Filed under: iPhone
iPhone battery a ticking time bomb?
No, not exploding batteries. I'm talking about 12-18 months from now, when thousands upon thousands of iPhone batteries, completely sealed from consumers, will begin to lose their juice. Sheldon Liber, on our sister site Blogging Stocks, suggests that in about a year, Apple is going to be dealing with a lot of unhappy campers who will have to surrender their iPhones for a bit while a new battery is transplanted into their tiny tech wonders.Of course, we now have warranty info, which means you really shouldn't worry until next July, right? Something Sheldon misses is the fact that, for another $30 or so, they'll give you a loaner. That should put a stop to the whining-- mostly. It will certainly ease the sting of a 3-day turnaround. But when you can get a replacement BlackBerry battery for less than $10 in many cases, once again users may complain about the "Apple tax."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
MacBookOwner said 12:11PM on 7-20-2007
The problem with that article is the author cites no evidence at all about what the estimated battery life is for the iPhone battery. He doesn't bother to research or check what the average battery life was for previous iPods to compare. He doesn't do anything, basically, except speculate wildly. Which is fine for some personal blog guy..but I expected a bit more from Blogging Stocks. Don't these guys do any research any more?
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ThePete said 12:23PM on 7-20-2007
I don't know about anyone else, but $30 for a loaner iPhone is $30 too much. Batteries should be easily replaced. I say that as I multiple-iPod owner. It's one of the few things I really don't like about the iPods. Imagine if they tried to pull that with their laptops...
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Eric M said 12:31PM on 7-20-2007
Yeah, this is basic bull. While many sites quote the 300-400 full cycles that Apple mentioned as the battery 'life' they all manage to ignore the part about that being when the battery will hit 80% of its capacity.
I those numbers are true, then it is pretty likely that batteries will outlast the original owners of most of them. I would bet that many of them will be replaced by the time 2-3 years rolls around and you are down to 80% capacity, let alone how long it will take til they are actually impractical to use.
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rippon said 12:40PM on 7-20-2007
Yeah, I'm curious who these people are who replace their phones batteries to begin with. Usually my phone's batteries get annoyingly dead after two or three years, and by that point it's just more cost effective to get a new phone. Same goes for iPods, so I'd assume same will go for that nutty cross-section of the two, the iPhones.
Or think of it this way: on the one hand, it makes me sad that batteries have such short lifespans, but on the other, 2-3 year lifespans gives me the perfect excuse to buy a new gizmo to satiate my technolust :)
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Austin said 12:41PM on 7-20-2007
This is a joke. Running out of ideas for a new post?
http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2007/07/09/optimizing-iphone-battery-life-between-charges-and-before-replacement/
I won't complain if my battery only has 80% capacity. I usually have less than half a battery left by the time I go to bed. Just as long as it gets through the day.
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dashiel said 12:44PM on 7-20-2007
first of all, raise your hand if you're a first gen iphone owner who isn't going to buy a new version within 24 months? yeah there's like 6 people.
secondly i'm charging my phone about every 3.5 days. now if the iphone will retain 80% of its charge after 400 charges that means i'm going to get 1200 days or more then 3 years of usage above 80%. well not quite, the battery charge is going to degrade over time so while i'm getting 3.5 days now it'll probably be 3 days in 6 months time, 2.5 days in a year etc... but two years from now when your iphone contract is up and the second of third major iteration of the phone is out i'd bet most people will still be getting 2 days of use between recharge cycles.
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fog city dave said 12:46PM on 7-20-2007
Please, for the love of god, will you stop with this ridiculous battery drivel? Take some responsibility in your blog, will you? Apple has clearly stated that the iPhone battery will retain 80% of its charge capacity after 400 full charge cycles. That doesn't mean every time you stick it in the dock. That means a full charge cycle. If you dock your iPhone and it's at half-charge, it will only take a half-cycle to charge it. Do you get this?
Even someone who really really uses the hell out of their iPhone every day will still not require a full charge cycle every day. They will get at the very least two years of full-cycle charging before the infamous 400 charge number. After their 400 charge cycles, the battery will not be dead by a long shot, but will still retain 80% of its original charge capacity, which is pretty damn good after two years of heavy use. This is public information on Apple's website. Do some simple research, and put this stupid non-issue to bed once and for all, please.
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Joe said 12:54PM on 7-20-2007
What a disgraceful post TUAW!
I would have thought you'd know better than to continue the appalling FUD with respect to iPhone battery life.
You've just taken a major dive in my estimation.
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Bob said 1:57PM on 7-20-2007
plus, didn't we go over all of this about two weeks ago?
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Victor Agreda Jr said 1:20PM on 7-20-2007
Joe & Dave, don't shoot the messenger, k?
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Christian said 1:55PM on 7-20-2007
Oh yeah, the same "problem" (sealed batteries with a finite life) has really wrecked havoc with the iPod's image and sales.
Or not.
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iJavaJoe said 1:47PM on 7-20-2007
Please read this if you have any questions about the iPhone battery. Also, please read it before posting an article on the iPhone battery that will make you look silly and foolish to everyone:
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macword/2007/07/iphonebattery/index.php
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Robert said 1:27PM on 7-20-2007
And third parties will probably have replacement batteries for less by the time the one in your phone dies. And they may even last longer than Apple's.
Just look at sites like http://www.ipodjuice.com/ & http://www.ipodbatterydepot.com/ to name two. Does anyone think these companies are going to ignore 10M iphones in the field in the next year?
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fog city dave said 1:31PM on 7-20-2007
Victor, "don't shoot the messenger" only applies when you're delivering factual bad news. You are not doing that. You are spreading FUD. It is irresponsible. Don't deflect it back onto us, just own up to it.
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Ed said 1:48PM on 7-20-2007
The same is true of almost all batteries - laptops, PDAs, cameras, its all the same. Stop spreading this nonsense...
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Victor Agreda Jr said 2:20PM on 7-20-2007
fog city dave, you are completely incorrect. I'm not even agreeing with Sheldon, merely passing along what he says-- I'm just as critical as you of his statements (he clearly didn't do a simple Google search for the warranty info).
Also, I've linked to our coverage of the battery life, I've linked to the warranty info, I know damn well that what Sheldon says is incorrect. If you take the time to read what I say, vs. what he says, MY point is that the COST of replacing the battery is higher than other devices. I'm NOT saying it'll DIE in 12 months, I'm NOT saying it will be a fiasco even, I'm saying there could be sticker shock.
Sheldon's major premise is that people will be angry that the battery died and they have to wait 3 days and pay some dough to replace it.
If you can prove otherwise, show me. I'm perfectly willing to concede when I'm wrong, but I'm not taking the same stance as Sheldon here-- thus, I'm a messenger for his premise, while I have thoughts of my own, completely different than his.
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Joel said 2:29PM on 7-20-2007
This is what happens when you are desperate to come up with a story.
We all know the facts. We know the battery will last much longer than 12-18 months. It's sad that people feel they have to keep repeating false information just so they can have another post on a website.
Great researching skills!
I also wonder if this was just to hype up a story on their "sister site."
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Fred said 2:34PM on 7-20-2007
FAIL! This has been debunked now repeatedly.
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Joe said 2:43PM on 7-20-2007
You might just want to consider removing this post as it's showing TUAW in an extremely bad light!
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David Chartier said 3:18PM on 7-20-2007
Batteries in most devices like this exhibit the same behavior. While I too wish I could replace my own iPhone's battery, most people rarely seem to notice. There is always that contingency of power users who do care, possibly because they need more than one battery between charges or merely on principle, but the greater majority aren't going to notice much of change.
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