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In general, I moved from Android to iPhone a couple of years ago and must say the battery on iPhone lasts so long compared to my old Android phone that there's

In general, I moved from Android to iPhone a couple of years ago and must say the battery on iPhone lasts so long compared to my old Android phone that there's no comparison really. Apple's work on iPhone battery management is impressive!

masonjson 5y ago
I don't want to question wether Apple's work on battery management is better than Google's, but want to outline the meta of such statements. In general, I don't think it's good to compare a new bought device with the device you are replacing, since the old device is probably a couple of years old. So the specs of the old one must be worse than the specs of the new one. Another example would be Tesla buyers who are replacing their old car and comparing the new car to their old.
- mulderc 5y ago
  I had a similar experience and what it seems like is that Apple devices have pretty amazing standby time as compared to most android devices I have used. This has probably gotten better over the years but when I got my first iPhone it seemed like the battery didn't budge at all if it was in standby, such as leaving it unplugged overnight. I never had the experience with an android device.
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    > when I got my first iPhone it seemed like the battery didn't budge at all if it was in standby, such as leaving it unplugged overnight Apple has very stringent limits on how long apps can run in the background, while Android is more lenient. That is great for battery life and privacy, but not giving the user a way to whitelist apps from these optimizations means apps like SyncThing (which only exists for Android) or WhatsApp Web are harder to develop.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - systemBuilder 5y ago
    My OnePlus 6t drains only 10% during an 8 hour night! And it is 3 years old!
- usui 5y ago
  This is a little presumptuous or possibly a misunderstanding of the parent's comment mentioning "old Android phone". It's entirely possible that the person did a lateral generational phone switch, but you've assumed that they upgraded to a newer phone. I love older generation phones because they're so cheap and your car comparison is perfect because buying a phone new IMO is one of the worst financial decisions you can make unless it has functionality you really need. Phone value drops sharply after the first 1-2 years and so I have a lot of fun buying last generation's phones (Android and iPhone) and comparing them to each other. Holding off on the newest phones really shows me how imaginary the price of an absolute brand new phone is.
  - gordon_freeman 5y ago
    Talking about how expensive the phones have become lately, the max out specs on new iPhone 13 Pro Max costs $1,600 and if you add taxes it would be $1,760!
    - tdy_err 5y ago
      Your 10% sales tax is robbery. Where is that ?
      - gordon_freeman 5y ago
        California
      - Hello71 5y ago
        According to https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/sales-tax-rate?continent=g20 https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/sales-tax-rate?con..., out of G20 countries, 16 have sales tax rates greater than or equal to 10%. This seems to only counts national sales tax, since it lists 5% for Canada, but about 85% of Canadians live in areas with more than 10% total sales tax.
        bzbarsky 5y ago
        That conflates VAT rates and sales tax rates. The two tax structures are very different, and a comparable VAT has a higher nominal rate than a sales tax, because the taxable amount is typically smaller.
- albrewer 5y ago
  It's even worse - 12h battery life wouldn't really be a problem if I could swap in a spare battery or choose to bulk up my device with a 100 watt hour battery.
mkl 5y ago
I've never had an iPhone, but I could say the same thing about my old and current Android phones. I had a Galaxy Note 4 for a few years, the last Note with a replaceable battery, and I had spare batteries that I occasionally swapped in. When I upgraded to a Note 20 I thought "oh no I can't swap batteries" and bought a power bank along with it. I've never needed it, even when travelling. At the end of each day I usually have mid 80s percent battery left. The battery's only slightly bigger, but the power management is way better.
megablast 5y ago
Sure, but there are a 1000 android phones, some that cost $20.
etaioinshrdlu 5y ago
I switched from Pixel 3 XL to iPhone 11 Pro and the battery life was way worse on iPhone. It's about half as good as the Pixel was. It was like that on day one. It was my single biggest gripe about the iPhone.
koyote 5y ago
It really depends on what phone you had and how old it was when you switched. Most of my friends are very surprised when I mention that my Android phone lasts more than 2 days on a single charge; their iPhone barely lasts a day. If they switched they'd come to the same realisation as you did but with phones reversed. If they upgraded to the latest iPhone I am sure they'd also be pleasantly surprised. I think something that has happened in the last 2-3 years is that the average phone has gone from 'full day battery' on purchase to '2-3 day battery' and there has not really been much marketing around that fact (or at least as far as I can see), so people on older models don't quite realise what they're missing (and are of course also suffering from battery degradation).

masonjson 5y ago

I don't want to question wether Apple's work on battery management is better than Google's, but want to outline the meta of such statements. In general, I don't think it's good to compare a new bought device with the device you are replacing, since the old device is probably a couple of years old. So the specs of the old one must be worse than the specs of the new one. Another example would be Tesla buyers who are replacing their old car and comparing the new car to their old.

mulderc 5y ago
I had a similar experience and what it seems like is that Apple devices have pretty amazing standby time as compared to most android devices I have used. This has probably gotten better over the years but when I got my first iPhone it seemed like the battery didn't budge at all if it was in standby, such as leaving it unplugged overnight. I never had the experience with an android device.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  > when I got my first iPhone it seemed like the battery didn't budge at all if it was in standby, such as leaving it unplugged overnight Apple has very stringent limits on how long apps can run in the background, while Android is more lenient. That is great for battery life and privacy, but not giving the user a way to whitelist apps from these optimizations means apps like SyncThing (which only exists for Android) or WhatsApp Web are harder to develop.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- systemBuilder 5y ago
  My OnePlus 6t drains only 10% during an 8 hour night! And it is 3 years old!
usui 5y ago
This is a little presumptuous or possibly a misunderstanding of the parent's comment mentioning "old Android phone". It's entirely possible that the person did a lateral generational phone switch, but you've assumed that they upgraded to a newer phone. I love older generation phones because they're so cheap and your car comparison is perfect because buying a phone new IMO is one of the worst financial decisions you can make unless it has functionality you really need. Phone value drops sharply after the first 1-2 years and so I have a lot of fun buying last generation's phones (Android and iPhone) and comparing them to each other. Holding off on the newest phones really shows me how imaginary the price of an absolute brand new phone is.
- gordon_freeman 5y ago
  Talking about how expensive the phones have become lately, the max out specs on new iPhone 13 Pro Max costs $1,600 and if you add taxes it would be $1,760!
  - tdy_err 5y ago
    Your 10% sales tax is robbery. Where is that ?
    - gordon_freeman 5y ago
      California
    - Hello71 5y ago
      According to https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/sales-tax-rate?continent=g20 https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/sales-tax-rate?con..., out of G20 countries, 16 have sales tax rates greater than or equal to 10%. This seems to only counts national sales tax, since it lists 5% for Canada, but about 85% of Canadians live in areas with more than 10% total sales tax.
      - bzbarsky 5y ago
        That conflates VAT rates and sales tax rates. The two tax structures are very different, and a comparable VAT has a higher nominal rate than a sales tax, because the taxable amount is typically smaller.
albrewer 5y ago
It's even worse - 12h battery life wouldn't really be a problem if I could swap in a spare battery or choose to bulk up my device with a 100 watt hour battery.

mkl 5y ago

I've never had an iPhone, but I could say the same thing about my old and current Android phones. I had a Galaxy Note 4 for a few years, the last Note with a replaceable battery, and I had spare batteries that I occasionally swapped in. When I upgraded to a Note 20 I thought "oh no I can't swap batteries" and bought a power bank along with it. I've never needed it, even when travelling. At the end of each day I usually have mid 80s percent battery left. The battery's only slightly bigger, but the power management is way better.

megablast 5y ago

Sure, but there are a 1000 android phones, some that cost $20.

etaioinshrdlu 5y ago

I switched from Pixel 3 XL to iPhone 11 Pro and the battery life was way worse on iPhone. It's about half as good as the Pixel was. It was like that on day one. It was my single biggest gripe about the iPhone.

koyote 5y ago

It really depends on what phone you had and how old it was when you switched. Most of my friends are very surprised when I mention that my Android phone lasts more than 2 days on a single charge; their iPhone barely lasts a day. If they switched they'd come to the same realisation as you did but with phones reversed. If they upgraded to the latest iPhone I am sure they'd also be pleasantly surprised. I think something that has happened in the last 2-3 years is that the average phone has gone from 'full day battery' on purchase to '2-3 day battery' and there has not really been much marketing around that fact (or at least as far as I can see), so people on older models don't quite realise what they're missing (and are of course also suffering from battery degradation).