't waste a lot of time recharging and you don't need the recharging points.
 
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I think I'll be keeping something powered by a hydrogen fuel-cell out of my pocket, I value my manbits way too much to risk explosion.
You put a phone with a lithium-ion battery in your pocket next to your manbits, which has a much higher risk of exploding than a hydrogen fuel cell. Perhaps you should stop doing that if a hydrogen fuel cell is already too risky for you.

The irrational fear of hydrogen is really amazing. Where does that come from? Do modern moms tell their kids scary stories about hydrogen instead of the boogeyman?
 
Incredible how these people don't proof read "news" articles. Rarely do you see mistakes like this in REAL news sources, such as PAPERS.

They're actually more common than you think on the REAL news PAPERS.
 
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