The unloved iphone 3G - why not numeric battery meter?

[tonynz]

Very old news but it has always interested me. But why doesn't the 3G iphone have numeric battery?

Ok, I understand why there isn't multi-tasking..... and I understand why there isn't wallpaper on the home screen but why didn't Apple allow iPhone 3G to display a numeric battery.

 

[dave420]

Very old news but it has always interested me. But why doesn't the 3G iphone have numeric battery?

Not really sure. You can jailbreak to have it displayed. I did this on my first iPhone. It is kind of depressing how fast the battery appears to drop on the original model when actually looking at the percent though.....

 

[spaceboots06]

It is kind of depressing how fast the battery appears to drop on the original model when actually looking at the percent though.....

I speculated with a few buddies of mine in the past about that being the very reason why they didn't display it.

 

[tonynz]

I speculated with a few buddies of mine in the past about that being the very reason why they didn't display it.

So the conclusion is....

 

[dave420]

So the conclusion is....

I really think the conclusion is that Apple doesn't include it in order to avoid a flood of complaints. Look at all the posts where people say "I browsed for 5 minutes and my battery went down 2%!!! What's wrong?"
Adding the battery meter could bring a ton of those complaints. The 3GS has an improved battery, and the previous models the battery drops fast. Sending an MMS on a 2G iPhone (with jailbreak hack) can easily drop the battery meter a couple percent. I've played a quick game and it dropped the battery over 40%. It doesn't appear to be dropping nearly as much if you don't look at the numeric battery meter. Leaving off the percentage prevents people from going into a panic over each percentage drop.