Gizmodo has posted a guide for extending the battery life of your shiny new iPhone 3G. Apple is notorious for pushing products with unimpressive battery life, and the new iPhone is no different. The battery isn’t user-replaceable, which means you can’t keep a spare, and the energy needs of the 3G chipset adds to the problem. Apple provides some useful tips on maximizing battery life for your iPhone. The tips include common sense advice that applies to nearly all electronic devices – turning down the brightness on your LCD screen, turning off radios not in use like Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, and 3G, and setting Auto-lock to a minute or less will keep your devices running smoothly for longer.
We like to carry an extra USB battery like this one; you can also make your own like this one with an Altoids tin.
The MintyBoost (the second usb extra battery you linked to) does NOT work with the iphone. http://ladyada.net/make/mintyboost/
(it’s listed under the ‘sorta works’ section, but my new 3G doesn’t charge off of mine.)
Just thought I’d clarify.
If anyone has a good tested AA battery -> Iphone charging setup, let me know.. I’ve yet to find one.
The iPhone’s battery life is far from unimpressive. I regularly get through multiple seasons for TV shows during cross-country flights, and have yet to run out of juice. The new iPhones battery specs are the same, so it should last just as long, unless you use 3G for voice calls a lot, which is more of a fault of HSDPA. The new iPhone’s battery life also beat Apple’s specs by over half an hour, and slightly more than the Instinct. Also, the battery isn’t permanently attached, so anyone with a screwdriver can replace it when it nears the end of its life. I would imagine anyone reading this blog could figure it out.
I know the iPhone is very pretty etc etc etc but it gets a bit wearing having a post about it every ten minutes. Im far from impressed by the iPhone, just like im far from impressed by Windows Mobile phones, blackberries or symbian phones.
Give the Jesus Phone a rest please guys. I’m well aware that im asking for abuse from fan boys here but I’m sick of this being the only phone in the media these days. Revolutionary it is not, it’s all been done before. The only thing thats different this time is a pretty GUI that makes these features usable and the marketing power behind Apple
thanks for telling it like it is, dan
“Apple is notorious for pushing products with unimpressive battery life.”
i don’t agree. i’m not an apple fan boy, far from it (i’m fully on the ‘dark side’), but apple products really aren’t worse than those from other companies. granted, they do a really good job keeping consumers from being able to replace said batteries (*ahem* macbook air *ahem*) but do their products lag behind others in terms of battery life? no. for example, you’ll get 4 hrs of regular use out of an air and 5 hours or so out of a pro, and that’s not poor at all looking at other laptops on the market.
Sure the battery on iPhone 3G is not that great, but what can we do? We want small size phones, powerful features and lengthy battery life.
Just get a backup battery. I got mine from iPhoneck brands. Their new 3G backup battery is probably one of the better looking products in the market. Their website is http://www.iphoneck.com
Sure the battery on iPhone 3G is not that great, but what can we do? We want small size phones, powerful features and lengthy battery life.
Just get a backup battery. I got mine from iPhoneck brands. Their new 3G backup battery is probably one of the better looking products in the market. Their website is http://www.iphoneck.com
Sure the battery on iPhone 3G is not that great, but what can we do? We want small size phones, powerful features and lengthy battery life.
Just get a backup battery. I got mine from iPhoneck brands. Their new 3G backup battery is probably one of the better looking products in the market. Their website is http://www.iphoneck.com
Certainly not a hack, but it might be worth looking at the Electronic Metro “triple charger” that Woot had a while back. I scored a bunch of them, and they do come in iPhone flavor. They use a USB A-style connector for power output (full of fail, I know) with modular tips, and can run from 12VDC, 120/240 AC, or a pair of 9V batteries. It would be a bit bulkier than a mintyboost, but you can get something off-the-shelf that just works.
Yeah, I would have to say I don’t agree with apple pushing products with shotty battery life. My ibook beats the pants off of almost every other laptop that I’ve seen any of my friend’s carrying around. As far as my ipod video goes, it’s not bad for a refurbished thing. I can’t complain.
“for example, you’ll get 4 hrs of regular use out of an air and 5 hours or so out of a pro, and that’s not poor at all looking at other laptops on the market.”
uhh… apple makes alot more than just laptops.
Look at battery life of ipods and compare that to other comparable MP3 players like from sony, creative, iriver, archos, etc… Apple isn’t even close, yet everyone still buys them like retarted zombies. Its so dumb i can’t even begin… when you’re dealing with ANYTHING meant to be mobile, battery life is the most important thing. period.
I came up with some more tips on how to solve the iPhone 3G energy crisis:
http://www.madanalogy.com/2008/08/solutions-to-iphone-3g-energy-crisis.html
Unfortunately, not everyone wants to sacrifice battery life for a thin handset. I suppose in general, handset users do want small, light handsets. It’s just that people can’t expect to browse and play games for hours and not expect the battery to go dead. So many people wanted 3G and GPS. People should realize that battery technology is not quite up to iPhone user’s demands in a slimmer than normal package. I’d be well willing to carry a 1/8 inch thicker device that could take a thicker battery.
I once had an Apple. It was quite nice.
“you’ll get 4 hrs of regular use out of an air and 5 hours or so out of a pro”
My pro gets 2 1/2 – 3 hrs tops. It has never gotten 5 hours and Im very careful with battery memory, even though these new batteries are suppose to have relatively little issues with that.
“It’s just that people can’t expect to browse and play games for hours and not expect the battery to go dead.”
The iphones battery is the reason i shyed away from it. Im currently testing a dare. With heavy use I still get over 2 and a half days on its battery. I can take pictures, record videos, browse the web, place calls and text, watch videos, and still get close to 3 days out of the battery. Without heavy use I got close to 5 days. The iphone gets a day and a half IF you turn off all its radios and turn down the screen.
I dont think people expect it to last forever, but it should last more then a day without energy saving precautions. If the phone lasted two days without me having to turn on and off settings all the time I probably would have gone for it. But I cant have a phone that might die on me in the middle of the day if i use it too much.
I guess the big deal is that the battery should have been removable. Let’s take an example of the IPOD. I don’t see why they can’t just cut an area where the battery belongs and either be locked in with a screw or latch. The battery itself isn’t anything special and is easy to plug in the IPOD and Apple is so damn greedy that they will do anything to make it difficult for the user to replace it themselves. Maybe when Jobs finally kicks the bucket there will be replaceable batteries. Sure, people make the argument that when the battery dies they can just replace it with a new phone since it will be time by then anyways. How wasteful! If something that works perfectly fine and does its job fine then why replace it? So you can maybe have that extra feature of controlling your tv with it as well? Faster processor? I still have an IPOD mini and I have no motive to change to the newer ipods. Color screen and videos I do not need. I want to listen to my music and I wish they would stick to a more simplified version for those who just want that. Plus keeping it black and white will increase battery life. Heck I wish they would make more AA and AAA mp3 players, but they don’t want to because they are making this MP3 players into a video player.
Sure the iphone could have a longer lasting battery but in saying that the phone would have to be bulkier to accomodate the higher milli amp batter and the phone would also be heavier, i had a samsung blackjack from 2 yrs prior to getting my iphone and it had a larger battery but when browing the web and emailing it didnt last any longer than the ipohne. and well at the end of the day it doesnt matter how good the phone is some one will allways have a fault or and issue with the quality and some great idea of how the developers could have done it better but then i suppose youre all fucking experts Rite???
Harry is a little bitch.
Do you guys have a recommendation section, i’d like to suggest some stuff
I have last week picked up an iPhone 3GS. I was surprised by the quality of the device. The iPhone 3GS is a lot faster in-terms of accessing data over the internet compared to the last edition of the device.
i bought my iphone 3g last month but am very much disappointed with the battery.it can’t last 3 hours even when am only receiving calls.should i replace the battery or what’s the way out.am thinking of buying a cheap nokia phone which has a long battery life.