Looks like GCN’s concerns that Apple was overstating iPad battery life in face of IPS display power needs reached Apple CEO Steve Jobs while he was sitting in his chair enjoying his 9.7 magical, revolutionary tablet:
I e-mailed him to say that I didn’t mean to imply that he was lying during his iPad [...]
Steve Jobs Confirms 10 Hour iPad Battery Life… From his iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
According to Steve Jobs, running Flash video on the iPad would cut its battery life from 10 hours to a measly 1.5. At least, that was his pitch to Wall Street Journal execs recently. But could it possibly be true?
Well, yes and no. Jobs is picking and choosing here between hypothetical versions of Flash. If the iPad version of Flash were to have hardware acceleration, which Flash 10.1 offered up for desktops (though not OS X), that wouldn’t be remotely the case. If Flash on the iPad were to support hardware video decoding where available, it wouldn’t require nearly as much CPU. You’d lose battery life, sure, the same way you lose battery life watching any type of video on any system, but nothing near as dramatic as 85%.
Of course, that hardware acceleration isn’t currently possible on Macs, because Adobe doesn’t have access to the appropriate APIs. So Jobs can easily on a imaginary version of Flash that doesn’t have hardware acceleration and come up with an imaginary battery life impact.
Jobs’s bigger fib might be his description of ditching Flash as “trivial.” It’s not. While HTML5 is good, it’s not great—yet. And even when it becomes great, it’ll take major sites years to make the switch—however long it takes for the majority of internet users to stop uses outmoded browsers. And that won’t be for a very long time. Certainly longer than the first few generations of the iPad.
So. Would Flash make the iPad’s battery life only 1.5 hours? Maybe, maybe not. But the bigger question is: will we ever get the chance to find out for ourselves? [Gawker]
Batteries are everywhere. They’re in our phones, mice, cars, laptops, game machines, controllers, remotes, cameras—you name it. Battery technology influences the design, capabilities, and feature set of nearly everything portable, from laptops and cell phones to hybrid and electric vehicles.
Most of the batteries in our lives are rechargeable, and our more eco-aware world is quickly replacing standard alkaline AA and AAA batteries with rechargeable equivalents. Still, few people know how all these batteries work or how to best take care of them.
We’re going to focus on common rechargeable battery types, but before we get into that we should cover a few basics about how batteries work and go over common terms. Every battery has two electrodes: the anode and the cathode. In a standard nonrechargeable chemical battery, a chemical reaction oxidizes the anode (typically zinc metal powder), causing free electrons to flow through the electrolyte (ionizing solution) and out the negative terminal. The process is sustained by closing the circuit to the positive terminal, creating a continuous positive charge to the cathode (typically magnesium dioxide powder). A rechargeable battery is one that can store energy if the electron flow is reversed, because the oxidizing chemical reaction can be reversed by the application of electricity. This is, of course, an oversimplification—a detailed description of the chemistry involved in batteries, especially rechargeables, would vary depending on the type of battery and is well beyond the scope of this article.
There are lots of rechargeable battery types—standard Lead Acid car batteries were some of the first commercialized—but most of what you see in today’s electronic devices are either Nickel-Cadmium (NiCad), Nicked-Metal Hydride (NiMH), or Lithium-ion (Li-ion). If you understand these three battery types, you’ll understand 99 percent of the rechargeable batteries you’re likely to use from day to day.
All rechargeables can be measured by their energy density, the ratio of how much energy they can hold per unit of weight. Different battery types have different energy densities, but density can also be affected by improvements in manufacturing and design.
Nickel-Cadmium, or NiCad, batteries were some of the first commercially produced rechargeables, outside of car batteries. Fifteen years ago, they were everywhere. The anode is a nickel hydroxide and the cathode is the metal cadmium. By today’s standards, NiCads have a fairly low energy density, perhaps 50 watt-hours per kilogram. However, NiCads can discharge a large amount of current very rapidly without sustaining any damage, and they can take on charge very quickly, so they’re popular in some motor-driven applications like power tools.
Unfortunately, cadmium is poisonous heavy metal and this makes old NiCad batteries hard to dispose of safely. If you have a NiCad battery, you shouldn’t store it for long periods of time fully charged. NiCads have a nasty “memory effect,” where they don’t like to be recharged without being fully drained, nor stored for long periods in a fully charged state. Large crystals can form on the cell plates and prevent the battery from taking on a full charge. Every five charges or so, you should let the battery drain completely and charge it fully.
Most similar to Nickel-Cadmium are Nickel-Metal Hydride, or NiMH, batteries. Most of the rechargeable AA and AAA batteries you see on store shelves these days are NiMH, and they’re used in a lot of electric vehicles and hybrids, too. They have 30–40 percent higher energy densities than NiCad, and the replacement of cadmium with a hydrogen-absorbing alloy in the cathode makes them more environmentally sound. They don’t take well to being charged/discharged very rapidly, so a quality “smart charger” or “trickle charger” may extend the life of your battery and allow it to hold more charge longer.
NiMH batteries used to be limited to around 200 or 300 recharges before ceasing to hold a charge well, but recent advances in manufacturing methods have improved this. You can now get NiMH batteries that recharge up to 1,000 times. Similar improvements have been made in their ability to hold charge when sitting unused. NiMHs suffer from the same “memory effect” as NiCads, although to a much lesser degree, so you’ll want to fully discharge/recharge them every now and then.
In most consumer devices with permanent (or proprietary) batteries like laptops or cell phones, you’ll find a Lithium-ion battery. In this battery type, the positive electrode is usually lithium cobalt oxide and the negative is carbon. However, the exact composition of the electrodes has varied in recent years in an attempt to improve performance and safety.
Li-ion batteries are light, giving them energy density much greater than NiMH (more than 100 watt-hours per kg). They also don’t suffer from the “memory effect” of NiCads or NiMHs, and don’t really lose charge just sitting on a shelf. They do lose their capacity to hold charge over time, whether used or not, so don’t buy a “new” Li-ion battery that was manufactured more than a year ago.
With every charge, deposits form inside the electrolyte that inhibit the ability of the lithium ions to move between the anode and cathode, and the total charge capacity goes down. This gets worse if the battery is stored fully charged or in high temperatures. The best practice is to leave your laptop only half-charged if you’re not going to use it for a long time.
You may have heard of Lithium Polymer batteries. Technically a type of Lithium-ion battery, Li-Poly holds the electrolyte in a solid or gel polymer composite (polyethylene glycol or polyacrylonitrile). This makes them safer and more stable, and because they are, they don’t need to be manufactured in dense, heavy, pressure-tight cylinders. Li-Poly batteries can take almost any shape, and are often lighter because they don’t require a dense metal casing. On the other hand, they’re also more expensive and carry slightly lower energy densities than standard Li-ion cells.
Though they may be the best of the bunch, Li-ion batteries still have their issues. You’ve no doubt heard about laptop or cell phone battery fires in recent years. Li-ion batteries can get very hot, and if there’s a failure in the separator inside the battery and the venting organic electrolyte ignites from a spark or heat, it can quickly catch the cells on fire.
Ready for an update? webOS 1.4 is coming in February, and its bringing along a lot of goodies. First you can expect to have Flash 10.1 built-in, though the beta should be available soon from the App Catalog. Second, there’s video recording. Third, there’s the standard upgrade deal of better battery life, faster performance, and all that jazz. But Flash and video recording? That’s big.
For those of you who just can’t wait for whatever tablet goodness Apple is dreaming up, the Archos 9 running Windows 7 might be the answer. But wait—is that Windows 7 Starter Edition?
Unfortunately, yes, which means that this version won’t take full advantage of Windows 7’s tablet capabilities. Still, UMPC Portal reports a solid 3 hours of battery life, 60GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, and a 1.1Ghz Atom under the hood. Our initial hands-on impressions were generally favorable, and there’s nothing really here to contradict that (although $500 is still pretty steep). UMPC will be giving more updates today that we’ll keep an eye on. [UMPC Portal via Engadget]
In my hate-post against ereaders last week, I claimed that Amazon’s protecting itself with its iPhone Kindle app, as the ereader market won’t last as long as people think.
I’m not sure the rumored BlackBerry and Mac Kindle apps will do much for the Kindle or ereader industry as a whole, either.
It’s still just hearsay for now, but Fudzilla’s placing a lot of confidence in its sources, who are claiming a Kindle app for Mac computers and BlackBerry devices is on the way, after launching the iPhone app back in March. Reading ebooks on a Mac makes sense, though I’m sure people will quibble over the merits of reading books for a great length of time on an LCD as opposed to e-ink.
The BlackBerry Kindle app, well—where do I start? Ok, I can see it working on a Storm, but on any other BlackBerry model, no way. For starters, the screens are too small, so you’d be pressing that ‘next page’ button every 10 seconds. And what it’d do to the already pitiful battery life, well—I wouldn’t dare. Yes, I’m a BlackBerry user. Still, Fudzilla’s claiming it’ll be a free download, and as long as the ebooks cost less on the BlackBerry platform than they do on the Kindle (and as proper books), then it might be a good supplement to those occasions where you want to progress in the book you’re reading, but can’t carry your Kindle around with you.
Really, it’s about time the industry takes a leaf out of the Blu-ray Disc Association’s book, and explores the idea of providing digital copies with every paperback sold. [Fudzilla via TechRadar]
Hark! Did you hear the heralded Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein confirm the webOS 1.3.5 update? It’s on its way soon for all Pre and Pixi owners, and will gift a better battery life, more speed and stronger Wi-Fi.
The Ares app development program will of course mean thousands more apps will be available for download, and the 1.3.5 update will help with installing them. As well as talking about the webOS update, Rubinstein also gave hope to non-Sprint fans everywhere, commenting:
“We don’t believe in building large portfolios of products. Our focus is around having a small family of really great products. Right now we have two great products in Pre and Pixi and our objective right now is to expand with more carriers and more regions.”
They’ll probably hold off on releasing update 1.3.5 until CES, where they’re expected to announce something big. [PreCentral]
On today’s investor conference call, CEO Jon Rubinstein just confirmed that webOS 1.3.5 is coming soon and will have a bevy of improvements, including:
We’re still listening in and hearing good things about what’s coming. Namely: Palm will showcase the Ares development platform and other developer initiatives at CES, they expect "thousands" of apps "in short order," and they have another set of marketing initiatives that they’re planning on unleashing soon.
We’ll check back with some transcriptions shortly and will update this post with any news that sneaks into the Q&A.
Update: In response to a question, Rubenstein just noted that Palm doesn’t "believe in building large portfolios of products." In context it seems pretty clear that the priority for Palm right now is getting Pre and Pixi released on as many carriers as possible, not releasing some sort of magical new webOS tablet at CES: "[...] our objective right now is to expand with more carriers and more regions."
Update 2: After the break, quotes from CEO Jon Rubinstein on new carrier partners, why Palm is confident about the long term, on webOS 1.3.5, on opening the door to "thousands" of applications, and on Palm’s pace for introducing brand new products.
Tis the season for Apple patents, with both hyper-reality 3D displays, and a dynamic music and video system for better battery life on the iPhone and iPod.
First up, the hyper-reality 3D display — perfectly timed for the Avatar hype as well, we’ll note — involves changing the perspective of 3D object on the display to [...]
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
How much battery life does your laptop or netbook have? I don’t know. I bet you don’t know either. Or, at the very least, you’re probably relying on a manufacturer’s statement as to just how much computing time you can get on a fully charged battery. But as you well know, your battery life can vary depending on how you use your laptop: If you’re rocking the brightness at maximum, keeping an active Wi-Fi on at all times, and burning your CPU at full-blast, you’re going to run through your available power far faster than if your laptop was doing little-to-nothing.
Sure, you can hover your mouse over the battery icon of your Windows taskbar to estimate just how much juice is left in the pitcher. But if you want a more comprehensive analysis of how your portable PC will perform at full-blast under whatever conditions you’ve set up, you’ll need to turn to a third-party utility for the full breakdown.
And as it just so happens, I have the perfect piece of freeware in mind: Imtec Battery Mark. This program is pretty simple in its operation — it cranks your CPU up to full bore for a set period of time while measuring how much battery goes bye-bye. If you run the fast test, you get an estimation of how much you could use your computer under such egregious settings. If you run the normal test, the estimation is a bit more accurate given the length of the recording/quasi-benchmarking process. Oh, and you can even run both tests without the CPU jacked up to maximum, in case you just want to figure out how long your laptop will last under its current conditions.
If you really want to give your laptop or netbook the work-over, be sure to run the tests under various conditions: with the Wi-Fi on and off, with Bluetooth enabled or disabled, with your screen brightness set to different levels, et cetera. Become your own laptop power benchmarker and you’ll be able to figure out exactly how much time you’ll likely get under the most frequent conditions you use your system. It’s as easy as that.
If you liked this post, be sure to check out this week’s freeware roundup: 5 Apps for Tweaking Your Laptop Battery!
Every Wednesday, Maximum PC picks a new free or shareware download as its favorite of the week. Have a nifty application that you can’t live without? Twitter David Murphy @acererak with your latest suggestions.
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