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What if the 4.7 inch battery is too small?

J

jimbo1mcm

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 21, 2010
1,922
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Apple is ready to release a 4.7 inch with a 1810mAh battery. They recently had to add a second lighting source for the backlight because one backlight wasn't enough.

Remember, this is all conjecture on my part, but what if Apple now knows that the thin design will not permit it to put a battery in that will give "normal" use. By "normal", I mean average use to last a full day without a re-charge.

Do you release the phone anyway? Would there be any grounds for a class action suit? Probably not, because technically it is not "defective". It just can't get through a full day.

Or, do you halt the release of the 4.7 and just release the 5.5 and redesign the 4.7 to include a bigger battery?

Tough questions, lots of conjecture on my part, but there may be some truth buried in there.
 
There isn't a normal battery use. It is what it is. They're not delaying the phone for a battery change or redesign.
 
And there's no "class action" opportunity as long as they don't mislead what the battery can do. For example, if the battery had 5 hours of use before it drained to 0% (and I'm just picking "5" out of the air) but Apple spun it as 20 hours, then there might be some lawyers anticipating a future windfall. There's always a little room for "puffery" based upon the testing conditions behind the number but a big difference between the marketing and reality in practice (where the marketing is a much higher number) is where the legal opportunities pop up.

We don't know if that battery is too small or not yet because we don't know how long it can last in the standard battery of tests. Personally, I find myself expecting Apple to do it's usual launch thing and put some big spin around "thinnest" accompanied by "about the same battery life" or maybe "X%-1X% more battery life" than the 5s (a little more battery life than the 5s). If so, I'll consider this a missed opportunity as no one has been griping about iPhones being too thick all the way back to the iPhone 4. So Apple might have left the 6 the thinness of the 5s and filled in the added height & width with more battery. Instead, they chose "thinner" which does cost Apple less than adding more battery, while offering only the one-time impact of oohs & aahs when people behold the new thinner for the first time.

Assuming about the same battery life, if you need more battery, you'll need to do what many others do- buy a battery case. Yes, that's an unfortunate solution when Apple could build in that added juice but that's the choice with iPhone. OR, the rumor is that the 5.5" model will get a much bigger battery. Consider that one if true. For what a battery case typically costs soon after a new iPhone model release, you can probably put the same money toward the 5.5" to cover it's rumored higher price tag.

There is no halting the 4.7" release. Apple knew what the battery life would be long ago. Whatever it is, Apple has deemed it good enough (probably relative to their best-selling 5s).
 
Apple is sticking to there 10 hours useage or whatever it is...The next iphone will get the same as the previous ones, slight bump maybe.
 
It will probably have similar battery life with the screen on. Tasks done with the screen off (i.e. Music) will probably have better battery life.
 
jimbo1mcm said:
Apple is ready to release a 4.7 inch with a 1810mAh battery. They recently had to add a second lighting source for the backlight because one backlight wasn't enough.

Remember, this is all conjecture on my part, but what if Apple now knows that the thin design will not permit it to put a battery in that will give "normal" use. By "normal", I mean average use to last a full day without a re-charge.

Do you release the phone anyway? Would there be any grounds for a class action suit? Probably not, because technically it is not "defective". It just can't get through a full day.

Or, do you halt the release of the 4.7 and just release the 5.5 and redesign the 4.7 to include a bigger battery?

Tough questions, lots of conjecture on my part, but there may be some truth buried in there.
Click to expand...
Doesn't matter what the battery is, the iPhone will always have crap battery life for heavy use.

Look at me

My LG G2. I've been posting on another thread.
ec398a0f16d5b3affb154928c696c886.jpg


10 minutes later of posting and Facebook and Internet my phone is STILL at 100%

fe5aaefb52114bb7338bb64445dbe691.jpg


The iPhone would be close to 90% at this point.
IPhone battery sucks big time. That will never change.
 
I am curious about battery life. For my usage in combination with iOS 7 features the current battery is lacking. I find myself not using features and disabling things to get more battery life. For example location based reminders, I find with them on I only get 4 hours of usage time. That isn't enough in my day to day routine as I'm not near a charger that often and I don't like battery cases.

We'll have to wait and see. There could be enough hardware improvements to warrant a 1800 mAh battery.

A lawsuit would need to be based around Apple marketing an extremely unrealistic amount of battery usage. Like 10 hours of video playback on wifi when only 5 hours is possible no matter what you do to try to force more out of it (lowest brightness, best reception, low res video, fresh install of iOS with nothing else on it, etc etc). It would need to be impossible under laboratory connections basically.
 
Oh no, the battery is too small! The world is going to end. :rolleyes:

There is going to be an improvement to the battery, whether it's a hardware or hardware improvement.

Don't sweat. You can't have a class action suit.
 
Probably no class action suit unless the battery explodes or something similar. Look at you, that's amazing chupa.
 
Battery life is gonna be 5-10% better than iPhone 5s but since we're problably gonna be using it more, we won't notice any improvements
 
I also have a g2 that I'm using until the new iPhone comes out. The battery in this phone is amazing. I never have to worry about forgetting to plug it in at night and it charges faster than any phone I've ever had. Probably the only thing I'll miss about it besides the bigger screen.
 
Hard to believe that before the phone is even introduced we are hearing about a " class action suit " for the battery.:mad:

The 6 will last more than enough for the average user, that is all it is supposed to do. There will be some adjustments at first as the iOS8 system will take a few updates to hone battery performance and then there are those who can't keep their hands off their new toy!:eek:

Just give it a chance before you call your lawyer and tell him you want him to sue Apple!:p
 
Apple won't stop its obsession with thinness and give us realistic battery life until people vote with their wallets.. by purchasing competing phones that actually provide good battery life. :(
 
I hope the iPhone 7 is as skinny as a sheet of overhead paper, and as flexible or I'll launch a class action lawsuit!
 
jimbo1mcm said:
They recently had to add a second lighting source for the backlight because one backlight wasn't enough.
Click to expand...

That's not entirely true. Current iPhone's have two lighting films. Apple was going to try to move to a single lighting film for the 6, but due to quality issues, had to revert to using two. In other words, it's not like this is new power consumption territory.
 
What do you mean by "What if"? Are you expecting that the consensus will be that the battery would be "too big", or why do you ask this?
 
chupachup said:
Doesn't matter what the battery is, the iPhone will always have crap battery life for heavy use.

Look at me

My LG G2. I've been posting on another thread. Image

10 minutes later of posting and Facebook and Internet my phone is STILL at 100%

Image

The iPhone would be close to 90% at this point.
IPhone battery sucks big time. That will never change.
Click to expand...

How many anti-iOS product replies are you going to make? Are you here to promote Android? You are in the wrong place. Nobody in this sub-forum cares about what your G2 does.
 
af21187 said:
How many anti-iOS product replies are you going to make? Are you here to promote Android? You are in the wrong place. Nobody in this sub-forum cares about what your G2 does.
Click to expand...
I'm not anti ios. I'm showing you the difference. I'm about to buy an iPad, how is that anti ios.

Battery sucks on the iPhone. Apple isn't going to fix that. Period.
 
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