Next Generation iPhone Battery Only Marginally Higher Capacity

[Rocketman]

Believe your propaganda if you want but Apples comments have been very clear here, they where and still reference the power profiles of the LTE chips of the time.

The chips are not the main problem with LTE. The Tx/Rx is. The higher power transceiver is the reason it supports higher bandwidth. I think it is very exciting the display might use "up to" 90% less power, and also am pretty happy the die shrinks we are seeing on several iOS devices greatly help system level power draw some 30% or so. Great! But, and there's always a but, isn't there? The power envelope savings of die shrink and display and software power management is offset by LTE transceiver.

As I said I think and hope there will be aggressive default to 3G on the device and only employ 4G when needed.

Propaganda? Thanks for the compliment.

Rocketman

 

[brianric]

If you go Android, you will have even less battery life unless you (have a brick or) take extreme measures like animated background off, brightness down, bluetooth off, wireless off, etc. - or in other words: Turn it into a dumbphone.

My Droid Razer Maxx last three days without a charge, every ting on, full brightness. You're drinking too much Apple juice.

 

[hchung]

"Apple's Tim Cook has said that the reason that Apple hadn't used LTE in iPhones is due to the "design compromises" required to build such a device."

The design compromises include antenna design. They tried the racetrack antenna (4-4S) which was a valiant attempt and proved no better than banding at the bottom and top of the device as originally envisioned way back in 2004-7.

The LTE chips will be "barely acceptable" in terms of battery usage and will need to be used sparingly. The iPhone 5 battery life under all but LTE will be about the same.

The design compromise is not intended to be battery life. It is antenna design and thickness. They overcame thickness as a limit by making the phone taller and thus about the same volume.

Rocketman

I doubt the antenna is a significant problem compared to the power consumption of 1st and 2nd gen LTE chipsets.

Know why those early LTE phones have horrible battery life? It's because in order to support voice, they run the 3G baseband at the same time as the LTE baseband. You're basically running two phones at once.

Voice-over-LTE isn't even widely supported by the carriers here.
(http://www.wirelessweek.com/News/20...-No-3G-Handoff-VoLTE-Calls-Wireless-Networks/)

 

[brianric]

Do people realize that a revolutionary design is not possible every year, let alone very few years??

Why upgrade?

 

[Geckotek]

My Droid Razer Maxx last three days without a charge, every ting on, full brightness. You're drinking too much Apple juice.

Bully for you!! You can now get lost in the desert for 3 days and feel confident that your phone will work!

Me, I go to my nice warm bed every night and I drop my phone in a Sony XDR-S10HDiP before fading off to sleep and what do you know??? I wake up with a fully charged phone!!

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Why upgrade?

Then don't. You shouldn't upgrade unless the features compel you to.

 

[brianric]

Bully for you!! You can now get lost in the desert for 3 days and feel confident that your phone will work!

Me, I go to my nice warm bed every night and I drop my phone in a Sony XDR-S10HDiP before fading off to sleep and what do you know??? I wake up with a fully charged phone!!

Ain't going to do you sqat if your phone is out of juice way before you get home to charge it.

Then don't. You shouldn't upgrade unless the features compel you to.

Don't intend to.

 

[iEnvy]

I like how some of you guys are judging battery life and the capacity of engineers for a billion dollar company just because you seen a photo and some numbers. Wait for the damn thing to be released first.

 

[SeaFox]

Calm down, Apple usually knows what they are doing with regards to design. They wouldn't release a new iPhone with a disastrous design.

So that antenna issue with the iPhone 4 was on purpose?

 

[puggsly]

What makes you so sure?

The next iPhone won't be getting an A6, it will be getting an underclocked A5X, much like what Apple did with the 4S and 4. In which case, there will be no CPU upgrade in the next iPhone, only a speed bump for the integrated GPU.

What source are you pulling this from? I've been wondering this ever sense the New iPad shipped. The reason for the massive increase in GPU performance on the iPad was because they are pushing around an insane number of pixels. THIS WILL NOT BE THE CASE WITH THE NEW IPHONE. So it makes much more sense that they would design an A6 or an A5Y that delivered a more balanced CPU GPU upgrade. I have no proof of this but I can find no evidence suggesting that they intend to put A5X chips into this new phone ether.

 

[iRumored]

If this is true, what about it would make Apple stupid? You yourself are jumping to conclusions on the power needs of this device. You need to take your own advice re: rumors. The battery described here could be perfectly fine if Apple is able to find power efficiencies elsewhere (which is VERY probable).

How am I jumping to conclusions? In my post, I speculate if this EVEN IS the next iPhone's battery..

As I said, "I wouldn't think that Apple is this stupid" (i.e., putting a battery in their NEW device that wouldn't be sufficient.) Again, that's EVEN IF this indeed IS the battery that will be in the new iPhone.

Nobody even knows what the name of the next generation iPhone will be. I'm sure that SOME of this leaked information will be implemented in to the new device, but who knows what.

My point was, nobody really knows, but.. BUT.. if this IS the battery they are going to use, i'm sure they have found a way to make it just as good, if not better than the previous models power capabilities in addition to the new, speculated hardware. Basically, people can speculate on what it will be equipped with but I trust in Apple to come out with a device that is better than the last. Apple may be known "catching up" or "rationing features", but they have never backtracked..

¿Comprende?

 

[Geckotek]

How am I jumping to conclusions? In my post, I speculate if this EVEN IS the next iPhone's battery..

As I said, "I wouldn't think that Apple is this stupid" (i.e., putting a battery in their NEW device that wouldn't be sufficient.) Again, that's EVEN IF this indeed IS the battery that will be in the new iPhone.

Nobody even knows what the name of the next generation iPhone will be. I'm sure that SOME of this leaked information will be implemented in to the new device, but who knows what.

My point was, nobody really knows, but.. BUT.. if this IS the battery they are going to use, i'm sure they have found a way to make it just as good, if not better than the previous models power capabilities in addition to the new, speculated hardware. Basically, people can speculate on what it will be equipped with but I trust in Apple to come out with a device that is better than the last. Apple may be known "catching up" or "rationing features", but they have never backtracked..

¿Comprende?

Interesting, that's not how I understood your previous post. But I agree.

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Ain't going to do you sqat if your phone is out of juice way before you get home to charge it.


Don't intend to.

Sure I am, I charge it the car. The fact is, I never run into a situation where the battery is completely dead. It gets me through the day fine. I don't need some one to make the screen crap so that the battery lasts 3 days. I'll take my one day battery on a better built phone. Thanks.

 

[wizard]

Actually I wouldn't mind thinner.

Thank u - nobody is asking for thin!

That is as long as the iPhone doesn't compromise on longevity. That is run time on battery. Also we don't want to loose mechanical strength. You see thinner doesn't have to mean less battery capacity which seems to be a point many miss here.

Make the battery bigger so we can then complain how heavy the iPhone now is!!!!!!

This is the no win position Apple finds itself in. At best all they can do is to try to advance technology fast enough to keep the majority happy. That isn't always easy to do when you are on the bleeding edge already.

 

[Sticman]

My Droid Razer Maxx last three days without a charge, every ting on, full brightness. You're drinking too much Apple juice.

May be where I am located in San Jose (3g/4g toggling?) but I had trouble getting a full day on the Max, even using the smart options power saving software. So, I returned it.

 

[2IS]

Im not all that confidant that the battery will be "just as good if not better" some people are making this claim based off what exactly? Apples track record? Well that's not all that supportive. 3rd gen iPad has worse run times, iPhone 4s? 2011 MBA vs 2010 although they did fix that for the 2012 model.

 

[wizard]

What antenna issue?

So that antenna issue with the iPhone 4 was on purpose?

The only thing on purpose was the irrational complaining by the few out there that don't understand RF technology. I swear, it is almost as if nobody has ever had to adjust rabbit ears on a TV. I mention TV antennas because the immediate feedback can teach much about the interesting behavior of RF circuits, antenna radiation and pickup patterns and the like.

Considering that I've had an iPhone 4 for now well over a year and a half, with excellent performance over that time I must ask what antenna issue? Honestly it was nothing more than some random blathering from woefully uninformed folks.

 

[wizard]

No body out side of Apple really knows what is going in the next iPhone.

What source are you pulling this from? I've been wondering this ever sense the New iPad shipped. The reason for the massive increase in GPU performance on the iPad was because they are pushing around an insane number of pixels. THIS WILL NOT BE THE CASE WITH THE NEW IPHONE.

This maybe the case from your point of view but there are many out there that wouldn't mind better GPU performance.

So it makes much more sense that they would design an A6 or an A5Y that delivered a more balanced CPU GPU upgrade.

It was mentioned some time ago that the next iPhone would be getting a tweaked A5X. As a rumor/leak that could mean anything, however if true it could mean adjusting clock rates to run the GPU slower and the CPUs faster. This is one avenue to a better overall iPhone experience. However don't underestimate the importance of the GPU in these machines, I don't see Apple giving up on GPU performance anytime soon.

I have no proof of this but I can find no evidence suggesting that they intend to put A5X chips into this new phone ether.

Well it would be exactly the same A5X that goes in the iPad anyways. It may very well be a very similar processor though.

Sometime ago it was rumored that Apples SoC teams got split into tablet and iPhone processor camps. We have yet to see strong evidence of this happening, but then again it is a little early for that. It will be interesting to see if the handheld iOS devices go in a different direction relative to the tablet processors. I'm really of mixed feeling about this being a good thing but I do believe the needs between devices warrants such changes.

In the end we won't know until next month and then details will likely trickle out slowly. 2013 would be about the right time for the Tablet series of processors to go off on their own. Apple might be able to transition to 64 bit by then. A 4GB iPad can't be far off after which 64 bit makes lots of sense.

 

[wizard]

If they do bring it down in size, they aren't going to change the name. But a twice as powerful GPU is not needed for a small increase in screen size, but when did technology ever stop at what was needed?

GPUs are not just about screen size. Especially if a fully OpenCL compliant GPU ends up in the next chip.

The next iPhone will be a little taller, making for more room. Also, underclocking will bring down the power and heat.

Not sure why you don't think Apple will underclock it when they did the exact same thing to the A4 and the A5. Why change now? Apple is starting to become a predictable company in certain areas, this is one of them.

it is your usage of the term "underclocked" that is ignorant and objectionable.

A4 on iPad: 1 GHz
A4 on iPhone 4: 800 MHz
A4 was underclocked on the iPhone 4 compared to the iPad.

The chip runs at the design frequency, what that frequency is relative to another device isn't relevant.

A5 on iPad 2: 1 GHz
A5 on iPhone 4S: 800 MHz
A5 was underclocked on the iPhone 4S compared to the iPad 2.

A5X on iPad 2: 1 GHz
A5 on new iPhone: ?

It is only safe to assume that it will be underclocked. Have you not been paying attention to how Apple implements their CPUs the past few years?

it isn't safe to use the term underclocked here at all. The A5X could very well run at 1.2 or 1.4 GHz but that doesn't mean it is underclocked in the iPad.

Read above.



Oh ya, because nobody ever buys a computer with more cores than only what is *NEEDED*. Oh wait...

it is more of a question of what makes sense from an engineering standpoint at Apple. Do you use the next node shrink for more CPU cores, GPU resources or more IP. It might make more sense for Apple to put the equivalent of Gobi in the next SoC or plan for it down the road.

The point here is that the handheld environment is vastly different than the desktop or even laptop environment. Designers and engineers benefit far more from high integration in these devices. In fact one could say that the iPhone is impossible without the SoC technology we have today.

If history has taught us anything, it is that Apple will continue to upgrade their CPUs in their iPads and iPhones. Starting with the iPad, then using the same one, but underclocked, in the iPhone. They have not yet deviated from that pattern. Why stop now?

Eventually there will be a payoff in a split. Putting as much of iPhone as possible on a single chip can have big playoffs. At the same time iPad is crying out for much better performance. So why wouldn't they split.

And back before the new iPad came out, people found strings in 5.1 referring to a quad-core A6. Note, I am talking about the CPU right now, not the GPU, so don't get confused like you just did.

Whom here is confused? I just think you can't follow what is being said.

When I was talking about possible 8 cores, that is for the GPU.

Yeah sure, we all believe that now.

And the reason that is not a ridiculous idea is because if you look at the Tegra 3, it is a quad-core CPU with a 12-core GPU. And when Apple bumps their CPU to quad-core, it would make sense for them to bump their GPU as well.

I fully expect Apple to implement quad core CPUs sometime in the future but I'm not convinced it will happen to the next iPhone. In fact I'm strongly in the camp that says it won't. Why? Because they can double CPU performance by upping the clock rate and implementing other improvements that combined with a process shrink would leave a similar power profile.

And by the way, when did people start getting so anal when they see someone offer speculation on a site dedicated for rumors?

.??

 

[wizard]

Actually you have a valid point here, but the old LTE chips are very power hungry.

The chips are not the main problem with LTE. The Tx/Rx is. The higher power transceiver is the reason it supports higher bandwidth. I think it is very exciting the display might use "up to" 90% less power, and also am pretty happy the die shrinks we are seeing on several iOS devices greatly help system level power draw some 30% or so. Great! But, and there's always a but, isn't there? The power envelope savings of die shrink and display and software power management is offset by LTE transceiver.

You have a vald point more data per second requires more power, there is no easy way around that! However most discussions about the power used by LTE chips revolves around signal processor which drank heavily from the amp bucket.

As I said I think and hope there will be aggressive default to 3G on the device and only employ 4G when needed.

Interesting idea!

Propaganda? Thanks for the compliment.

You are welcome.

Rocketman

 

[wizard]

Funny I had an Apple 3G that never lasted two days.

I seriously hope the battery won't be as bad (or worse) as the iPhone 4s. I have to charge every day, and some times it nearly holds out until the evening. Once the battery doesn't handle 1 day it's useless. Then you would have to constantly consider if you should use the phone or save battery.

Simple habits can go a long way to making life barable with a smart phone. Little things like keeping a charger in the auto and always plugging in makes a huge difference.

One thing you might not want to admit to or even be aware of is the increased usage of your iPhone as it has improved and software has become more compelling. I went from a cheap pay as you go phone, to a 3G, to a iPhone 4 and frankly my usage of such has gone up considerably. It is as much an issue of the user making far more use of the device that has increased demand for more run time on battery.

I would have thought that with all the new stuff Apple keep adding, battery would be as important. But, so far it's only gotten worse. My 3Gs lasted a 2 day minimum, with heavy use. 4s is Half. If apple would have released a new phone, almost identical to the 4S, only with 5x battery time, I would have gotten that from that reason alone.

Hey sometimes I wish Apple would pull its head out of its rear too. The one model for everybody approach isn't viable for underwear and it certainly isn't for electronics. Frankly a rugged iPhone, targetted at the heavy user and professional user would be well worth Apples time. That is a phone that is robust enough and has a heavy duty battery, to last for people that work for a living outside the office.

Fingers crossed they have discovered some way of increasing battery time with iOS6. Then even 4S users can benefit from it.

Actually we can hope for better battery lifetimes with iOS 6 but the reality is that it adds even more features that people will end up using aggressively. It might actually have better raw battery lifetimes ( just a guess) but it will have more features that people want to use. In the end things might get worst.

Frankly I'm not sure why there is all of this to do about 4S battery lifetimes. That is I wonder what could possibly be causing these issues. in any event it is one reason why I see the iPhones taking a path that diverges from the processors established by the iPad. Apple simply has to tailor the chips specifically to the iPhone to remain competitive in that market.

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Is everyone forgetting that the new iPhone will have a 32nm or smaller processor. This made a 25% difference for the iPad 2 rev 2 (2012 model).

There has been improvements made to ever component, just about, that goes into the iPhone. One thing for sure here is that people should not jump to conclusions about how well the next iPhone will perform with anyone battery. Depending upon how the processor is tailored for the iPhone the power savings could be more than 25%. More importantly that is just the processor, much can be saved by other components in the iPhone.

 

[Electrified]

It is the power usage that the battery has to support that is the issue. At this point we simply don't have enough info to know what that power usage will be like. There is however enough info out there that we can hope for vastly improved performance based on reduced power draw from a number of new components. This is huge, if Apple cuts power usage in half and installs this larger battery then most likely we would see twice the lifetime.

As for those competitors they aren't doing it on the same generation of hardware as seen in iPhone 4S. Even with today's generation of hardware I really don't see significant advantage from other manufactures.



Yeah everybody say competitors are doing it yet we never see references to similar hardware actually doing all that well up against an iPhone.

In any event I just wanted to point out that it is a bit ignorant to look at a battery and say that won't do. Yes it is a common refrain in this thread but that doesn't make it a valid concern. A battery can only be evaluated in the context of where and how it operates, anything else is BS. So taking this to heart, wait for the new iPhone to arrive to see what sort of technology is supported in the device. It isn't a stretch to imagine real improvements in battery lifetimes.

Motorola Razr Maxx is the best among smartphones regarding battery life.

 

[Mortalias]

Sorry, I find it hard to believe Apple would compromise battery life when it was becoming, arguably, their weakest point.

Battery life will be the same as the 4S, or possibly the 4. But no way it drops. To do so would be a massive mistake by Cupertino. I'll wait until the actual thing is announced.

 

[JS82712]

Further I think it is totally irrational.


of which Apple is still the benchmark by which things like this are judged.

There is an old child's tale about the sky falling. It is very possible you learned nothing from that.

So there was a glitch with Lion and battery life. Maybe Apple can correct that maybe not but I will take the much better performance of Lion any day. As to the 4S there is nothing truly horrible about its battery life and frankly is outstanding when compared to similar hardware debuting at the same time.

This comment is just stupid, I'm sorry I have to say that but facts are facts. IPad takes a long time to recharge off a USB port because it has a massive battery to five you extended run time while driving a high performance processor. The reality is USB can't supply the iPad with a huge amount of power so you get a slower charge to fill that high capacity battery.

Frankly you put Apple into a cant win situation here. If iPad had a smaller, quicker to recharge battery you would complain about battery lifetimes. As it is I like my iPads battery just the way it is thank you. It just so happens that I sleep 8 hours or so a day so a recharge that lasts me all day with LTE access isn't anything to complain about.


I hate to say this but you need to sit back and determine why you are all wound up about nothing. You seem to go out of your way to pull the negative out of what should otherwise be positives. I'm not sure if that is a lack of education or something else but you certainly dwell in darkness.

I think if I am not getting the advertised performance out of the products that I paid a premium for, I have the right to complain.
I had a mbp with SL that had excellent battery life; that all changed ever since the lion upgrade. (yes, i did a clean install)

Better performance of lion? perhaps a simple poll will show you that SL is the best OS X in terms of performance and stability to date.


And please tell me how the 4S has the best battery life at release when the iPhone 4 beats it in almost every battery test on tech sites and personal tests I conducted.

Conclusion: your ignorance and maybe..just maybe...a lack of proper education has led you to this reality distortion field that you put yourself into.

and no, don't call me an apple hater; if I were an apple hater, I wouldn't be recommending their products to friends and families; yet their recent performance simply isn't up to par compared to the past.

 

[spl456]

Note to Apple designers: it's thin enough. If you can make the phone guts any thinner, then make the battery bigger to keep it the same overall size of the 4S. I have heard no complaints that any of the iPhones are too thick -- ever, really.

HIT.NAIL.ON.HEAD.

Keep same thickness. Make internals thinner. Make battery bigger.

 

[Reason077]

I think it is very exciting the display might use "up to" 90% less power

Uhh, what? If it's an IGZO display, it'll use something like 30% less power (for the same screen size and brightness). But that'll be partially offset by the larger screen.

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HIT.NAIL.ON.HEAD.

Keep same thickness. Make internals thinner. Make battery bigger.

Or: Make phone thinner. Make components more efficient, to use less power. Better battery life with same size battery.

----------

This maybe the case from your point of view but there are many out there that wouldn't mind better GPU performance.

Nobody "would mind" better GPU performance, but I don't think everyone would be willing to sacrifice battery life for it.

 

[Rokkus76]

I don't doubt that what we have seen will be part of the new iPhone, but that doesn't mean we have seen the new iPhone.

Remember when the 4 was stolen? Everyone "knew" what the phone was going to be like yet none of us really appreciated it until the launch. That's when we found out about all the technology that had gone into it. That's when we found out what the value of the technology was and why it was designed just so.

You can no more fully appreciate the quality of a product from an incomplete spec sheet and some badly lit pictures of unfinished shells than you can appreciate the quality of a great acting perfromance by reading the script and watching some badly compressed pirated pre-production scenes.

We may know lots of details about the product but until we see the complete product, finished and loaded up with the software, we really can't judge if this is a good iPhone or not. But that doesn't stop the childish whinging. I've had to add a dozen people to my ignore list in the last week because I get so annoyed at having to filter through all their moaning to find the odd useful post.

I personally like this new design, if Apple will release this form factor. I probably will buy one (no iPhone for me since now ), and also if we'll see this model, I believe it will not be considered a bad phone. I mean, also if we see an improvement of 4s, is still a good phone. I read in another article that probably will be unibody, with new dock... not bad at all... but IMO Apple's winning card is still software, and a bunch of very useful apps that I love (used on my friend's phones). Just my 2 cents...