iPhone battery life questioned

Apple's announcement that its forthcoming iPhone will arrive at retail June 29 with a talk time of eight hours was met with skepticism from experts. The iPhone reportedly features a 14 milliamp/hour battery, with an eight-hour lifecycle representing a 60 percent increase over the original five-hour estimates given by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in January, roughly doubling the talk time of competing devices by manufacturers Research in Motion and Palm. Critics doubt whether the advance is the result of hardware or software innovation: "My first thought was that [Apple] did not do a thing to the battery," said In-Stat principal analyst Dave Chamberlain in an interview with vnunet.com. "They have probably just changed the way they measured it." 

Consensus suggests that consumers will find the iPhone's actual battery life far shorter than in the controlled settings of Apple's labs, although Benoit Schillings, CTO at mobile software developer Trolltech, suggested to vnunet.com that the battery gains may result from optimizing software code. "Efficient code is the number one way to go. My suspicion, in the case of Apple, is that there is probably some of that," he said. "On top of that, Apple also added some other layers of power management." Schillings said he suspects Apple tweaked the amount of power sent to each iPhone component, more efficiently managing elements like screen brightness and wireless connections.  

For more on the iPhone battery life questions:
- read this vnunet.com article

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