Consider that smart phones have only been around for a little more than a decade. It took several decades of development for general-purpose computers to become

Consider that smart phones have only been around for a little more than a decade. It took several decades of development for general-purpose computers to become viable to the mainstream, so the smart-phone technology is just in its infancy. While the battery consumption issues are definitely a problem, progress is being made to curb them: http://news.mit.edu/2016/neural-chip-artificial-intelligence-mobile-devices-0203 http://news.mit.edu/2016/neural-chip-artificial-intelligence... Really we need innovation in the hardware space in addition to less bloated and more refined APIs. Perhaps more efficient Virtual Machine layers that sit on top of the OS layer. Or even get rid of those entirely and force C++ only, but then the precious security sandbox is gone. In any case, it seems a lot of the OS changes being made are feature-driven more than anything. They are trying to compete on features instead of stabilizing and refining the core. Or, maybe we need a new mobile OS design and some open hardware to support it. Personally, I think BB10 had a lot going for it with QNX and C++ APIs, but because they don't have the precious "apps" consumers demanded it became even more bloated with the sluggish android runtime. What's more, Device manufacturers push higher-resolution displays and faster CPUs and GPUs--all things that impact battery life. But why not improve upon these gradually while bolstering battery life instead? Consumers won't buy it that's the problem and hardware manufacturers just want to sell units to satisfy shareholders. The problem is no different than the junk-food industry: consumers don't know what's best for themselves or what they need, yet they develop strong opinions about what they want and companies, hungry for market share meet those demands.