The iPhone 6 was released over the weekend with the usual hoopla—and insanely long lines. We’ve come to expect each version of the iPhone to be thinner, lighter, and more powerful, but there’s often a trade-off between those extra features and battery life. So how energy efficient are the new iPhones?
Energy In, Selfies Out
That depends. Traditionally energy efficiency is defined as the ability to deliver the same amount of services output (measured in lighting, heating, or games of Candy Crush) for less energy input. According to Apple, here’s how the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus rank on the “energy in, selfies out” scale:
Both phones offer a bump up in listed battery life from the iPhone 5s, which boasted a mere 10 hours talk time on 3G and only 10 hours of video playback. Internet browsing on LTE is still the same 10 hours from iPhone 5s to iPhone 6.
Efficiency Inside
So how does the new phone manage to last longer? The hardware. Apple touts the phones’ new A8 processor as “delivering incredible performance with up to 50 percent more energy efficiency than the A7 chip.” Depending on how you read that, it could mean that the chip performs the same stuff 50% more efficiently than the previous gen A7 chip did, or it could mean that it’s 50% more efficient than the old hardware because it’s being challenged to deliver even more incredible features.
How that translates into better battery life is up for debate. That may be why Apple follows these statements with a big old asterisk: “Battery life varies by use and configuration.”
Your Mileage May Vary
To test battery life outside of Apple’s reality distortion field, Boy Genius Report did some real-life tests. Here are the results, showing that the iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus aren’t about to win any battery-life contests:
Keep Tabs On Your Apps
Battery life is clearly still a challenge for the iPhone, but one nice feature about Apple’s new operating system iOS 8 is that it tells you which processes are using the most juice. Here are the energy hogs on my phone, for example.
This new feature is hidden in the settings menu under Battery Usage.
No matter how energy efficient the new phone and OS may be, it’s also going to help your home become more energy efficient. We’re building the ecovent app for both iOS and Android platforms so that setting the right temperature is never more than a tap away.
How many hours can you squeeze out of your phone’s battery? Are you an iOS or Android user? And how do you use your phone to run a more efficient home? Let us know in the comments.
Photo credit: Boy Genius Report