Growing Power Gap Could Force Smartphone Tradeoffs

alphadogg writes "Mobile users face a fast-growing gap between their smartphones' increasing power needs and battery capacity. That gap could force users to make tradeoffs in how, and for what, they use their phones, even as vendors at all levels work even harder to reduce power demand in mobile devices, according to Chris Schreck, a research analyst with IMS Research. Schreck estimates that a 1500 mAh battery, the industry's current 'high water mark,' yields for many smartphone users a battery life of about 6 hours — highly dependent on what applications and on-device technologies, including Wi-Fi, users are running. The latest and greatest tech advances, including faster CPUs, higher data throughput, and improved displays all crank up the demand for power. The combination of user behavior and technology is boosting power demand faster than battery capacity can keep up. Schreck estimates power requirements can grow 15% a year."

Comments

Nobel-peas prize (green)

[Anonymous Coward]

The android challenge should add a green-attribute somehow. Perhaps a special award to that category. Its not sexy to make the battery last longer. It takes a lot of effort and without reward, it won't happen. That is because the app appears outside the phone framework. e.g. somehow not responsible for power loss, when it is.

-jp
cant login
gpscruise@gmail.com

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[hairyfeet]

The problem is battery tech simply hasn't kept up with the pace of technology in other sectors. Our last breakthrough was...what lithium ion batteries in the late 70s/early 80s? Like my engineer neighbor said to someone who asked him what "green tech" to invest in "Look for companies that are trying to come up with new battery tech, because the company that comes up with lighter and more powerful batteries will be richer than Bill Gates" and he is correct. We desperately need new battery tech to go with all these new mobile devices, we just haven't seen anything new coming down the pipe.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[Urza9814]

It's already a huge problem. My old Verizon LG VX9800 (aka 'The V') will last a week without charging. It's pretty old, but I would say it was pretty powerful for a phone of it's day - mobile web, full keyboard, stereo sound and the ability to download (or load from a miniSD) full songs and video and all that good stuff. It's no iPhone, but considering it's age (and network...) it's pretty good. Next up is a sidekick LX. It can maybe make it 20 hours on a full charge - _maybe_ up to around 30 if you have good service. And finally, the iPhone. I have yet to see that thing make it from the time I would wake up to the time I would go to sleep without a charge. From what I've seen (I don't have one - my girlfriend does), it needs charged twice a day.

Oh, I should also add that these all have the original battery in them. So the VX9800 is getting a week on a 5 year old battery, the sidekick can't hit a day on a 3 year old battery, and the iPhone can barely make 12 hours on a year old battery. I'd be quite scared to see how long an iPhone would last with a 5 year old battery (in my experience with an iPod, 5 years will nearly half the life of the battery.) I would however _love_ to see how long my VX9800 would have lasted fresh out of the box.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[Urza9814]

Ah damnit, didn't notice until _just_ after I hit reply that I was replying to a comment not the story. Sorry.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[iamacat]

Batteries have to store enormous energy and be able to release it at high rate. It pretty much follows that there will be cases where energy is released at too high a rate for your safety, no matter what is the underlying technology. Do you really want to be carrying an even more powerful bomb in close proximity to your private parts for most of the day?

Personally, I would rather think of my phone as a remote desktop client for servers whose power supplies are safely away from my cajones. And for cases where that's not possible, such as real time video augmentation, we should start programming mobile clients with the same care we used for hand-optimized assembler on original IBM PCs until CPU technology catches up in speed per watt.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[timeOday]

The problem is battery tech simply hasn't kept up with the pace of technology in other sectors.

To you and the grandparent I ask, where are your expectations coming from, and how aware are you of the progress that has been made?

Battery technology absolutely has improved, and quite steadily, for years. Don't you remember cellphones from the 80s with NiCad batteries?

Second, which "other sectors" have grown at a rate anything like Moore's Law over that time period? Moore's Law does not hold for technology in general, just transistors, and even there its days are numbered. (Aerospace and medicine (life expectancy) also shot up astronomically rather early on, then progress slowed).

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[afidel]

HDD capacity has actually grown faster than Moore's Law.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[hitmark]

seems lately that all companies have aimed their efforts at either comboing zinc with with something, or finding new ways to get lithium to handle more pr volume and weight.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[commodore64_love]

>>>start programming mobile clients with the same care we used for hand-optimized assembler on original IBM PCs

Agree 100%. But that requires intimate knowledge of how the hardware works in order to optimize the code to use the hardware sparingly. Few modern programmers have any clue, since they are "removed" from the device by several layers of OS and userspace.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[PitaBred]

Look into ultracapacitors. They're getting insanely more powerful, and they charge nearly instantly. Even if they only run for 3-4 hours, the fast charge would make it much more acceptable to most people. If I use my phone for 6 hours, I have to charge it for 1-2. If that charge time dropped to under 15 minutes, I would be insanely happy and much more likely to have a power-hungry mobile.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[Kz]

Personally, I would rather think of my phone as a remote desktop client for servers whose power supplies are safely away from my cajones.

yeah, keep the power away from drawers!

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[afidel]

The GP's comment was that other industries haven't shown the same kind of astronomic product growth that the semiconductor industry has, I gave a counterexample of an industry that has actually had faster growth than the semiconductor industry.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[rubi]

I agree, the problem is battery capacity vs how dangrous to operate it is. The Voyager spacecrafts use RTG "batteries" that have lasted what, 20+ years? But I wouldn't want one of those near me.

Regarding programming, the current frameworks and techniques for software development encourage one form or another of resource over-consumption, be it memory, cpu cycles or power.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[lysergic.acid]

It's not the rate of energy release that is an issue, but rather energy density. There's also no reason why a high density (or high capacity) battery would be any less safe than low density batteries. I mean, most people are perfectly comfortable driving around in their cars, which has far more energy stored in its fuel tank than any fully-charged laptop battery—not to mention being far more volatile as well.

Put it another way: would you be worried walking around with a piece of charcoal in your pocket? The energy density of a li-ion battery is 540 kilojoules per kilogram. The energy density of coal is 24 megajoules per kilogram. Oh, and a kilogram of fat? that's 37.7 megajoules. So batteries have quite a ways to go.

There's no reason why we can't come up with high energy density batteries that are safe, stable, and release their energy in a controlled manner. Perhaps it can't be done with li-ion technology, but I'm sure it can be done. We just need some new breakthroughs in battery technology. But these types of revolutionary technological changes can only be effected by new knowledge gained through basic research. Unfortunately, most government funding seems to go into applied research these days.

Lastly, if you're still worried about carrying "too much energy" around in your pocket in the form of an electricity, just remember that E=mc^2. So a single gram of material of any form carries 89.87 terajoules of energy. So even an uncharged 1 ounce cellphone battery possesses 2.5 petajoules of energy, or about the same amount of energy as 41 Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[SilentSandman]

Perhaps you should take a look at this:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

A great many things have an exponential growth curve, Moore's Law is only one such 'proof' of this concept. You may just find that things haven't "slowed" quite as much as you think.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[SilentSandman]

Obviously, feel free to take the 'predictions' with a grain of salt, the data being presented however is quite interesting.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[hairyfeet]

That is EXACTLY what my engineer buddy (ex NASA BTW. I actually got to hold some of the original blueprints for the shuttle. Very cool) was talking about when advising his client on "green" tech to invest in, and much better than I could have put it, so thanks. I think another part of the problem though is there seems to be this epeen "my device is smaller than yours!" race going on, for reasons I haven't figured out yet. Sure nobody wants giant bricks like we had for cells in the 80s, but my GF's damned cell phone is so damned small I'm gonna need to figure out how to tie a "clapper" to that sucker just so she can find her phone!

And I don't know about y'all, but I would be happy to have an Ion platform or AMD ULV netbook in a normal size case, but have the remainder of the case (a netbook so I wouldn't waste juice on a drive. I got a thumbstick for transfers) taken up by a decent battery that got...say 12-14 hours on a charge. But currently you can only get ultra expensive Lenovo Thinkpads with full Core 2 Duos with extra battery capacity. I can't be the only one sick of 4-6 hour battery life, can I?

BTW, for those that want more time when watching videos I would recommend DVD Idle Pro. Don't let the name fool you, while it does help with ripping DVDs, the more important feature is it will load just about any video format straight into RAM (if you have a decent amount) so that your drives can be spun down. It can really extend the battery life when watching videos on your laptop by letting the DVD and HDD spin down and just run straight from the RAM. With my nearly four year old Dell with 1.2Gb of RAM I can watch my rip of my extended edition LoTR and still have 20-30 minutes of battery left when it is done. Without it I'm maybe getting half way before the battery conks out.

I'll just be glad when somebody comes up with some new battery tech, as I still want 12-14 hours on a charge. To be able to work all day in the field without needing a charge? yeah that would be nice. That is one of the reasons I have avoided the whole "smartphone" craze as I need my phone a hell of a lot more than I need Internet access from my cell or video/audio capabilities. I for one would rather just use my laptop for Internet, my stick of gum sized Sandisk for music (why the hell can't we get netbooks that run on rechargeable AAAs like my MP3 player?) and have my phone actually last awhile on a charge. But as my engineer buddy said, when somebody comes out with battery tech that will let you get that 12-14 hours without weighing the machine like a bag of bricks that person is gonna make Bill Gates look like a baglady. Everybody will be lining up to buy their product. I just hope it comes out before I'm too damned old to enjoy it.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[Alioth]

Guess what - we're still using silicon based semiconductors today. Just because we use various species of Li-Ion (for example lithium polymer) batteries, it doesn't mean that things aren't moving forward.

The Li-Ion battery that was in the lab barely resembles the modern Li-Poly. The original lithium ion based batteries couldn't be charged very fast, and neither could they support a very high discharge rate - not enough for even a basic phone (that's why phones all had NiCd or NiMH batteries until the late 90s). The difference between the early Li-Ions and a modern Li-Poly is like night and day.

Consider this - I have an electric RC heli powered by Li-Poly batteries. It's not small, either - it weighs 2kg and you wouldn't want to have it hit you. The Li-Poly batteries can continuously supply just over 90 amps, and can support a peak discharge rate of double that - you're looking at near lead-acid discharge performance from a battery technology that only a few years ago would have caught fire if you tried to draw more than a dozen amps off it. And for a given power capacity weighs a fraction of the equivalent lead-acid battery.

I also have a smaller RC heli which weighs 350 grams. Before that, I had another heli that size. The difference between the batteries I got for the earlier heli just 18 months ago is stark compared to the new battery. The new battery I have is only 2/3rds of the size of the 18 month old batteries, and can support a continuous discharge rate that's double what the older batteries could do. A new battery that could support the discharge rate of the older ones could be half the size.

There are also Li-Poly batteries that can support much higher charge rate - recently 5C charge rate batteries appeared (until the last couple of years, the best you could get was 1C charge rate). It's only in the last few years that electric radio control models of any significant size have been even possible, and the continuous improvement in discharge rate, reliability and capacity is evident.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[TheLink]

> It's not the rate of energy release that is an issue, but rather energy density

In some ways it's also the other way around. It's hard to stick a lump of coal or fat into your phone and use it to keep your phone running for hours. We have lots of fuels with high energy density. The trouble is getting it in and out safely, consistently and in the form we want.

If someone managed to produce a suitable fuel cell, we could be refueling our devices with alcohol/vegetable oil or something similar and be able to run it for two weeks nonstop instead of a mere 6 hours. A laptop battery isn't cheap and I expect it to only last 2 years or so. Spending a similar amount for fuel packs isn't going to be a big issue.

As for ways to go... The other day I was watching a tiny fruit/pomace fly flying around - you know the ones not much bigger than a period, and going wow - imagine how hard it would be to build something like that. They can fly for way more than a few minutes. Compared to li-po powered RC helis which only do about 6-10 minutes. Flies and mosquitoes certainly don't die after flying for 10 minutes without food...

Also consider the migration of hummingbirds - apparently 800km across the Gulf of Mexico without refuelling! The last I checked hummingbirds don't glide very well - so it's keep flapping or die.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[mcgrew]

The problem is battery tech simply hasn't kept up with the pace of technology in other sectors

Maybe it's not the battery, maybe it's the other hardware. My last phone was a cheap minute phone, which I only had to charge once a week. My newer phone is Motorola i776, and I have to charge it about every two days, but I do more with it -- I get on the internet, I use it for a flashlight, and I talk a lot longer than my last phone since this carrier is a flat rate $50 per month.

I can't see anybody using a phone more. Maybe the app developers ought to be thinking about the power situation when they develop their apps? And maybe the phone manufacturers ought to be trying for less power use in the hardware?

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[timeOday]

Oh, I already know I disagree with Kurzweil and his singularitistas. My contention is that, first, he sees the start of an s-curve and assumes it will grow forever; and second, while the number of patents, papers, or discoveries in an area grows with the field, they become less significant over time. Look at medicine. A few hundred years ago penicillin was discovered almost by accident and drastically increased lifespans worldwide. Now, we pour thousands of times the resources into drugs that often have a marginal effect on a relatively rare disease.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[cerberusss]

The energy density of a li-ion battery is 540 KJ/kg(...) The energy density of coal is 24 MJ/kg.

This is a strange comparison to make. To release energy within the battery, one has to only bring the poles together. To get the energy out of the coal is a lot more work.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[plover]

Not that old chestnut again.

Modern optimizers are getting really, really good at optimizing code. So much so that the code they produce is only a few percent less efficient than most hand-tuned routines.

For grins and giggles, you ought to examine some of the optimizations that Microsoft's latest compiler delivers. I had the good fortune to hear Louis Lafreniere present some of the details from their latest offerings, and they really are remarkable. They've rewritten the concept of compiler by adding a new standard for the intermediate step between parsed and compiled, allowing a plug-in architecture to scan an entire package for optimizations, not just a single compilation unit (such as compiling one .C file at a time.) They identify loops and extract common data (even when it crosses module boundaries!), they can replace multiple levels of indirection with a single pointer redirection, among many cool tricks.

The bigger problem is the demand for more features and functionality, driven by a very high expectations set by market successes such as the iPhone. Sure, you could write a hand-assembled phone system that might yield 50% more battery life. Would it have anything more than a 10-digit LCD display? Could you support a touch screen with drag and drop navigation, MMS, SMS, Bluetooth, MP3 support, etc., etc., etc.? Could you deliver a crash-free hand assembled solution to market in a year? Hint: you'd be a multi-millionaire if that answer were yes. And without the eye candy it won't sell, therefore it's not a relevant solution.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[lysergic.acid]

And? Coal also doesn't produce electricity and is a natural resource. It also costs a lot less than batteries. I could go on and on listing the differences between coal and batteries, but none have anything to do with the discussion.

The GP argued that storing more energy in a pocket-sized device than what is currently stored in conventional batteries is inherently unsafe, no matter what technology is used. How that energy is extracted is irrelevant.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[iamacat]

This is just an excuse not to optimize your stuff :-)

Compilers may be good at spotting local optimizations or rearranging instructions to best utilize CPU pipeline. In fact, it would be great to use optimizing assembler that does the same on hand-optimized code. However, they really suck at figuring out what exactly you are trying to do. Every time you call a function or have even a slightly complicated construct that uses pointers, the compiler has to discard all the variables and intermediate results stored in registers since it has no idea which memory locations have been updated. In your own assembler code, you can keep values in registers even across synchronization primitives in multi-threaded programs, since you have some idea on what the other threads will be updating and when.

I am not saying that some kind of parallel language can not be used. A FORTRAN dialect with parallel DO loops and matrix operations that directly utilize GPU can be optimized nicely. Nor should C/Objective-C/C#/Java/Python be excluded entirely from the platform. I am sure a program written in these will not cause undue battery drain while addressing a 10 digit LCD or sending a 130 character SMS message. But if you are trying to implement real time face recognition on built in camera, you better roll up your sleeves and not expect Microsoft compiler or radioisotope battery to save your ass.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[iamacat]

would you be worried walking around with a piece of charcoal in your pocket

A smoldering piece of charcoal near my privates all day would make me jittery, yes. Inert one would worry me about as much a piece of lithium incased in safe container and not capable of discharging energy without extreme heat applied first.

Oh, and a kilogram of fat? that's 37.7 megajoules.

Yes, but what is the maximum discharge rate that occurs in a biological system? We seem to have pretty good safeguards against runaway oxidation, even then some people do die from thermal circuit malfunctions. Besides fat is much less dense than typical battery material. Not sure if I want an ultralight iphone with a huge bulge in midsection.

Lastly, if you're still worried about carrying "too much energy" around in your pocket in the form of an electricity, just remember that E=mc^2. So a single gram of material of any form carries 89.87 terajoules of energy.

So would you feel comfortable carrying this material around in the circumstances where a significant portion of this energy can be readily released? Me, I am not going anywhere near a smartphone with positron circuits.

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[plover]

I agree completely that an optimizing compiler is no excuse for writing crap code. There is never an excuse for writing crap code.

But I think you'd be surprised at just how wide-spread the optimizations are that they're able to exploit now in the Phoenix middle tier. The algorithm recognition pieces can spot common patterns, and optimally hardwire them. It counts instructions and unrolls loops when it would save cycles.

An optimizer doesn't care what you are trying to do, it only cares what you explicitly told it to do. With an assembler, you have to pump all that same level of care, and all those brain cycles into accomplishing absolutely every task, no matter what. Painting a window? Optimize it, make sure you have no memory leaks, move the right language bitmap resource into place, build a font, everything. Accepting keypad input? Keep hand allocating memory, don't leak it. Poll the hardware wires, looking for contacts. Write some keypad debounce code. Trigger an FSM with your key code. Processing messages? Keep going with every stinking module, optimizing, not leaking, allocating, deallocating, polling hardware, formatting protocols, etc., etc., etc.

At no point is there a payoff for writing all that glue code in assembler. Each module is as fragile as it sounds. All the learning about loosely coupled code that you get for free when using a framework? Gone, or you implement it as a bunch of macros. And how do you interface all those assembler modules together? Do you hand write a higher level interface language, too?

And now that you built me the perfectly optimized hand-assembled phone, who am I going to get to maintain it? You will, for $5,000,000 per year? Hmm, let me think on that proposition.

Hand assembled code is not commercially viable, at least not on the large scale required to implement a system. Hand optimized code can be great when you're dealing with a single high-performance component, such as a video driver or a hardware interface chip. But you don't build a system out of it for any reason other than the love of the hack. And you can't sell "hack-love".

Re:Nobel-peas prize (green)

[iamacat]

I think we both agree it's dumb to write everything in assembler. Few people did with serious software in IBM PC days. This keyboard debouncing C code will run for less than a millisecond and let CPU sleep until the user does something. However, the CPU-intensive, battery guzzling code tends to be focused in video/audio/sensor processing and involve mathematical transformations of manageable complexity. This code will be especially vulnerable to compiler's inability to retain stuff in registers in multithreaded environment.

As for $5M/year, I suspect you can retain this guys services for somewhat less. But even that amount is trivial for the only mobile OS that can handle realtime facial recognition without a plutonium battery.

Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Karem Lore]

Considering that a mobile phone is always in your pocket and being moved around, isn't there a way to tap the kinetic energy to send small recharges to the battery throughout the day. This won't be enough to never have to charge, but may delay the time between charges enough to make it worthwhile...

Like Rolex watches or something.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[ShadowRangerRIT]

There's not that much power to be had in your pocket. Even self-winding watches rely on the swinging of your arms to generate power, and they're doing a hell of a lot less with it. The generation machinery itself would also take up space and add weight; you'd be better off increasing the size of the battery.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Rogerborg]

"mobile [...] moved around"? Once you're past puberty and move out of your mom's basement, you'll spend most of your time sitting at a desk. When you do get up to heave your bulk to the coffee machine, you'll leave your "mobile" sitting there so that when you finally trudge back, your co-workers can tell you that your novelty ring tone went off four times at full volume while you were away.

Now, if we could harness stupidity or hatred to power mobiles, they'd run forever.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Duradin]

And kinetic electric watches tend to use capacitors instead of batteries, which take a charge more easily than a battery. You'd lose a lot of whatever the minuscule amount of power is generated trying to get it into the battery.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Simple- use a USB charger...when I'm at my desk, my phone is plugged into a USB port. For the desks in sensitive areas when I'm not allowed to do that, a powered hub with the data not plugged into anything charges all my devices just fine.

Charge at my desk, and when I'm sleeping, and my smartphone's 5 hour battery life is never a problem.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[StikyPad]

I'm sedentary, you insensitive clod!

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[megamerican]

Considering that a mobile phone is always in your pocket and being moved around, isn't there a way to tap the kinetic energy to send small recharges to the battery throughout the day. This won't be enough to never have to charge, but may delay the time between charges enough to make it worthwhile...

Like Rolex watches or something.

I don't need more excuses to throw people's cell phones out of windows.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Locke2005]

There's not that much power to be had in your pocket. True, but the average slashdotter's wrist generates a LOT of kinetic energy! If only there was some way to harness it, and use it to provide power for downloading from the 'net...

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[drougie]

Here may be a good place to note that USB puts out 500mA at best theoretically (IE less than 400mA in reality). On idle phones can use between 15 and 150mA and when in heavy use, like wifi, gps, video, password cracking, high throughput (as in over 500kbit/s) and voice, as much as 600mA. So if you're tethering or running a phone torrent client for fun you may end up eating more power than your laptop's charging and you could even overheat and freeze or damage the phone if you get extreme.

Depending on your phone, different story with a wall charger which in the case of my HTC phone pumps out 1A. Another disadvantage of USB charging versus charging with wall chargers of the likes of my phone is that my charger, I'm told, knows when my phone's charged and eases back the juice so I don't overcharge my battery. USB may not be so smart. So maybe the GP knows about USB and opts for the outlet by the coffee machine. Wants a fast and effective charge, we've all been there. I've heard a few people claim that a full charge from USB tends to run out quicker than a full wall charge but I don't know why that would be true.

I've also heard that charging and using your phone even lightly (with the screen on, open data connection or more) can strain the battery a little too much and heat it up so that charging is much more painful for the long-term longevity of lion batteries.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[gwait]

Well, their Wangs went obsolete, so you need a new plan..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[timeOday]

My $15 Nokia lasts 2-3 weeks per recharge if I'm not using it for conversations.

We have a winner, folks... the secret to drastically improving battery life in mobile devices is to turn them off and leave them in a drawer. Problem solved.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Sir_Dill]

They have already made the mini-USB plug a standard interface for phones in the EU.

Frankly I am tired of the wallwart era, especially when USB is so ubiquitous. Its an ideal candidate for a universal charging spec.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The only thing in this I disagree with (my Wing is an HTC device as well) is this statement:

Another disadvantage of USB charging versus charging with wall chargers of the likes of my phone is that my charger, I'm told, knows when my phone's charged and eases back the juice so I don't overcharge my battery. USB may not be so smart.
 
Not sure about the blackberry or iphone, but in HTC devices, both Windows Mobile and Android, this is actually controlled from the operating system itself- and should shut off charging regardless of source (when the light on your phone goes from orange to green, on most HTC devices, it's no longer drawing power constantly from the Mini USB charging port). If you'll notice, you actually need enough electricity to boot up before you can charge your phone- which is why it's vitally important to never let your battery get below 5% charge. You *can* charge your phone without the OS appearing to load- it has a secondary boot that detects energy coming in the USB port and only loads the charging portion of the OS- but that charging portion is there in memory, and controls the charge.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Trouvist]

I think the parent was implying that he left it ON all day for weeks, but just wasn't talking on it. If he was just leaving it off and using it as a paperweight, how would he be using it to tell time? There wouldn't even be a point to posting if he didn't use the phone in a turned-on state. Your attempt at being snide failed due to not thinking enough.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Not quite ideal- as the other person who replied reminded me, I've run into a few computers where the motherboard can't handle it due to being below spec on the power provided to the USB ports- but a wallwart with a USB plug on it solves that trick, and one day I'm going to wire a low-voltage system into my house using USB ports.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[LWATCDR]

I have an even easier solution.
Make them a few mm thicker.
Really for some really odd reason there seems to be a race to thin at all cost.
I would trade two mm for more battery life.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[imgod2u]

All devices with a LiON battery have charge controllers built in. The USB merely provides a voltage, the software on the other side has no control over it. Regulation is done internal to the phone most likely by an ADI, Maxim or Linear chip.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

you'd be better off increasing the size of the battery.

Or reducing the hunger of your phone. My $15 Nokia lasts 2-3 weeks per recharge if I'm not using it for conversations. I have another phone I use regularly, this one just sits on my desk all day long, functioning mostly as a clock and a paperweight.

yes, typically if you do not use your phone for anything, you can expect to enjoy extended battery life ;)

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[timeOday]

I think the parent was implying that he left it ON all day for weeks, but just wasn't talking on it.

Again, what is the point? My wristwatch gets more battery life than a cellphone too. So does a smoke detector. So what? A cellphone not functioning as a cellphone is not a valid basis for comparison. Transmitting a signal to a cell tower does take power, and that power comes from the battery. This whole article amounts to "gosh, wouldn't it be nice if batteries were better, or devices more efficient?" The article is also empirically wrong in stating that battery capacity is not keeping up with demand. If it were true, phones with bigger batteries would catch on. There's nothing stopping us from returning to the cellphone form factor of just a few years ago, if people wanted to trade off size for battery life. Evidently they don't.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[amRadioHed]

The smaller the better for phones. I don't want something clunky in my pocket all day every day.

OTOH, it's nice as an option. An old Motorola I had around 2001 had an optional battery you could buy with a higher capacity then the default battery. The larger battery was bigger and made the phone a bit thicker, but it was good to have the choice for those who needed it.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Sir Lurkalot]

you'd be better off increasing the size of the battery.

Or reducing the hunger of your phone. My $15 Nokia lasts 2-3 weeks per recharge if I'm not using it for conversations. I have another phone I use regularly, this one just sits on my desk all day long, functioning mostly as a clock and a paperweight.

And for this, you pay what in monthly charges?

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[LWATCDR]

I agree with in reason. The big race to thinner and thinner is just nuts. Like I said two mm would probably give a good increase in battery life and would you really notice the difference. This is a case of style over function.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[iocat]

I do the same thing, but I'd kill for a BlackBerry or iPhone with a monochrome LCD display. It's the display that kills that battery, as much as the CPU and the wifi. Crap, in a few years an eInk display may be ready. Color is great, but I really just want email and twitter, forever, without charging.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[karnal]

Let me know just how expensive it gets to do that. Carrying 5v everywhere even in a modest home (like I own) will cost far more than putting wall warts everywhere (including paying for the wall wart to be plugged in, not powering anything.)

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[rtb61]

The easiest solution is to shift functions from the smart phone to a smartbook. So a smartbook with a quick easy docking station for you smartphone, including charging of course. So smartphone a little less smart and a little more restricted in it's function to keep the size down, the price down and the battery life up.

Carry the smartphone in your pocket and the smartbook in the car/bag/briefcase ie it is close by but not necessarily carried on your person.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Harald Paulsen]

Actually we do.

I wish they could make my phone (Nokia 6110 navigator) larger so I could have a longer lasting battery. But they don't make that phone.

Double the battery would be excellent. Don't even have to double the size, just make it a bit thicker.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[mdwh2]

Well I'm envious of his phone. My 3G-battery-sucker phone would be lucky to get 24 hours, when it's doing the strenuous task of sitting in a drawer.

It gets better battery life when it's switched off, though.

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[mdwh2]

Ah, but those of us who are leg-twitchers as we sit at our desks, with phones in our pockets, will have phones that last forever!

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[mcgrew]

Not everyone sits at a desk. You think the guys who built your house or repair your power lines did it from a desk?

Re:Easy solution...at least for a bit more juice

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Well, I expect I'll use recycled materials to do it; my main cost will be the wall plates themselves. Cat5e is getting pretty cheap now that everybody's "upgrading" to 1000BaseT Ethernet- just wait until a building near you is ripping out cable and offer to take it away.

Donkey

[NoYob]

... Schreck, a research analyst with IMS Research.

As a work around, I think he plans on just having Donkey carry around more batteries.

Could?

[LBArrettAnderson]

This already happened. Years ago. I rarely turn on the wifi on my phone, even if I'm in range and even if I'm surfing the internet, and am sure that GPS is turned off unless I'm actually using it.

Re:Could?

[Deag]

There is a good bit that could be done with software to help this, settings to revert to the edge network with gps off when asleep for more than a few minutes for example. Or even a button that allows to toggle low power mode.

Going through the settings turning this on and off is annoying.

Re:Could?

[FireFury03]

There is a good bit that could be done with software to help this, settings to revert to the edge network with gps off when asleep for more than a few minutes for example. Or even a button that allows to toggle low power mode.

Going through the settings turning this on and off is annoying.

Interestingly, the specs for the HTC Dream show that it has a longer standby time when using a WCDMA network than GSM. WCDMA uses more power than GSM when on a call though.

Re:Could?

[afidel]

I just use WiFi and UMA on my Blackberry 8900 on T-Mobile, since it's only one relatively low power radio for both voice and data it allows for a couple days with normal usage (playing with apps, doing email, some phone calls, etc). I'm not sure why all the GSM providers don't do UMA since it eliminates dead spots for most people and requires little capital investment.

One wonders if reversible computing will help

[liquiddark]

It'd be great to know how much of the battery life is consumed by the processors. If it's a major factor (versus, say, screen life, where LEDs and quantum well diodes should theoretically help), then perhaps the reversible computing push so prevalent in Kurzweil's books and rhetoric could be of some assistance.

Re:One wonders if reversible computing will help

[ShadowRangerRIT]

I know nothing about quantum well diodes, but the screens are already LED on virtually all smart phones. And their power draw would be negligible when not in use, so I doubt they have much of an influence. Pushing computing out of the phone wouldn't save much; the cost of maintaining an active connection to the network at all times would be substantially higher than the small gains made from using a lower power chip (the chips are already fairly low power). Keep in mind, there would still need to be *a* chip to do the work of maintaining the network connection and drawing to the screen; if it's just bitmap copies, then you need a lot of network communication (and possibly decompression work), if it's drawing primitives, you need more drawing capability to turn them into screen images.

Many of the more powerful apps are already in the cloud, there's not that much left to push out.

Re:One wonders if reversible computing will help

[liquiddark]

Not sure what you thought I meant but...reversible computing

Re:One wonders if reversible computing will help

[amoeba1911]

I know nothing about quantum well diodes, but the screens are already LED on virtually all smart phones.

Get your facts straight, almost every phone out there is still using a thin film transistor (TFT) LCD screen, including iPhone, Palm Pre, HTC G1.
The only smart phone I know that uses an LED screen is the Samsung Galaxy (color AM-OLED)
There might be a handful more, but nowhere near virtually all.

Re:One wonders if reversible computing will help

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Wow. I was off on a number of things. Mods, please mod my GP post Overrated so misinformation doesn't spread (I've got karma to blow in any event).

As for reversible computing, the Wikipedia is rather problematic. It implies power savings are possible, but the only example of a reversible system it gives (Undo operations in a word processor) are clearly not the ideal; they add to the power usage, rather than subtracting, since they cost additional memory to save state. Given the highly theoretical bent of the article, I'm not seeing this as a practical solution in the next decade or so.

Re:One wonders if reversible computing will help

[BikeHelmet]

Wifi nails a lot of battery life, as does the screen. The Pandora devs gave some specific measurements - the Pandora has a separate chip for measuring consumption.

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/topic/49385-current-drains-by-speed-and-device/page__view__findpost__p__751966
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/topic/49478-pandora-battery-upgrade/page__view__findpost__p__753323

Playing PSX4all at 500MHz: 599mA (peak value I saw) and at 800MHz: 692mA (peak value)

Here was an idling kernel with various backlight settings:
100% - 507mA
88% - 484mA
70% - 456mA
53% - 424mA
35% - 390mA
18% - 364mA
0% - 337mA

You can see that turning that backlight down when not needed can add a fair bit of battery life. You can also see that overclocking the ARM core does not have a significant impact on battery life (relatively speaking). It certainly will reduce battery life but 2x the clock does not mean 1/2 the battery life.

So that puts CPU/GPU power consumption in the sub-100mw range. Under half the consumption of an LED-backlit LCD, and probably still less than OLED.

Really, the solution for phones is to make them bigger. Pockets are fairly large - a bigger phone with a tactile thumb-keyboard, loaded up with a 4200-6000 mah battery and closed-source power management drivers would get ludcrious battery life. Easily a day or two.

Can you imagine a phone as heavy as a Gameboy? That thing would easily have 20k mah in a Li-Po battery. 5-10 days of talk time and usage!

Re:One wonders if reversible computing will help

[darthflo]

Almost every phone out there is using an LED-backlit TFT LCD screen.

Most of the new and great laptops with LED screens are exactly the same -- a regular LCD with LED-based backlight instead of one or two CCFLs. Technically inferior to OLED but possible and affordable right now. I wouldn't know of any OLED screens in production laptops, as far as I know it's just prototypes and concepts right now, but I wouldn't mind being corrected on that :)

Re:One wonders if reversible computing will help

[Eunuchswear]

Honestly, "maintaining the network connection and drawing to the screen" is about all the current- and last-gen smartphones are capable of in software. Absolutely everything else is done in hardware or DSPs and can be (and is) turned off at will.

So Symbian, OSX, Maemo, Android, and so on are just figments of our imagination? I can't really run Python on my phone?

Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[xednieht]

Was the battery not a solution for a time when devices were used temporarily then set aside? Wouldn't personal-perpetual power make more sense for an age when devices spend more time being on rather than off?

Re:Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Feel free to try convincing people to lug around massive batteries and/or wear power generation harnesses just to use a phone.

Re:Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[Nadaka]

Was the battery not a solution for a time when devices were used temporarily then set aside? Wouldn't personal-perpetual power make more sense for an age when devices spend more time being on rather than off?

Sure would be great if it were possible. But its not.

The closest you could get is some kind of solar powered fabric you could wear as clothing and charge your devices.

Another option is piezo electric generators in your shoes, charged as you walk, but that is hardly perpetual either.

Another option is a device that filters organic material from your blood stream and metabolizes it for fuel, there is some research in this area, but its far from being usable.

Re:Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[JSBiff]

Well, if we are proposing new power technologies, how about something *slightly* more practical, like small scale fuel cells? Or, if you want to go really pie-in-the-sky, how about small scale atomic batteries or radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Change your batteries every 15-20 years.

Re:Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Yes, and make sure you start flapping your arms 5-6 minutes before you wish to check your stocks

Wait, I do that even now...

What? Why are you looking at me that way?

Re:Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[Dr_Barnowl]

radioisotope thermoelectric generators

And people worried about the microwaves from the phone affecting their sperm count....

I quite like the idea of the thermocouple based generators that are rumoured to be possible. But I'd rather the source of heat wasn't something that made my junk glow in the dark.

Re:Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[zippthorne]

The only downside is the plutonium that's either 15 mm from your ear (with, obviously, 15mm or less of shielding) or 15 mm from your groin, with the same amount of shielding.

Re:Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[JSBiff]

Maybe you can use an isotope other than plutonium? Something which requires less shielding?

Anyhow, my real point was the fuel cells. Those are supposed to become a reality "sometime real soon" (maybe).

Re:Isn't the battery somewhat outdated?

[Nadaka]

If you use a less active material, one that requires less shielding, you can't get the same energy out of it in a given volume.

I am not sure, but I don't think even plutonium is hot enough to provide enough energy to run a cell phone in a practical size.

Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[fahrvergnugen]

It's my thinking that a smartphone is a closed system with a base initial launch spec that's never going to change, much like a game console. Game console power requirements and manufacturing costs drop over time, as the chipsets inside are consolidated and die shrinks lessen power consumption. But since a PS3 made in 2009 can't be any more powerful than a PS3 made in 2006, and the XBox 360 spec for 2009 is the same as the one that was released in 2005, the manufacturers can focus on electrical and manufacturing efficiency instead of increasing computing power with every hardware iteration.

Why does the same not hold true for the static handset platforms like the iphone? Yes, the iphone has added features as life has progressed (slightly faster clocks, 3g antennae, bigger storage, compass, etc) but these things - with the possible exception of 3g - are not huge power sinks, and most of them aren't even turned on most of the time.

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[ShadowRangerRIT]

The problem is the apps. Running an application means you are using the CPU, memory and/or networking functionality more often. On a smartphone that is used only intermittently for e-mail, the cost is small. If you are running a realtime GPS directions app for an hour at a time, you're using a hell of a lot more. Then add games, fully JavaScript-compatible web browsers, etc. It adds up. Even a normal cell phone runs down the battery an order of magnitude faster while talking than while it's sitting in your pocket. Running apps is more demanding, and consequently the power drains ever faster.

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[Hijacked Public]

Smartphones are also getting caught up in the same software/hardware race that computers are in.

Opening Google Maps is painfully slow on an Edge iPhone. On a 3GS it is much faster....but sooner or later Google Maps will add features that will bog it down. So another hardware upgrade will be in order and the cycle will repeat.

Microsoft is probably itching to slap Aero glass into Winmo, if only someone would increase battery capacity by a few thousandfold.

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Specifically (and this seems to be true on my TMobile Wing (Windows Mobile), my sister-in-law's blackberry, my aunt's iPhone, and my wife's G1) misbehaving apps seem to be the biggest battery draw: those that fail to turn off resources when they are done with them.

It's amazing how many times I've pulled my phone out of my pocket only to find Wifi or Edge turned on- and the battery below 50%.

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[Seedy2]

Nah, we just need an implant that generates electricity from all the calories floating around in our blood waiting to turn into fat.
Then we could power all of our devices and lose weight at the same time. :)

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[mobby_6kl]

Having Wi-Fi and 3G/Edge turned on is the best way to murder any phone battery. My S730 may last two-three days normally, but if I turn on Wi-Fi in maximum performance mode as well as 3G (or even just Edge in my case), I can run down the battery in maybe 30 minutes. In fact, if I put my finger on the battery or the rear cover, I can feel it heat up due to the enormous power drawn by the WiFi/3G modules.

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[hitmark]

who needs a bomb when you can blow up your phone by running aero glass on your winmo phone?

how long until you need to remove the battery before going past security, and buying a new one ones you land?

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[Pentium100]

Because if the new generation of smartphones was the same except had a longer battery life, it would be more cost efficient to just buy an additional battery for the current phone.

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[_avs_007]

Your phone and/or battery sucks if you run down the battery in only 30 minutes. My battery drops 20% per hour while I'm actively streaming video over a 3G connection on my Windows Mobile phone. One time when the train broke down, I verified this, by seeing my battery at 35% after streaming videos for 3 hours straight. That was 3 hours of continuous 3G and LCD screen usage.

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[Rob Riggs]

Bio-mod this thing and you have what you are after: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200708/07-074E/index.html

Re:Why go faster? Why not stay the same?

[afidel]

Google Maps already has that mode, it's called Satellite view =) Seriously, pulling down all those JPG tiles using XMLHTTPRequest on WiFi is painful enough.

Dual-battery config?

[jddj]

Wish they'd do one battery for the radio components and one for the CPU/etc. That way your CPU (MP3, gaming, PDA) requirements wouldn't be a slave to your talk time on the phone - and vice-versa.

Ever have to get some data off your mobile but couldn't turn it on because you've been talking all day and run it down?

Re:Dual-battery config?

[oldspewey]

Rather than 2 batteries, I'd much rather have the firmware begin powering down radio functions once the main battery reaches some preset level of discharge. Or instead of a preset level of discharge, a user selectable one.

Re:Dual-battery config?

[sexconker]

It's a fucking phone.

Radio functions (making fucking calls) should be the last thing to go.

Re:Dual-battery config?

[oldspewey]

Well then your user-selectable preference would prioritize GSM/CDMA over things like WiFi, graphics power for gaming, etc.

Re:Dual-battery config?

[Hijacked Public]

No more so than my computer is a phone because I have Skype. I'd actually rather my iPhone was less phone-centric, particularly with out of band notifications. Most everyone I know with a Blackberry would probably choose email as the last to go if they had to manage power.

Re:Dual-battery config?

[Overzeetop]

Ever have to get some data off your mobile but couldn't turn it on because you've been talking all day and run it down?

Well, no, but I have wished that I had the juice to make a phone call after having the GPS and golfcaddy software running for a miserably slow 5 hour golf round. Short of needing to check something on the phone, in the middle of nowhere, though, you scenario doesn't come up much as either (a) I pop out the uSD card and put it in a reader* or (b) I dock the phone with a pc and download the information I need. Of course, there's always my preferred method of extra capacity, which involves slipping an extra 40g battery* in my pocket if I'm going to be using the phone heavily all day and there's no charging opportunity in sight. Since my dock charges the internal and extra battery simultaneously, I'm always ready to carry the extra few hours around with me when I'm going to need it.

Besides, you don't you think it would suck to have half the phone or PDA life? Would you really prefer to lose a call to a dead phone just so that you could check your contacts or email at the end of the day?

*iPhones need not apply

Re:Dual-battery config?

[gordguide]

" ... I'd much rather have the firmware begin powering down radio functions once the main battery reaches some preset level of discharge. ..."

That's exactly what my BlackBerry Storm does. Only reason I know that is it happened last night ... battery was low, phone powered up, can read eMail stored on the device, compose replies, etc., but won't connect to the network (the exact words: "radio disabled") until it gets a recharge, or you manually re-enable radio functions (presumably, for important or emergency calls knowing that there won't be much airtime).

Re:Dual-battery config?

[sexconker]

Hope you never have to dial 911 when your battery is low.

Re:Dual-battery config?

[sexconker]

Yeah it would.
My point is that I disagree with your priorities.

Chiefly on the whole "oh shit, emergency, call 911" issue.

Re:Dual-battery config?

[HeronBlademaster]

That's fine, but that doesn't mean every person whose priorities are different than yours is wrong.

For example: I would probably choose e-mail as the last thing to go. I am almost never out of reach of another phone (besides my cell) - at work, I'm surrounded by desks full of them; on the train, there are dozens of people with phones; at home, my wife has her cell, or we could jog to a neighbor's house. (I carry a cell phone so other people can reach me at a single number, not so I can always have a phone.)

Yes, you could invent situations in which I'd be screwed if my phone's out of juice. But I could just say the same thing to you - after all, keeping 911 access with a low battery doesn't mean your battery will never run out.

It's also possible that someone who would prioritize e-mail over 911 would choose to not have a phone at all if e-mail weren't available for phones. Are you going to tell them they're morons for not having a cell phone, because there's a theoretical chance they could die by not being able to call 911? We may as well say you're a moron for not carrying a second cell phone, in case your first phone's battery dies.

Re:Dual-battery config?

[sexconker]

Oh, but I do carry a second battery.

Re:Dual-battery config?

[zippthorne]

It's a cell phone. Without the radio, it's just an mp3 player with poor battery life. How do you think cell phones work, anyway?

Slashdot in a bottle

[mewsenews]

Let's get the kneejerk comments out of the way:

- "Doesn't anyone use their phone as a god damn PHONE anymore? I'm running ($massively_antiquated_cellphone) and other than the hernia from carrying it around it stays charged for 3 months!"

- "6 hours on a charge? My anecdote beats that anecdote!"

- "Cell phone designers should stop being lazy and make their phones run on the tears of albino unicorns, then we wouldn't have to read about their problems with power consumption."

- "Technology will advance to take care of this problem. In fact, when the Singularity happens, we won't even need cell phones anymore."

Re:Slashdot in a bottle

[oldspewey]

when the Singularity happens, cell phones won't even need us anymore.

FTFY

Re:Slashdot in a bottle

[StikyPad]

Yeah, it's way better when those are consolidated into a single, apathetic post. Plus, I bet that will keep anyone else from posting similar sentiments in a more serious tone. Maybe you could attach that to the beginning of every article from now on, just in case one of the regular killjoys forgets to log on and we miss our usual dose of frowns.

Re:Slashdot in a bottle

[Riddles]

Actually, I do use my phone primary for calling. On my very nice smartphone (Samsung i780 - Windows Mobile), I've turned off UMTS and switched right back to plain old GSM + GPRS. As a result, my battery will now last two days, where I can make several long (> 30 mins) calls. And, e-mail/calendar/contact synchronization still work over good old GPRS. As a side effect, phone calls are still much more reliable over GSM than they are over UMTS - at least they are on this phone.

Re:Slashdot in a bottle

[mewsenews]

Plus, I bet that will keep anyone else from posting similar sentiments in a more serious tone.

On a serious note, I am sorry about your hernia.

Re:Slashdot in a bottle

[TeXMaster]

Let's get the kneejerk comments out of the way:

- "Doesn't anyone use their phone as a god damn PHONE anymore? I'm running ($massively_antiquated_cellphone) and other than the hernia from carrying it around it stays charged for 3 months!"

The problem is not the massively antiquated cellphone but the lack of NEW lightweight phones WITHOUT all the useless crapola I'm never going to use. I've been using a now-old Nokia 2100 (which, by the way, is not significantly heavier than the new Nokia 2630 I have since yesterday), and since it was obviously getting out of business (after the umpteenth fall and drop in the water, keys started to fail to act properly, reception had gone the way of the dodo, etc) and I had an upcoming birthday, I asked my relatives to see if they could get me a new cellphone, the most basic they could find.

As it happens, the most basic they could find was this Nokia 2630 I mentioned, that has bluetooth, an FM radio, a camera that can do still and pictures, and so on and so forth, plus a fancy colorful display, and it can play mp3s and midis. Even keeping as much functionality off, it's going to drain the battery faster than the old one was, while giving me exactly ZILCH functionality I missed from the previous phone.

So rather what you should mention is: why is it that I cannot get a new bare-bone cellphone anymore? (think of the battery life you could get out of that)

Re:Slashdot in a bottle

[Kral_Blbec]

You should have looked into stuff like net10 and tracfone. Very cheap, very simple phones.

or you could just get a jitterbug

Re:Slashdot in a bottle

[zippthorne]

When the singularity happens, both of those statements will be equivalent.

Re:how is this news?

[0rbit4l]

Wow, the un-newsworthiness of this article completely escaped me until you provide a car analogy. It's all so clear now! Obviously, when dealing with a technology that sometimes features geometrically increasing capabilities, we should always remember to think in terms of internal-combustion transportation devices! DUH!

Back on topic, I think it'll be interesting to see how interfaces make selective shutoff of features more intuitive inside a program, instead of having to bump out & modify device settings. To that end, it might be useful to have programming constructs for developers to indicate that such-and-such function will need network access, or what have you, as a hint to a mobile OS that could do runtime analysis & shut down pieces as necessary.

Good news everybody!

[chill]

Necessity is the mother of invention. Nothing will drive battery research like a heavy demand for better batteries.

Until that time, carry a spare battery. I've always done this, just in case I drain the first one. This is one of the biggest reasons I refuse to buy an iPhone -- you can't remove the battery.

Re:Good news everybody!

[schnikies79]

I would rather the efficiency of the device be improved first.

Re:Good news everybody!

[ColdWetDog]

Until that time, carry a spare battery.

Until that time, I carry a tiny little cable that lets me charge my cell phone (even the dreaded iPhone) from one of the literally thousands of 5V USB outlets available in civilization.

I find when I leave civilization, I can't find many cell phone towers so I just use an alternative (sat phone with solar charger). Or I just shut up and enjoy the view.

Spare batteries on cell phones are an overrated concept.

This message paid by the Apple (No User Serviceable Parts) Marketing Department.

Re:Good news everybody!

[chill]

Both would be better.

I'm thinking battery improvements won't necessarily be confined to cell phone batteries, and would work their way into everything from car batteries down to hearing aid batteries.

Re:Good news everybody!

[IDtheTarget]

No, but you can bring an external battery pack or use a battery sleeve, which amounts to the same thing.

Re:Good news everybody!

[cellurl]

Android will fix this in the ADC-3 where they will have a new category called the Nobel-Peas prize (green android/green peas...) Then and only then will developers like myself tweak down da juice.
It takes a tremendous effort to write a battery friendly app, but it is possible and gratefing [cant spell].

-jp
Power hungry app

Re:Good news everybody!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

This little device from Thinkgeek gets around that problem- a spare battery that charges just about anything with the right dongle:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/917b/

Re:Good news everybody!

[StikyPad]

Pfft. Maybe YOU can't remove the battery...

All *I* require is a spectacle repair kit, a flat surface, some bubble gum, an arc welder, and some spare case backings in case of catastrophic failure. It's really quite simple. Oh sure, some people carry around charge cords since electricity is ubiquitous in places where cell phones work, and many places they don't, but they're just rank amateurs who aren't in transit for every hour of every day.

Re:Good news everybody!

[bl8n8r]

> carry a spare battery.

Be careful not to put any paperclips or change in the same pocket as the
battery.

Re:Good news everybody!

[hitmark]

another solution that keeps popping up is a external battery that has a usb port and a bundled collection of adapters for various phones...

some of the bigger ones even have a port that allow them to handle laptops.

the concept is the same as a spare battery, but i can keep doing what you where doing without having to shut down to replace the battery. and unlike a spare battery, they have their own charger to as part of the bundle. One interesting philips model basically has a fold up wall socket built in, making it both a battery and a universal power brick.

yep, there is some loss in the conversion, but the flexibility makes up for it, imo.

btw, it seems that usb is becoming the universal power source for all manner of low power devices. I even see converters between the car lighter socket and usb these days...

Re:Good news everybody!

[QuoteMstr]

That crap should be illegal. We, like the Europeans, ought to have a single charger standard for everyone.

Re:Good news everybody!

[Paul Carver]

Or just pick up some AA batteries: http://www.buy.com/prod/energizer-ipodpowr2-energi-to-go-portable-ipod-charger-portable/q/loc/111/211278019.html

I paid a lot less than buy.com is charging in that link but maybe I caught it on sale.

Re:Good news everybody!

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

An equivalent costs 2.99 GBP from Maplins in the UK, including 2 AA batteries (that's from an actual shop, so presumably cheaper from elsewhere).

Re:Good news everybody!

[PitaBred]

They are already quite efficient. An extra 5-10% in efficiency isn't going to make any appreciable gains in battery life. The problem is that they have features. Right now, you can either have lots of features and little battery life, or few features and long battery life. The only solution to having lots of features and long battery life is to make a better battery.

Re:Good news everybody!

[rdnetto]

The cable isn't such an issue since you'll have to carry it around anyway. As for the drivers, they're required by the USB spec - apparently the device needs to identify itself before it can receive more power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power). I've always wondered why they don't just use some generic USB Power device driver, or if it exists why they don't use it...

Re:Good news everybody!

[EEPROMS]

or just carry a USB cable (I actually leave one at work and carry one) so you can charge your phone anywere really. If you really get desperate go to a internet cafe and plug your phone in for 1 hr and surf the net.

Re:Good news everybody!

[drawfour]

Instead of swapping the battery out of an iPhone, you can always get an external add-on battery.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10831&cs_id=1083110&p_id=5867&seq=1&format=2

Re:Good news everybody!

[tepples]

apparently the device needs to identify itself before it can receive more power

That was the case until the Battery Charging Spec.

Re:Good news everybody!

[tepples]

thousands of 5V USB outlets available in civilization.

True, you can find USB power at any desk, but not on the bus, and not in the mall.

Re:Good news everybody!

[zippthorne]

But, like any other phone, you can buy a connector at any pharmacy that will drain a pair of lithiums into the cell phone in 20 minutes.

Re:Good news everybody!

[v4vijayakumar]

iPhone -- you can't remove the battery

carry another iPhone. fixed. :)

Re:Good news everybody!

[v4vijayakumar]

Apple (No User Serviceable Parts) Marketing Department

that is a great idea. how about "No-User-Chargeable", "No-User-Usable", etc. huh?

Re:Good news everybody!

[chill]

Steve Jobs, is that you? :-)

Good luck with that

[Rix]

You're not going to be able to run the dialer app without a CPU.

Perhaps they just need better batteries.

[jellomizer]

I can usually get 12 hours off my iPhone during heavy usage. Days on light use. I don't think that the iPhone is considered a low end power consuming device. I think it is just the case they need higher quality batteries in their device, where the current one probably made the phone a little cheaper. Granted CPU usage will overtake battery growth... Batteries tend to approve linearly while Computation increases exponentially. However these gloom and doom stories we hear over and over again, never really come into play. As we find workarounds, and the fact our needs have changed. For example on the old cell phones they use to have an analog/digital switch that took a lot of power. Most new phones today are all digital so we save energy. Perhaps when we get to the point most cell phones will work over VoIP so they don't need features for the normal calls and text messages. As well it can turn off its cell service when we are in HotSpots, saving more energy.

Re:Perhaps they just need better batteries.

[MrCrassic]

I can reach similarly lengthy runtimes on my iPhone as well, but it all goes to shit as soon as Wifi is enabled...

I really hope that research in reducing power consumption on 3G and Wifi networks is hot right now. Being able to do this would be a HUGE plus.

Re:Perhaps they just need better batteries.

[PitaBred]

I'm not sure WiFi would save any energy. I actually think it uses more, since the wifi transmitters have to use so much less power. From people I know that have WiFi enabled phones, wifi doesn't save them a ton of energy. It just makes browsing faster and gives them connections where they wouldn't otherwise have one.

pffffttt..

[0110011001110101]

no biggie, desk charger... check, car charger.. check, nightstand charger.. check. I don't spend more than 10 minutes between any one of those things... so give me all the features baby, i only need 10 minutes between plug in times. (obligatory thats what she said!)

Re:pffffttt..

[Locke2005]

I don't spend more than 10 minutes between any one of those things. And yet, you still refer to it as a "wireless" phone?!?

Re:pffffttt..

[swanzilla]

I don't spend more than 10 minutes between any one of those things. And yet, you still refer to it as a "wireless" phone?!?

I think the reference was to a cellular phone. Wireless phone options are typically more along the line of intercom to built in charger/answering machine unit, adjustable ringer volume, and caller ID. These wireless phones are not considered "smartphones" by most.

Re:pffffttt..

[MemoryAid]

I forgot my combo wall/car charger in a hotel, you insensitive clod!

The problem is not CPU-power or display size

[Casandro]

The problem why most computing devices suck today is that are to restricted and often to cumbersome to use.
The iPhone was only successfull, because it is easy to use. It's still heavily restricted, for example you cannot do application development on it.
Windows Mobile devices are not much less restricted than the iPhone, but are harder to use.

At least for geeks this might change with newer Linux-based devices running on distributions like Maemo. For example my N810 can do nearly everything your unixoid workstation can do. Sure it's limited in display and keyboard, but seriously, you cannot fit a 30" display into a portable device, can you? I can simply ssh to other computers, or even ssh from them to my portable device. I can simply use apt-get to install packages, and if it shouldn't be availiable, it should be possible to compile it on the device.

There already is a tradeoff

[mcsqueak]

I feel there already is a tradeoff. I have an iPhone 3GS, and I know that if I surf the internet or play games for 3-4 hours I'll all but kill the battery. A 2 hour bike ride with the GPS turned on and my route-tracking app running will suck nearly 50% of the battery life from it.

If I'm going to be out of the house or away from the office all day without a chance to charge the devices, I know I need to limit the amount of needless browsing or playing I do with the phone, in order to make sure I have enough power to actually use it when I need to, you know, make a phone call.

Re:There already is a tradeoff

[Orange Crush]

I feel there already is a tradeoff. I have an iPhone 3GS, and I know that if I surf the internet or play games for 3-4 hours I'll all but kill the battery. A 2 hour bike ride with the GPS turned on and my route-tracking app running will suck nearly 50% of the battery life from it.

You can get one of these, or a try a more do-it-yourself option

Re:There already is a tradeoff

[SuiteSisterMary]

I was shocked the other day when I noticed that running my 3gs with 'everything' on and TomTom, the car charger was keeping the battery at 58%. Not 'charging' it.

What I'd love is a simple app (in the app store, dammit) which lets you define profiles. When I'm driving, I don't need wi-fi on, I probably don't need 3G on. When I'm at the office, I don't need location services on, I don't need 3G on, but I do need wi-fi on. And so on.

Re:There already is a tradeoff

[PitaBred]

I don't know about the iPhone, but I know my wife's G1 has an app that lets her define ring profiles depending on her GPS location. One thing at work, another at home, and so on. I'd think that connections would be able to be similarly switched via an app.

Re:There already is a tradeoff

[mcsqueak]

You can get one of these, or a try a more do-it-yourself option

That first link is pretty cool, I've never seen that before. I have considered getting one of those cases with a built-in supplemental battery for longer bike rides.

Re:There already is a tradeoff

[Adm.Wiggin]

On Android it's called Locale, but my experience has been that you really have to setup time periods for it to be the most effective. To accurately detect location, it claims you need to have network location, Wifi, and GPS turned on. These are the kinds of things I'd like to control the "on and off" values of based on location, so it's not terribly useful to say "while I'm within X meters of office, turn off GPS and sound".

Re:There already is a tradeoff

[bar-agent]

What I'd love is a simple app (in the app store, dammit) which lets you define profiles. When I'm driving, I don't need wi-fi on, I probably don't need 3G on. When I'm at the office, I don't need location services on, I don't need 3G on, but I do need wi-fi on. And so on.

That's a good idea. A better idea would be a hardware "feature switch," something like a three-position slider switch where each position turns features off or on according to the preferences you set in software.

Re:There already is a tradeoff

[RMH101]

Jailbreak it and install SBsettings. A swipe across the top of the screen gives you a pop up window with nice on/off buttons for all hardware features, plus there are plugins available for it for many other apps/services so it can be added to. It's a great app, and worth jailbreaking for itself.
I have toggles for 3g, bluetooth, brightness, keepawake (stops it going into standby for when I'm downloading something), phone, processes (kill unwanted processes or ones that don't exit cleanly), ssh, scrobble, wifi and also have shortcuts to respring and reboot. It's worth having.

This presents another great opportunity

[Britz]

Nowdays the hardware is all the same. All smartphones have 3G, Wifi, GPS and Bluetooth, some have FM receivers. The difference now is all in the software. As much as I dislike the IPhone I guess it still has an edge over other models in that area.

Anyways, less and less power consumption in different parts of the phone could be new way for the hardware makers to differentiate themselves.

Samsung for example makes phones with Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android and their own Smartphone OS. HTC competes with them with their Windows Mobile and Android phones.

backpack batteries ?

[polar red]

backpack-size batteries? like a proton-pack ?

Fight or flight?

[MrCrassic]

I'm sure that the companies and individuals that heavily dealt with the inception of the smartphone knew that this was an inevitability. The more demanding a service becomes, the more the service has to provide; simple as that.

I think that fleeing from the problem --- mobile users demanding more ways to use their powerful devices --- is NOT the way to handle it. Can you really consider re-separating the mobile phone, media player and internet device for the sake of battery life progress? I know that the intention is not this extreme, but even the consideration of such a notion does technically promote these lines of thinking.

Like overcoming Moore's Law, this is a problem that needs to be fought. Many research groups are looking into new types of battery cells which are safer and more power-efficient. Mobile operating systems are increasingly recognizing problematic areas in power consumption, and are addressing them readily.

What I think Jobs is or will land up doing is imposing some kind of far-fetched condition for future iPhones; something like, "Make the iPhone run for two or three days with 3G and wireless enabled, Twitter and AIM in the background (via push notification) and my Bob Dylan collection going." Seems impossible...until their jobs are on the line.

Why do I need so many batteries?

[Entropius]

I carry with me regularly:

--a cell phone, with utterly crappy battery life (You've heard about $15 phones with great battery life? This is one of the other $15 phones.)
--a digital camera, with a big fat Li-Ion that lasts for well over a thousand shots
--a netbook, again with a big fat battery

This is rather absurd. I can understand these devices having custom battery form factors, but the power itself should be reroutable. They're all just Li-Ion batteries producing (close to) some multiple of 3.7V; I should be able to run my phone off of my camera's battery, say, when the phone goes flat... or just carry around a big Li-Ion pack in my pocket and run anything I care to off of it. Batteries are flat and I'm in the middle of nowhere? Plug in a solar panel and charge everything, without having to mess with all this DC -> AC -> DC conversion.

In the early days of electricity, before the centralized power grid, families had large batteries they'd charge off of a generator, and then run various things off of by doing the wiring themselves, ad-hoc. We need something similar, but for portable DC setups.

Re:Why do I need so many batteries?

[thpr]

This (almost) all exists today, if you're willing to buy the components required. (Almost depends on who built your camera)

Kensington will sell you cell phone connectors that will allow you to charge a cell phone from a laptop or other USB power source. It also has a portable battery that can provide an additional charge for your cell phone. Or step up to a fully universal laptop battery if you want to power that netbook

Some cameras can also be charged from USB, allowing you to use the Kensington portable battery or your netbook. Google to find out if yours can be charged that way.

There are at least half a dozen systems to charge a laptop (or in your case, a netbook) from solar power, effectively making it your portable power station, using solar power as the source.

Being hungry can force eating too.

[Minwee]

As always, it comes down to consumer choice. Do you want an MC-900-Foot-Jesus-Phone with a library of twelve thousand different fart noises at your fingertips which goes from fully charged to flat in six hours, or would you rather tote around a nigh-indestructible Motofone F3 with a battery which lasts over a week on a single charge, but has no features beyond voice and SMS?

I would advise you to vote with your wallet and let the market decide, but you'd have to buy a new F3 every day for over three weeks just to add up to the cost of The Other Phone so it seems that some votes count more than others.

Charging speed.

[RightSaidFred99]

People always focus on charge capacity and energy usage, but charging speed is just as important. If they can make batteries that charge in a few minutes (or hell, 30 seconds) I wouldn't mind at all if the battery only lasts 6 hours under heavy use. Put some research into that.

Re:Charging speed.

[vlm]

If they can make batteries that charge in a few minutes (or hell, 30 seconds) I wouldn't mind at all if the battery only lasts 6 hours under heavy use. Put some research into that.

No, they'll never do that. The problem isn't chemistry or volume but energy transfer.

OK, the fine article was talking about 1500 milliamp-hour batteries. So, a huge simplification, but that is an energy storage of 1500 milliamps for one hour. There are 60 minutes in a hour, or, rephrased, that battery holds 90000 milliamp-minutes of energy. Standard SI prefix conversion, that's 90 amp-minutes of energy.

Unless its a perpetual motion device (which would be a very handy thing to have around) what goes in equals what goes out. Draw out 90 amp-minutes, its going to require 90 amp-minutes to recharge, or a little more due to inefficiency. So, to shove 90 amp-minutes of energy into a battery in 30 seconds, would take an average current of 180 amps.

Mosey on down to yer local home depot, or other fine retailer of electrician supplies, and ask for a piece of electrical cable capable of passing 200 amps or so, depending on the clerk's competence and local electrical codes, they'll probably suggest 2/0 gauge copper per NEC standards, which vaguely resembles a copper wire rope the diameter of yer thumb. You'll need two such cables, one for positive and one for negative. Then for a good time ask them for very durable connector capable of handling 200 amps, and you'll probably get an anderson powerpole which is roughly the size of an 8-track tape, somewhat bigger than the entire phone you're trying to charge in 30 seconds. You might have seen those connectors on electric forklifts and their chargers...

For extra fun, consider the wattage of that charger. 180 amps at maybe 4 volts is a healthy 720 watts, roughly the power draw of a one horsepower motor, or perhaps a small microwave oven. I would NOT want to be nearby when that bad boy shorts out or otherwise fails!

Re:Charging speed.

[RightSaidFred99]

True dat. I guess you'd need a non-charging battery, e.g. hydrogen or some other technology where the potential isn't recharged with electricity.

Re:Charging speed.

[Lehk228]

please explain to me how storing compressed flammable gas on my desk and in my pocket is more desirable than a high powered electrical system.

The best solution is to standardize on a certain set of rechargeable battery shapes and power outputs and make them cheap enough that you can keep an extra battery on every charger.

Re:Charging speed.

[the_one(2)]

Gah please don't ever put say anything like "90 amp-minutes of energy" again! Amp minutes would be a unit of electrical charge. Sorry about the nitpick.

Re:Charging speed.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Gah please don't ever put say anything like "90 amp-minutes of energy" again! Amp minutes would be a unit of electrical charge. Sorry about the nitpick.

How much is it? Minute?

Re:Charging speed.

[HornWumpus]

Recharge them with wholesome booze.

Re:Charging speed.

[zippthorne]

Don't be daft. With per-cell switching, you just arrange hundreds of shallow cells in parallel for normal operation and in one gigantic series bank to charge at 1 amp and 200 V across the stack. Then you can use 18 gauge wires if the run is short enough.

The only downside is that you can't power the phone while charging it.

Re:Charging speed.

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Mosey on down to yer local home depot, or other fine retailer of electrician supplies, and ask for a piece of electrical cable capable of passing 200 amps or so, depending on the clerk's competence and local electrical codes, they'll probably suggest 2/0 gauge copper per NEC standards, which vaguely resembles a copper wire rope the diameter of yer thumb

You don't connect the phone to the wall using the battery voltage. 330W at 48V is a very reasonable 6.9A. You step down the voltage to the correct charge voltage using a DC-DC converter. Models on PC motherboards already handle 150A or more.

Now, how you keep the battery from catching fire while you do that is a completely different question.

Re:Charging speed.

[Judebert]

Thank you. This is exactly the same issue with fast-recharging electric cars (mine actually uses the 2/0 cable for its traction battery): you'd need a cable with a 3-foot diameter to recharge the batteries quickly.

The batteries I'm using actually LIKE a quick charge at high currents (150A or more). But I can't provide anything greater than ~13A from that little outlet on the wall.

size matters ...

[BenBoy]

From the FA: Battery power and life is "by and large a function of the chemistry in the battery,"
Yeah, and the battery size, maybe? I could go with double the battery volume in my iphone for twice the life; yup, that'd be just about fine with me.

Thin is In

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

A trend I've noticed for both smartphones and laptops is the constant drive to reduce size and make devices thinner. Smaller and thinner is trendier. Frankly, I wish they're just make an iPhone or laptop twice as thick, thus quadrupling the battery life. I'm not a weakling. I can carry a bit more weight especially if the device is functional enough to take over the function of some other devices I would otherwise carry.

Re:Thin is In

[fabs64]

Kind've on-topic: You can get a third party replacement battery for the G1 that's 2300mhA and about a third thicker, comes with a replacement backplate.

Re:Thin is In

[BikeHelmet]

You have a misconception of how much of a laptop is battery.

If you had a laptop twice as thick, and battery was somehow shoved into 80% of that extra room, you would have almost 10x the capacity that you do now.

Just keep in mind that that much Lithium in a single device could be used for terrorism and isn't allowed on airplanes. Also, CE/FCC testing would likely fail, so you probably wouldn't be able to sell such a laptop in North America.

Same problem with that 250-hour Hydrogen fuel cell laptop that sony made. Can't sell it until regulations change! (not that a hydrogen fuel cell lappy is at all affordable!)

Re:Thin is In

[Judebert]

Hallelujah, brother! I bought a Treo, simplifying my life immensely by merging my phone and planner. My big complaint is that it's so small! I can't comfortably hold it between my ear and shoulder, and although I could get one of those BlueTooth borg adapters, it would increase my power consumption considerably (and look stupid, too).

Replaceable batteries would help, of course. But I think the best solution is to provide *bigger* phones. I want better capabilities, not thinner cases!

Laptops are a different matter. If you're lugging that thing around all day without even a handle, you want something below 5 pounds. But I think I could handle a 1- or 2-pound phone with no problem at all.

Re:Thin is In

[Toothpick]

Like this one for the n810?

A new chargers infrastructure ?

[S3D]

It seems it will be a while before there will be significant progress in batteries. As a stop-gap measure is it realistic to deploy network of chargers? Chargers at cafe, shops, gov offices, ATM and phone booths. Preferably inductive chargers to evade connectors hell. Cellular network operators can brand them, to give them incentive. Payment can go into phone bill.

Set proper expectations...

[rickb928]

My G-1 had horrible battery life.

Until I realized that it was more netbook than it was cell phone.

Now I have my expectations set correctly, and I'm not so disappointed with the battery life. Oh, it could be better, maybe, and I would like more than about 9 hours typical life before it goes into the low battery profile, but I now know it is just not a cell phone.

It's more.

And that takes more power.

And we don't have batteries that do that.

Can we squeeze some methane fuel cells into the available form factor? I wish...

Has to be said

[kenp2002]

I for one welcome our newfound elite high powered smart phones and offer my services subjugating the less powerful smart phones as the growing energy gap widens between them. With the vanishing middle class of smart phones it is obvious that the high powered multifeatured phones will rule the less powerful, featureless unwashed masses of crapgadgets.

Eventually a new breed of simple highpowered basic phones using E-ink technology will eventually overpopulate and violently overthrow the elite phones in which I will help in this revolution, betraying the high powered smart phones at the most inopportune time, thus endearing me to the savage phone armies and securing once again my place of comfort as I exploit the peasantry.

No solution in sight?

[zmollusc]

Way back in the time of analogue mobile phones I had a nokia whose battery pack was six AA sized Ni-Cad cells. All the phones I have had over the last 6 years have had batteries the size of a wafer-thin mint and, by staggering coincidence, short operating times.
Making the phone twice as thick would give you approx 1000% more room for the battery.

I have THE solution!

[just fiddling around]

One word: MintyBoost.

am I the only one who read...

[blackfrancis75]

Schreck estimates power requirements can grow 15% a year.
He made the assertion, before walking back down to his hovel in the swamp, with Donkey and Fiona.

Re:how is this news?

[Grishnakh]

You're missing the point, which is that apparently smartphones are doing really well in the market now, and people want more and more functionality and power, but the makers are running up against power limits with the batteries they're using.

To use your car analogy, it's sorta like customers demanding ever-larger engines in their ever-larger cars, but not wanting bigger fuel tanks or higher gas bills. Right now, people aren't clamoring for V12 and V16 engines making 1000+ bhp, so there's no news there, but there would be if people were buying V16 (or W16) engines left and right, especially if they were then complaining about the bad fuel economy.

mod parent up

[argent]

You don't even have to go back that far... just a few years ago my phone could go a long weekend on a charge, now I have to keep an eye on the "bars" if I forget to plug it in every night.

And somehow I was able to carry that Nokia "bar" phone with a fat battery pack in my pocket. It was only about 20% longer than my current clamshell phone, and no thicker or wider. Give me that 20% back, and eliminate the extra space taken up by the second screen (since it wouldn't need one), two extra layers of shell and hinges, and I'll bet I could get 3x the battery life in a phone that's more rugged and simpler to make.

Besides, you know what they say about a man who has a really small phone.

Re:mod parent up

[BikeHelmet]

You struck the nail on the head. 1500mah batteries are really puny. I've seen 4250 mah in similar sized devices. (somewhere between a DS and DS lite in size, but a bit thicker)

A fat phone(or heck, just a larger phone in all directions) could have magnitudes larger batteries and battery life.

Re:mod parent up

[Judebert]

Indeed; I've got 1500mAH NiMH AA batteries. Of course, that leaves off the very important question of voltage. I wonder what a cell phone uses?

1500mAh?

[DBCubix]

1500mAh may be the high water mark for cell-phones, but certainly not the current high water mark. I know my Roomba vacuum uses 3000mAh batteries and I can even get 4500's if needed. But then carrying about a cellphone with a Roomba battery attached to it would certainly suck.

Re:1500mAh?

[TeknoHog]

But then carrying about a cellphone with a Roomba battery attached to it would certainly suck.

Not to mention cellphones with some other parts of a Roomba.

Fake problem. Fake news.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

It depends on the phone, period. Since the first mobile phone, some phones have had longer battery life than others, and the only reason why some newer phones have less battery life is because the guys who made them decided it was OK.

Battery life is directly proportional to the size of the battery!

It is about form over function. If they wanted to they could make the iPhone last 15% longer by making the battery however bigger it needs to be to accomplish that.

As for behavior, the reason why the iPhone sucks so bad in this area is because it doesn't have a removable battery. Even non-smart phone users that need their phone for prolonged periods of time know how to "adjust" their behavior... It's known as keeping a spare battery . Whether its digital cameras or laptops or whatever, that is the only trade-off for most devices.

Also, I don't see how mobile phones could be all that different from mobile computers, which recently have all doubled or even tripled in battery life, with a combination of market demand and the prioritizing of more efficient CPUs and computer parts.

If people want phones to last longer, they will. The trade-offs will be made by the manufacturers, not the users.

Body fat to battery power

[Aqualung812]

You're on to something here, better bookmark your comment and file a submarine patent, just in case someone can make it work!

Re:Body fat to battery power

[Rob Riggs]

Too late. This is from 2005: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/15/0352255

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Mobile devices are easy

[sjbe]

The problem why most computing devices suck today is that are to restricted and often to cumbersome to use.

Since you clearly know what to do why don't you go and fix the problem Mr. Smartypants. I'm sure you'll find it is a trivial problem to solve. I'm sure all those engineers would never think of trying to get a competitive leg up by actually designing a better phone.

The iPhone was only successfull, because it is easy to use. It's still heavily restricted, for example you cannot do application development on it.

Umm, exactly what do you think all those applications in the app store are? 2007 called and it wants its iPhone criticisms back.

If you are talking about actually doing development ON an iPhone instead of FOR an iPhone, I can't for a second fathom why you would want to subject yourself to that much pain...

Re:Mobile devices are easy

[Casandro]

If you are talking about actually doing development ON an iPhone instead of FOR an iPhone, I can't for a second fathom why you would want to subject yourself to that much pain...

Because I have a problem an I need to use a computer. Therefore I need to programm it and cannot wait until someone on another computer has developed a program for me.

The iPhone is nothing more than an appliance, a device made for people who cannot program.

Multicore solution

[g00ey]

Perhaps using multiple cores can do the trick. Say that we have the following cores:

1. Basic-core This handles the basic operations on the phone and is run at all time
2. Basic User interface core. When the user starts interacting with the phone this one kicks in and handles the basic operations
3. Advanced User interface This one starts as soon as more CPU intensive tasks are being engaged such as browsing through pictures, writing SMS/MMS (using dictionary lookups) etc
4. Multimedia core This core is activated when playing audio and/or video

Only the first of the 4 cores is active all the time and depending on user operation the others are activated/deactivated accordingly so as to consume minimal wattage. Perhaps the settings can provide the user with the options of forcing core 3 to be disabled to save power and/or forcing it to be enabled (when core 2 is enabled) so as to ensure GUI speed. If the battery runs out the phone can automatically enforce some of the cores to stay disabled until the battery is put on recharge...

This is just an idea but maybe it works...

Re:Multicore solution

[topologicalanomaly47]

Yes and no... You already have multiple cores if you want: besides the general purpose cpu you usually have a dsp core used for a/v decoding. It's usually best to have a core as fast as possible that will spend most of the time idling (race to idle) than to have many cores running all the time. Not to mention the expense of silicon surface. And in the end imagine the nightmare of programming for such a platform.

Re:Multicore solution

[g00ey]

I think this setup could be considerably easier to program than a regular system with a lot of "general-purpose" cores.

Writing code that gives the user the option of using 1 or 2 cores for GUI is merely a matter of how the instruction stream should be routed. When designing a GUI, multiple threads is inevitable so the problem is to classify them and determine which core is best suited for a given thread (when using both GUI cores).
The multimedia-core shouldn't be too much of a problem to implement.

The only significant problem I see here is how things should be synchronized; if the cores are not well-synced it could get sluggish just because core 1 is waiting for core 2 or the other way around etc...

This makes me think of the good old days when the Amiga was popular. The co-processor, or copper was synced with the video signal which made scrolling really smooth. So programming multiple cores isn't that far fetched; if it was possible in the '80s, it is possible now, and with the aid of open-source communities I'm sure people wouldn't mind the challenge.

I don't know if this would be better setup than a single core solution from a power-consumption perspective. However I feel that a core that is shut down consumes 0W whereas an idling core always consumes something. The advantage with the multiple cores is that they are optimized for their own application so that the first 2 cores could be very lean whereas the second 2 could be a little more power hungry.
From a performance perspective this must be a better solution if it is well-implemented, because it could ensure immediate response when using the dialing functions while allowing for some lag when using multimedia functions...

Then you mention the expense of silicon-surface which I'm sure ain't cheap. However, there are a lot of standard components out there for e.g. multimedia, perhaps it is possible to take advantage of them.

But maybe this is too far fetched, these are just ideas that came to my mind...

Re:Multicore solution

[topologicalanomaly47]

The fact that we don't see many specialized multicores around still supports my opinion. In order to switch a core on/off you need something that accepts commands from software and that something should be running all the time - let's say that the base core takes care of that. You still have lot's of cores switching on and off, overlapping from time to time. Not to mention the base core that would be busy all the time - running basic functions and switching the others on and off. The bottom line: a basic core running consumes a lot more than an advanced core idling. I can't find a number but I bet that a smartphone cpu say the omap3 idles at pretty much nothing. Microchip PIC mcu's can idle drawing less power than the natural discharge rate of a battery - just to give you an idea. I think that we won't see many specialized cores soon inside smartphones outside the graphics and multimedia area.

Re:Multicore solution

[bhtooefr]

That actually already kinda exists, especially #1. The chips do power up sooner than you'd like, but they're running idle until they're needed.

1 is an ARM9 running the baseband
2 and 3 is an ARM11, ARM Cortex-A8, or ARM Cortex-A9
3 and 4 is usually a PowerVR 3D graphics chip

Re:how is this news?

[PitaBred]

Computers are magic, though. And if you've ever done tech support, you'd realize the average consumer honestly thinks this.

how sad

[way2trivial]

yer never away from sleeping or desk for more than 5 hours?

ever heard of things known as weekends.. where people sometimes go outside all day long?
  'course, I also leave my phone behind on those days

Re:how sad

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I use weekends to catch up on my sleep, save for a couple of trips out, such as church or the kid's soccer game, but neither of those last 5 hours.

Even then, I'm usually in a vehicle which contains a 12V-to-USB adapter, and for the stranger weekend trips, I'm using the GPS capabilities of the phone (G1 built in for my wife's case, bluetooth to an external GPS unit in mine) for navigation.

Reduce load

[MrPhilby]

How about better control over power use. For how long does the WIFI need to be on, and also the Bluetooth. Rather than forcing people to turn on and off various radios (which is unrealistic) design software that can be a little bit more intuitive. I'm so shocked in this modern age how little software learns from how the operator uses the technology. If every day I turn on my phone at lunchtime to check my email, surely the system should be able to learn this (and other patterns) and pre-empt my needs saving power and the need to leave connected power drains. Also, in the end all we are doing is changing information and transmitting it. Of course to transmit requires energy, but information itself has no weight and requires zero energy. So 100% of energy used processing information is due to inefficiency (resistance,leakage) and could be eliminated. When I lived powered by photovoltaics for 10 years, the 1st thing I learnt was to buy extremely low power tech and restrict usage, rather than increase battery size.

Nobel Pees Prize?

[Rob Riggs]

Just whiz on your phone when you need more power: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/08/urine-power.html

Plug it in

[alohatiger]

In my car, my phone is powered.
At my desk, my phone is powered.
At home, my phone is powered.

The only time battery life is an issue is when I'm away from a place to plug the phone in. If my life were like a sanitary napkin commercial (riding horses, running through grassy fields, etc.) I'd have a much harder time keeping my iPhone charged.

Re:drop the plans

[mattack2]

You can go way lower than $30/month, especially if you're carrying it essentially as an "emergency" phone. I think of it as "a pay phone in your pocket". (Though I let mine lapse since I currently have a work supplied phone.)

http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm

Phones need to display detailed power usage

[mrshermanoaks]

If phones could display detailed and accurate information as to the power usage of each application, we'll be able to evaluate applications not only based on features and stability but also power consumption. Apps could compete to use the least amount of power, or be configurable individually to balance battery & speed.

meh...

[fireball84513]

Necessity is the mother of invention, if this goes too far, some genius will come up with the answer

What Fireball84513 said

[Niubi]

There's all kinds of ways to create power and energy, after all. In the meantime, I just like to keep up with the latest in gadgets - the only way I've been able to afford this is by going to http://www.dubli.com./ It's a helluva experience and beats Best Buy by a country mile!

Not just "smart" phones

[mdwh2]

I agree. And it's not just "smart" phones (a category which is pretty arbitrary now that most phones can do the things that were once smart phone features, such as running applications and Internet access).

I've got a 4 year old phone that I can happily access the Internet on. The thing which limits me isn't the features, the interface, the browser or anything like that - they're all fine. The big problem is that Internet access sucks battery. Basically my choice is "Do I have a phone, or access the Internet?"

Similarly with playing mp3s. It functions fine as a 2GB mp3 player, but only lasts about 6 hours. The problem being that after that, I can't play either mp3s, or use my phone. So I still stick with separate devices.

And finally, the iPhone. I have yet to see that thing make it from the time I would wake up to the time I would go to sleep without a charge. From what I've seen (I don't have one - my girlfriend does), it needs charged twice a day.

Ouch. Thanks for the warning - with all the hype about its use for Internet access, I'd assumed that modern phones, especially high end expensive ones, had fixed this problems. I think I'll stick with my Motorola V980 :)

and the 2300 rocks!

[big_paul76]

Let me highly recommend getting the big after-market battery on the G1.

A G1 only fits in the pocket of a suit jacket or something, which for me is maybe 10 days a year, so I'm carrying it in a belt-clip holder anyway. So who cares if the phone is thicker as a result?

Also, it actually makes typing on the keyboard much more comfortable.

The 1100 mAh battery is a real design flaw of the G1, but with the 2300 one I don't even worry about using wi-fi, keeping the brightness cranked, or whatever.

Bring back the brick-sized phones!

[Lproven]

The big fat extended battery is one of the things I miss from my HTC Universal from before it got stolen.

640*480 VGA screen, touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard - albeit a lousy one - 3G, SDHC, IRDA, Wifi, Bluetooth, 2 cameras, one for video, one for photos - that phone had nearly everything. And with the 4.8Ah battery I had, not only did the camera still work and so on, but it ran for a whole long weekend of heavy use on a single charge. I could leave home for work Friday morning, go away for a weekend, and it'd still be going when I got back to the office on Monday morning to charge it. OK, so, it was fat with the big battery and no longer fitted in its case - but totally worth it.

The only snags were the disastrous keyboard - poor layout, but app keys for the various bundled programs in the main alpha block, so if you didn't quite hit the space bar, you left your current app in mid-sentence and entered the web browser or something - and the fact that it ran Windows Mobile. Which is utterly horrid.

My current Nokia E90 does more and has a better keyboard, but it has no touchscreen, can't charge over USB, lacks a standard headphone socket and if I use it hard its battery is dead in 5-6hr. If I use my wonderful media phone as an MP3 player or radio all day, and navigate using its GPS, before sunset it's dead - and I can't charge it without the special Nokia charger. Old ones don't work, they changed the connector size.

If I tether it to my notebook it works fine as a 3.5G modem - but its battery is dead in 2-3hr of use.

And no extended ones are available.

It's so stupid it's tragic.