In the smartphone market news cycle, we couldn't close out 2017 without some kind of controversy now could we? Considering we closed out 2016 with exploding phones, we had a high bar to reach! I don't think we quite got there, at least not in terms of pure spectacle, but the impact was certainly pretty similar. Just before we said goodbye to the year, we're talking about Lithium-Ion batteries, throttling phones, and companies communicating to customers.
All of that thanks to Apple, too, which is pretty crazy by itself.
The company had a pretty shaky end of the year, but I imagine it will be just fine moving forward. Apple is already offering cheaper battery replacements for older iPhones, and it'll update iOS to be a bit more detailed in its battery information. All of that's well and good, and it will probably be enough to pull Apple out of whatever cloud it currently finds itself in.
But of course, there are questions about what happens next. After all, we all know that Li-Ion batteries are basically the default at this point. We use them because we have to. A worthwhile alternative hasn't been discovered just yet, so companies have to make bigger phones to stick bigger batteries in there, and make software tweaks to avoid taxing the juice too much.
Apple's idea wasn't a bad one. After all, you need the battery to use your phone. And even though Android manufacturers don't do the same thing, as long as they communicated the effort I don't think they'd be tarred and feathered for doing it. At least, I can hope that would be the case. Those same manufacturers (and Android in general) would probably let customers choose which to prioritize, though.
One idea, as stipulated by my fellow editor, was to bring back swappable batteries. In that piece, Anna writes up that Apple should probably be the company that uses replaceable batteries, and that's probably not a bad idea. But it's Apple we're talking about here so that probably won't happen. And while the other major companies out there have all primarily switched to non-replaceable batteries, I wonder if it would be impossible for some of them to go back to how things were.
I don't want to go back to plastic phones, though. The level of design quality that companies like Samsung, LG, HTC, and others have reached is something I don't want to get rid of, and if that would be the element to get traded out for replaceable batteries, I'd live with those encased pieces of technology.
We'll be stuck with Li-Ion batteries for a while longer. Just as we have been for years. And I've been thinking about Apple's reasoning for throttling older phones: Batteries get weaker and can't handle the same level of processes years later. Which is definitely true.
So I can't help but be curious, is this an issue for you at all? As my fellow editor noted in that aforementioned write-up, she admits that she doesn't keep phones long enough to see any major degradation of the battery. I can safely say that I'm the same way, even if I typically wait a bit longer to pick up a new phone than her these days.
What is the longest you've ever owned a phone and used it as your daily driver? Have you owned one long enough that you noticed steep declines in battery life on a regular basis? How did you alleviate the issue for you back then? Let me know!
What's the longest you've used a daily driver? originally posted at http://phonedog.com
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