Is iPhone Battery Usefulness On the Decline?

False Comparison by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 12:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is because the original iPhone used EDGE. If you force future version off the 3G network, talk time beats the first generation iPhone easily.

Re:False Comparison by timeOday · 2012-09-13 14:00 · Score: 4, Informative

What comparison? Despite all the blabbering there is actually no comparison in the article. Here's the key part:

Synthesizing the rumors and supposed leaks about the iPhone 5[...essentially baseless speculation.] Tests and assessments from reviewers and pundits will come next week, but will undoubtedly deviate from Apple's numbers.
In other words, nothing is known.
Re:False Comparison by Telvin_3d · 2012-09-13 14:06 · Score: 5, Informative

Sure there is. General>Network and top of the page is enable/disable 3G
Re:False Comparison by arekin · 2012-09-13 14:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think the comparison is one of Battery life not keeping up with battery usage in newer devices. Technology is not increasing at the same rate, but the expectation is still there, especially for people who previously owned earlier versions of the iPhone. What most people see is not "my iPhone battery consumption is high because of increase demand from data networks", but rather "I never had to charge my old iPhone this much." Its like comparing movies sales in 2012 dollars, its a perfectly valid statement to make, even though we all know what causes the reduced data usage.

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Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
Re:False Comparison by Macman408 · 2012-09-13 15:33 · Score: 4, Informative

This is both carrier and iOS version-specific. I believe iOS 5.0 and 5.0.1 did not have the option at all, while 5.1 restored it, but not on some networks, including AT&T. (I have a 4S with iOS 5.1.1 on AT&T, and can confirm that there is no option to disable 3G in the Network settings.)
Re:False Comparison by Guspaz · 2012-09-13 15:59 · Score: 4, Informative

I see the option on iOS 5.1.1 on Fido (Rogers).
Re:False Comparison by Guspaz · 2012-09-13 16:00 · Score: 4, Informative

For some, it makes sense. Bell, for example, has no GSM network; they migrated from CDMA (EVDO) to HSPA+. Disabling 3G on a Bell iPhone would simply cut all connectivity.
Re:False Comparison by jbolden · 2012-09-13 16:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

Apple from a profit standpoint would much rather have a big cheap battery than the incredibly expensive light thin batteries they have. Heck they would rather sell the phone hooked up to a car battery and give you 1000 hrs talk time. Light and thin is costing them money, this isn't about penny pinching.
Re:False Comparison by jbolden · 2012-09-14 00:18 · Score: 5, Interesting

Apple isn't doing anything differently in this regard than any other phone manufacturer.
They use the highest density most expensive option. A few years ago this cost quite a bit more and fewer companies used them.
However, as a consumer, i'd rather a design concept like the motorola razr maxx, prepared to have a bit more thickness if it means the phone will last a weekend without charging.
I understand. I own the MacBook Pro Retina which made huge sacrifices for thin and light. People really like thin and light when they see it, when they try it. But just like the move from desktops to laptops, thin and light likely means 30% less device for 30% more money.

More power for the same battery life is Good by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 12:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

And as competitive as smartphones are today that's close to as good as we'll get for a bit. There IS a type of Lithium-ion battery that can store twice the charge of today's batteries at the same volume, but that's apparently coming to electric cars first; which obviously spend a lot more on batteries per unit and are in far more need of it.

But expect these batteries in phones at some point. In the further future the most promising technology is lithium-air batteries, which offer up to 10x the current charge per volume as today. But there are still numerous problems with them, and so an ETA there would be indefinite but quite possibly less than a decade. Still, imagine a phone that would need charging less than once a week!

Re:More power for the same battery life is Good by hazydave · 2012-09-14 00:13 · Score: 4, Informative

Probably not. In some situations, LTE can actually use less power than 3G. Mine, for example. I got all-day-plus performance on my Galaxy Nexus (with the 2100mAhr battery) at my old office. That was in Philadelphia, in a very old stone building... very good 4G signal, in fact, much better in-building than 3G ever was (most of the cells in the city are going to use 1900MHz on Verizon, for the increased bandwidth, which gets more attenuation through old stone walls than the 700MHz used for LTE).
These days, I'm in an office in Downingtown, PA, in a pretty fringy 3G area. Same phone won't last a work day on standby without sitting on a charger when not in use.
Going forward, LTE will eventually save power over any form of 3G. Right now, not necessarily -- the digital protocols still take more power than either sort of 3G, but that's going to vanish as chips shrink. What you can't shrink is the need for the power amplifier (PA). Most phones want to be able to put out a signal of at least 1/2W (27dBm). The typical OFDM modulation schemes used in 3G, however, basically sum a large number of independent carriers (subcarriers) to deliver the full signal. When things line up unfortunately, you have too many signals summing high, creating a temporary power "crest".. this is known as the crest factor of a modulation scheme. For 3G as a class, this is a 6-10dB crest factor (also sometimes expressed as a PAPR -- Peak to Average Power Ratio). This means that the PA actually has to be able to support no just 27dB signals, but 37dB signals... a peak of 5W. Now, certainly, your phone isn't constantly transmitting 5W. But the PA has to be able to transmit at 5W without crushing the signal. That means the PA is going to be much less efficient than it could be at 1/2W.
Now to LTE.. the new SC-FDMA uplink modulation, presents only a single carrier on transmission, greatly reducing the PAPR/crest factor. Basically, it's a conventional OFDM modulation fed into a fourier transform, which has the effect of averaging out the high peaks. This can deliver 64QAM with a crest factor under 5dB. So you'd need an amplifier peaking at about 1.5W, rather than 5W, for the same uplink in 4G LTE vs. 3G HSPA. That's a huge win for the handset.

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-Dave Haynie

Oh, the milliamp-hours! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 12:44 · Score: 4, Funny

"As explained around the web, milliamps hours (mAh) are something like a gas tank, and voltage (V) is the amount of fuel the device is drawing."

I don't know who wrote this bullshit, but they need to be shot.

(Yes, I attempted to read the article; so sue me.)

Re:Oh, the milliamp-hours! by dido · 2012-09-13 13:30 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually, simple hydraulics and electronics have natural analogies, in that similar equations can be used for both. Milliamp-hours is a unit of charge, 1 mAh == 3.6 coloumbs, or about the charge in 3.73e-05 moles worth of electrons, so yes, it would be accurate to say that mAh can be analogised to the volume of a tank of petrol, as charge would be the equivalent of fluid volume in hydraulics. However, voltage, being in units of energy per unit charge (a volt is 1 joule per coloumb), is more like fluid pressure in hydraulics (joules per cubic metre or pascals), or at how much pressure the fuel is being sent out the gas tank, so the article is completely wrong on that score. The "amount of fuel the device is drawing" is more like current, which is measured in amperes (coloumbs per second), which would be the equivalent of flow rate in hydraulics (cubic metres per second). Thus, if you had a battery rated at 1500 mAh used on a device that drew 100 mA of current from it on use, you'd be able to use it for about 15 hours before you needed to recharge the batteries. In a similar way, if you had a tank with a volume of 1500 cubic metres and were pumping liquid out at 100 cubic metres per hour, you'd need to refill it after 15 hours.

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Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Re:Oh, the milliamp-hours! by guruevi · 2012-09-13 17:53 · Score: 5, Informative

The whole article is fluff link bait. It's a blog post on someone's opinion spread over three pages (2.25 actually, 5 sentences on the last page) to increase ad revenue.
I cringed at that notion as well and it was misinterpreted from it's source by a dipwit that claimed to do research at the outset of the article but simply Google'd some links together that are basic speculation and rumors.
There were no tests done, there were no graphics, not even a source for the technical data (not that the author would be able to interpret it correctly). Also, mixing the 3G and 2G capabilities and not understanding or explaining the difference and which one would be used at any point in time. Also, the iPhone's don't have Li-Ion batteries, they have Li-Polymer, a huge difference.
From the sparse sources claimed and misinterpreted in this article I can see:
On 2G:
iPhone - 8h talk time, 250h standby
iPhone 3G - 10h talk time, 300h standby
iPhone 3GS - 12h talk time, 300h standby
iPhone 4 - 14h talk time, 300h standby
On 3G:
iPhone - non-existent (but we'll take 8 as the base)
iPhone 3G - ~8h talk time
iPhone 3GS - ~8h talk time
iPhone 4 - 7h talk time
iPhone 4S - 8h talk time
iPhone 5 - 8h talk time
Has the battery decreased? Not really. Give or take a few given the circumstances (signal strength etc.) but probably not noticeable.
Have the features and speed increased? Yes.
When does your phone (any, not just limited to iPhone) use 3G vs 2G: It depends. The cell phone operator (or more accurately the tower) makes that decision based on the capabilities of your phone, availability of the spectrum and congestion. Which is better: 3G. Why: less congestion and more bandwidth. Why does it use more power: better voice quality, different frequencies and also continues receiving other data (e-mail and such) in the background.
There, I re-wrote the article probably much better from a technical viewpoint and it fits in a Slashdot comment.

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Better in all the ways that matter by SuperKendall · 2012-09-13 12:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

Did the original iPhone have 225 hours standby?

And the fact that you still get 8 hours browsing, even over LTE, is really impressive. It might be slightly shorter than browsing time on an original iPhone but how much browsing could you have got done on Edge? You could probably read 10x the content on the iPhone 5, so how is it not far ahead?

It comes back to the problem of looking at a raw number on a list, without thinking what that number MEANS to a user on the device.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Crap compaired to .... by frovingslosh · 2012-09-13 12:48 · Score: 4, Funny

The iPhone 5 is crap compared to the new iPhone 6 that will come out next spring.

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I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.

HUGE DECLINE by fferreres · 2012-09-13 12:52 · Score: 4, Interesting

iPhone 2G, lasts me 12 hours full use or 4 days stand by (2 days average) - still use it btw with new battery
iPhone 4 lasted me (now my wife) about 8 to 9 hours and a day and a half of light use
iPhone 4S with most battery hungry functions (eg. GPS, notifications) lasts me 6 hours of constant use, or 22 to 26 hours of light use

Now the 4S is in the brink of being unacceptable. It's still convenient and the extra speed is very appreciated. But I always need a power outlet nearby when traveling, and I cannot count on it lasting a full day. It just can't if used for browsing and apps for a couple of hours.

Now, I love the iPad 2 battery life. Puts it in the Awesome Stuff list. I am guaranteed it'll last a day. If they could have kept the 2G life and not up CPU I'd have been more interested in the iPhone 5.

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unfinished: (adj.)

Re:HUGE DECLINE by theJML · 2012-09-13 13:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

My 4S is definitely better than my 3G was, but then it was 3 years old when I traded up. I still get a days worth on either. The catch is that the 4S is so much faster and generally more useful that I end up doing more battery sucking things with it just because. It's smooth and does great transferring real time maps with GPS while streaming Pandora in the background, even over AT&T "4G".
If I leave both on the table and mostly ignore them for the day, the 4S gives me more battery life than the 3G ever did.
If I actually use them as I usually would have, the 4S loses... but I find I actually use it A LOT MORE. When I first got it I found myself thinking "Man, the battery life sucks on this" but then I realized I was bascially using it non-stop. Once I got over the "OMG NEW-SHINY" period, it's on par with what the 3G was.
In short, I think the batteries Have improved, but we now expect our phones to do more, and have found more and more ways to use them more on a more regular basis. We cram more powerful AND power hungry chips in the same package and then get annoied and act surprised when it doesn't last as long as the older ones did.
The same thing has happened to laptops... and because this is slashdot, cars. I mean, I remember in the 80's and early 90's when we had little civic hatchbacks that got 55+ MPG. Why don't we have that now? because the civic is huge in comparison, weighs almost twice as much (the old 90 DX was literally 1 ton), has A/C, power everything, huge beams and airbags for safety, etc. And everyone thinks we should have more MPG by now. Yeah. We should, except you wanted all this other crap in there too.

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-=JML=-
Re:HUGE DECLINE by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 13:37 · Score: 5, Funny

iPhone 4 lasted me (now my wife)

You married your iPhone 4? That's being too much an iFanBoi.
Re:HUGE DECLINE by Bill_the_Engineer · 2012-09-13 13:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

The iPhone 2G only uses the edge network. 3G is more power hungry than 2G (LTE even more so). This is the point everyone is making. The article is flawed because it doesn't take this into consideration. People upgraded their phone to take advantage of the more advance features, so increased power usage should be taken into account.
My android phone battery has a much shorter battery life when I travel to some locations. I believe its a function on how much power is required to maintain contact with the nearest tower (using "4G" doesn't help). Right now I'm on the road and I'm lucky to get 24 hours of "standby" time on a single charge (standby being in quotes due to email client running in background so data is being transmitted on occasion).
My iPad2 seems to last a very long time (charge once a week range), but it's WiFi only and therefore doesn't need to use power to maintain contact with a tower miles away. Also the iPad2 models that have a wireless modem built in (CDMA or GSM) has the luxury of being able to put that modem to sleep to increase battery life since it doesn't have to accept incoming phone calls (especially when a WiFi connection is available). Also the iPad2 is able to have a physically larger battery.
My point being that "Your milage may vary" due to factors like usage pattern, location in respect to cellphone towers, and the data protocol being used.

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These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...

depends on use by alen · 2012-09-13 12:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

ever since i got rid of my work email account off my ipad the battery time doubled or tripled

take 10 people off the street and you will have 10 different use patterns

Oversimplification by mosb1000 · 2012-09-13 12:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's an oversimplification to assume that a company would, or should work to increase battery life. The different features have to be weighed against each other. Performance comes at the expense of battery life. A larger battery would mean a heavier, bulkier phone. Lithium ion batters today have about the same capacity of the batteries which existed when the first iPhone was released, while power efficiency of electronics has increased significantly. They could have used these advances to increase battery life, but have instead chosen to use them to increase performance.

Re:Jokes on them! by cameloid · 2012-09-13 13:09 · Score: 5, Funny

Sometimes it IS necessary to upgrade though, it can save you real money. I used to spend $$ on firewood for sending smoke signals; but then I made a one-off payment by switching to semaphore flags. Simples!

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-- Cisk for the Cisk God

Apple pretty accurate on battery estimates by SuperKendall · 2012-09-13 13:13 · Score: 5, Informative

It remains to be seen if the iPhone 5 can really pull off 8 hours of LTE browsing

Yes, but remember that in every device Apple has shipped (from laptops to iPhones to iPads) the battery life estimates have been pretty much spot on.

as that would be impressive (blow through your data cap on a single charge)

Browsing is not watching media only. Browsing is loading pages, reading them, moving on and reading more. It's not about constant data streaming, so it's not overall something that will destroy your bandwidth - you can only read so much in eight hours!

Yes you could blow through bandwidth fast if you sat watching extremely high quality video for hours on end. But that is why mobile app developers are not giving you those really beefy data streams, instead over even LTE you'll get reduced quality video from most things unless you force the issue.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Not at all. by SuperKendall · 2012-09-13 13:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

The typical iPhone user is only considered with the number 5.

Not really. There will be a lot of iPhone 4s users that skip this update.

Heck, they could just take what they have now, make some ridiculously minor change, and then change the name and have a whole new round of sales to the macfags.

Oh the clever wit of the hater!

Oh wait, they already did that with the 4S.

Nope. Some people did upgrade, yes, but Apple had a lot more new sales. I never got a 4s because it was a minor upgrade. And now the iPhone 5 is an upgrade over the 4s, but not very large... however it is a big jump over the iPhone 4. And that's what is really most important because most people have two year contracts. For the iPhone 4 (and older) iPhone owners, the iPhone 5 is in fact a big deal.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Funny but informative by SuperKendall · 2012-09-13 13:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

The iPhone 5 is crap compared to the new iPhone 6 that will come out next spring.

Humorous.

And yet in that comment lies a revelation of why Apple's supposedly boring updates are not a problem.

Because from the 4 to the 4s, it was not that much of a leap. Or so it seemed at the time.

But now from the 4 to the 5, that is actually a pretty big jump. So even though we might see something like a 5s next year, you can be pretty sure that waiting for that will not be an amazing leap over the 5 - so there's little point to wait. And yet when the 6 does come out a year or two from now, it will probably be a really impressive gain over the iPhone 5.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Jokes on them! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 13:59 · Score: 5, Funny

You think you're saving money?
After getting a mating pair of carrier pidgeons, my transmission costs are minimal, and my bandwidth just keeps increasing. Sure there are a few lost packets to aircraft, bb guns and Richard Gere, and latency is high, but we're talking reverse data cap here.

As a telephone by FranTaylor · 2012-09-13 14:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

The $20 phones from the convenience store have more battery life and equal call quality. If you are looking for a telephone they can't be beat.

If you want to talk about carrying a computer in your pocket, that's a different story, but for pure telephone use, the cheap ones are the way to go.

War lost long ago. by PineGreen · 2012-09-13 14:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

There is absolutely nothing new here. My Nokia in 1999 had a 10 day battery life and today I recharge my HTC One S every day. It is just a fact of life that we use phones todays for so much more that the batteries just last less. No phone has a 10 day lifespan these days.

Re:No by PNutts · 2012-09-13 14:59 · Score: 5, Funny

And I'll add that I agree they are useful. Without the battery my iPhone's screen is too dark and I can't hear the audio.

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Is iPhone Battery Usefulness On the Decline?

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