Comments on: Maximizing the iPhone 3G's Battery

By: Apple bashing « A stench of genius

Apple bashing « A stench of genius — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:05:22 +0000

[...] Maximizing the iPhone 3G’s Battery [Mossberg's Mailbox] [...]

By: Fabio delle Cese

Fabio delle Cese — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:08:35 +0000

Excellent blog Walter! I would add the following:

3G is a power hog and expensive, but you don’t always need it… for example, consider using Maps mostly in 2.5/2G mode…

Regarding navigation cost.. in Italy for example, the two authorized vendors (Vodafone and TIM) only sell data “volume-based” navigation plans (currently 600MB or 1GB data /month) that are expensive if used heavily…

Consider instead less expensive “time-based” navigation plans such as offered by rival Wind (ex 50 hours/month for 9 euros)…. obviously, if you have an unlocked iPhone…

So, while I am happily using my (wife’s) unlocked Vodafone 3G iPhone mostly in 2G mode to save battery life, it is very nice to know that 3G is there when I need it!

By: francesca manfredini

francesca manfredini — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:27:53 +0000

Iphone shortcomings
I am an old-time Mac lover and have stood in line for hours to get the iPhone here in Italy, but I have a few complaints that I would like to share with you, about missing features or shortcomings that i have not seen quoted in your reviews, maybe my fault. The limitations I expereinced all seem to stem from some agreement with greedy carriers and other commercial enetrprises who want to make money out of us iphone enthousiast.
1. Bluetooth is armoured against free usage on the iphone. It can only be used to connect to headphones, or speaker systems, everything else is not-available. The good old habit of sending a photograph or a vcard (they don’t exist either!) or any other piece of info to your friend or colleague standing right beside you is gone. You have to use email (pay the carrier). This is very clumsy and not logical. Even to connect to a Mac, you have to use the cable! And use appropriate applications, such as itunes or iphoto: good old “browse device” is gone!
2. You can’t even use Wi-fi to connect to your computer.
3. You can’t use a tune you have on your iphone as a ringtone. Only ringtones that are officially considered such.
4. You’ve pointed out battery life.
5. When the iphone is connected to my Mac, mail goes erratic and often loses connections with pop servers.
6. Let’s not even talk about the contracts available in Italy to use the iphone. As usual we are in an uncivilised marketpkace where telcos rule at their ease, and not only the costs are sky-high, also the kind of contracts available seem to have been shrewdly designed to fool the user into paying outrageous amounts of money without being aware of it. Also the plans have holes in their intricacies and some users – the most loyal users of the carrier, as an example – have no clear option available for internet navigation.

I still love my iphone and I really trust the independent developers community to fill the gaps.
But these funct gaps are worth mentioning I think.
Thanks and regards
Francesca, Milano, Italy

By: Dave Shepard

Dave Shepard — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:51:53 +0000

3G is a huge power hog, as Steve Jobs noted when he introduced the first iPhone without it.

There is a good comparison of the battery life of 3G smartphones over at PC World:
http://www.pcworld.com/article.....ivals.html

The 3G iPhone actually has better battery life than most other 3G smartphones -except for a couple Blackberry models- in their tests. The best of a by-nature-and-design mediocre bunch, in other words. More impressive still is that you can talk on the phone and surf the web/use data at the same time- you can’t do that with other phones that get worse battery life.

With 3G turned off, the new iPhone has *better* battery life than the original iPhone.

You can also turn off “Location Services” (GPS) to help ration battery power. This is true for the original iPhone as well.