“New higher-capacity, lithium-ion batteries will soon be available and could keep devices running for twice as long, according to the technology’s inventor,” Liam Tung reports for ZDNet.
“The batteries, produced by MIT spinout SolidEnergy Systems, differ from standard lithium-ion alternatives in that they use lithium-metal foil instead of graphite as the anode material,” Tung reports. “Since the metal foil can hold more ions, it can achieve a higher energy density, which could translate into longer-lasting wearables, phones, cars, and drones.”
“‘With two-times the energy density, we can make a battery half the size, but that still lasts the same amount of time as a lithium-ion battery. Or we can make a battery the same size as a lithium-ion battery, but now it will last twice as long,’ Qichao Hu, CEO of SolidEnergy, told MIT News,” Tung reports. “According to Hu, SolidEnergy’s first batteries are for drones and will be available this November. SolidEnergy also plans to deliver batteries for smartphones and wearables in early 2017 and electric cars in 2018.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ll take an iPhone that runs twice as long, please! As for Apple Watch, new features like GPS and LTE would certainly benefit from greater battery capacity.
Why the wait? If its not ready now, I have doubts it will be ready next year… and twice as long is quite a claim, considering how long current batteries last under seemingly normal usage these days.
How long does it take to go from the lab to making 40 to 100 million batteries a quarter? Like super dense hard drives and ssds, critical systems get it first and the price is crazy high. As they ramp up in quantity, price goes down. Old story that pertains to every piece of technology that makes an iPhone even possible.
Twice as long seems reasonable. If you follow technical reports scientists have been reporting increases much larger than that in the lab. One problem with Li batteries is the durability of the anode. If you push it too far then it cracks or is otherwise disrupted after a few recharge cycles. Researchers have been coming up with all sorts of clever materials (such as Si nano-whiskers) to overcome this problem. This is the first solution I’ve seen come to market.
“Why the wait? If its not ready now, I have doubts it will be ready next year.”
This will be the stupidest thing I will read all day.
Congratulations!
If we’re dreaming my ideal iPhone would be:
– So durable it never needed a case;
– Slightly grippy, so it never slipped from my hand;
– Full-face screen on the front (no bezels);
– Have 200% the battery power of the current 6S+;
– 2mm-3mm slimmer (and not much more);
– Brighter when 100% bright, Dimmer when fully dim;
– Oleophobic glass covering that doesn’t rub off;
– Stereo speakers top and bottom, (landscape games/movies);
– Some semblance/version of optical zoom;
– Wireless charging (I can dream, right?);
– Power button NOT opposite volume;
– Screen resolution so good it works well in VR goggles;
– A bit lighter;
Note, I’ve kept iOS requests from the above. What I’ve listed is essentially the perfect iPhone in my book.
What would you add/change? I’m curious.
Water-proof?
Just kidding. I meant to say, it should be able to speak to the dead.
Stereo speakers on a iPhone?????? You can’t possibly be serious ….What…one inch of separation??? If you are that into music get headphones….
He said top and bottom, so when you view landscape you’d have enough separation to get a decent stereo effect (considering how close you hold a phone anyway). Actually, it’s a pretty neat idea. No technical reason why it couldn’t happen…
At the very least a speaker that’s front-facing. It’s embarrassing whenever I hand my phone to someone to watch a video, and they *hold it up to their ear* because the sound is shooting out the side and they can’t watch the video at the same time while there’s moderate background noise.
When I do it I cup my hand to the speaker so the sound is redirected to me, but come on, that’s massive quality loss right there.
And how about Facetime? Are we only supposed to use it in the quiet of our homes?
Especially moving the power button back to the top of the phone!
Sadly when hears this they just think – we can make it THINNER so we will still get 1 day of battery life but on the bright side it will slice tomato’s 😉
” We’ll take an iPhone that runs twice as long, please!”
Tough luck. Apple with give you a phone twice as thin instead.