battery

Since the launch of the third-generation iPad, Dr. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation, has put the device through its paces testing just about every aspect of its “resolutionary” new Retina display. The lengthy report provided a detailed comparison of the new iPad’s display versus the iPad 2 and iPhone 4.

In a running time time of the new iPad’s battery, Dr. Soneira found its “batteries do not actually reach full charge when 100% is shown,” and noted up to an extra hour of charging is required before reaching full capacity. We already discovered that the third-generation iPad’s new 42.5-watt-hour battery takes considerably longer to charge than the iPad 2—up to several hours. One explanation suggested is that Apple is trying to shorten the amount of time people think it takes to charge to line up with iPad 2 expectations. Soneira found the new iPad running no applications at maximum brightness lasted for 5.8 hours in comparison to the iPad 2 at 7.2 hours.

He did not go into detail about his findings in the report, but Soneira provided an explanation of the charging issue below:

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While we are waiting for iFixit to tear apart the new iPad so we can get a look at the device’s new 42.5-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery, we received confirmation that the battery does take hours longer to charge than the iPad 2 (iPad 2 pictured above). We know battery life remains the same with the 70 percent larger battery going mostly toward powering the new Retina display, A5x chip, and LTE-capabilities, but we wondered last week whether the new battery could take up to 70 percent longer to charge. MG Siegler confirmed in his review on TechCrunch that charging the new iPad takes “several hours” longer compared to earlier generations:

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Apple just released iOS 5.0.1 build number 9A405, a minor update to its mobile operating system fixing (hopefully) the iPhone 4S battery woes. The software arrives just a day following the iOS 5.0.1 release to certain end-users for testing and a week following a developers-only version.

In addition to battery fixes, iOS 5.0.1 also enables multitasking gestures on the original iPad (go to Settings > General > Multitasking Gestures), fixes the Smart Cover security flaw, resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud and improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation.

You can update by connecting to iTunes and hitting the Check for Updates button in the Info pane or download an over-the-air update directly on the device (Settings > General > Software Update). Note that OTA update may not be available for everyone right away. If not, wait a little as these things take some time to propagate.

Full release notes and direct download links right below:

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Let’s not pretend that Apple isn’t thinking about Solar charging its iOS devices.  It even registered iPodsolar.com in 2007.  Until the solar iPod is released, however, there are other ways to charge your iOS device from the sun.

Etón today announced the availability of their Mobius NSP300B Rechargeable Battery Case for iPhone 4, which was originally announced this year at CES.

The admittedly stylish (for having a solar panel strapped to it, that is) case packs in an 1800 mAh rechargeable lithium ion battery, high-efficiency monocrystal solar panel, and micro USB to charge the battery on cloudy days and nights. Other features include LED charge indicator lights and a stand by switch to turn off direct power transfer. In other words, hitting the stand by switch will let you to collect power without using it, allowing you to control when the case is actually powering your iPhone.

As you can see from the chart below, Etón estimates approximately 1 hour of solar charge will provide you with up to an additional 25 minutes talk time, 20 minutes of data usage (3G), 35 minutes of video playback, or 145 minutes of audio playback. In comparison, a fully charged case will provide you with an additional 5 hours talk time, 8 hours data usage and video playback, and 32 hours audio playback.

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