New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

This battery problem has nothing to do with the new iPhone. The old  
iPhone had basically the same problem. If you leave the phone in 3G  
mode power consumption is quite heavy. If you leave the phone in  
non-3G mode but with WiFi and Bluetooth enabled, I find on either  
generation phone I can go most of the day and not go below 60% battery.

I have always berated Apple for stealing the battery on general  
principles. But if anything I find the new iPhone 3GS to be better on  
the battery again as long as you keep it out of 3G mode unless you  
need it.

Dave

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: July 3, 2009 12:15:54 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel



                    New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel

                 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000591.html


Greetings.  Before you even think about rushing out to buy the new
iPhone, you might want to read an interesting story about continuing
negative reactions to the iPhone 3GS' battery life
( http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-iphone3-2009jul03,0,2546606.story 
 ).

Of course, all smartphones are power hungry, and we use these
Internet-enabled phones for so much more than just talking.  But the
iPhone is a particularly egregious case since the battery is sealed
inside and not considered to be a "user replaceable" item.

My G1 phone also sucks a lot of juice, but I can pop in an extra
charged battery anytime, and I have an extended duration battery
(bigger is better!) to use in there as well.

With the iPhone, since battery life sucks, you're really stuck.

There are, however, some comparatively ugly workarounds.  One person
responding just now to a tweet of mine on this topic says that he uses
a solar charger.  I guess that's OK if you don't leave the iPhone
itself out in direct sun, and don't keep smashing your head into the
solar array (OK, so the solar array isn't really that big ...)

A more practical way to deal with the problem may be something like
this external battery pack
( http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2767656 -- only
$20 on sale -- 50% discount -- at Radio Shack through July 11).  You
can always duct tape it to your iPhone.  Won't that be pretty?

More generally, the whole concept of sealed-in batteries in Apple
devices strikes me as the epitome of "those suckers will buy anything
with our name on it -- boot to the head!" consumer relations.

But hey, whatever turns you on.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
  - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
  - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
  for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein




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