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You mean, imagine an iPad too hot to touch. Because we always optimize for performance, keeping battery on the bare acceptable minimum. With the newest trend t
by tjoff 13y ago
You mean, imagine an iPad too hot to touch.
Because we always optimize for performance, keeping battery on the bare acceptable minimum. With the newest trend to also seal the batteries to ensure that the device has a limited useful life.
While I often cringe at how terrible batteries are, the alternative wouldn't be that attractive for mobile devices either. Because we wouldn't have had the same focus on low power if we had decent batteries.
- gress 13y agoDo you seriously think that sealed batteries are designed to shorten the life of devices?
- tjoff 13y agoNo, but there aren't any less pathetic reasons for it.
- gress 13y agoSo you were being deliberately misleading in your earlier comment.
- tjoff 13y agoWasn't meant to be taken seriously. Just as I don't imagine that apple would create an iPad that was too hot for touch... The gist, and my point is that it is easy to imagine an alternative universe with, for instance, much better battery tech, without considering how our bad batteries have influenced our. Our batteries have forced us to focus on low power designs. Designs that also benefits from low heat output which also benefits from cheaper, smaller and quieter cooling.
- gress 13y agoThat seems like a strange universe. I don't see why designers would suddenly disregard heat output or noise just because batteries were able to provide more power. Apple doesn't disregard these factors in their AC powered computers, so why would they do so in mobile computers?
- tjoff 13y agoApple don't have much to say about these factors in their AC powered computers. They just buy whatever is on the market. And that's exactly what the market did just a few years ago, "ignored" (in favor for performance) heat output - until it became a big enough problem. http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CPU-Scaling.jpg http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CPU-Sc... Just before 2005 power consumption suddenly became a top priority (well, ok, earlier than that but it was around then the results were showing in consumer products across the board). One can argue the same even with modern macbooks that get extremely hot when pressed. That's favoring performance over heat output. In a world were batteries were even worse that would not have been acceptable, now we live on the edge on how much heat we can tolerate. Many of todays phones do get quite hot when gaming and with better batteries I'm sure it wouldn't exactly be less of a problem. Now we are saved by the fact that a battery time of 60 minutes wouldn't be acceptable in a phone and the goal is to get as much performance out of a device that has decent battery life. When battery performance goes up so does the performance of the phone - but not the battery life.
- gress 13y agoWhat are you talking about? Apple are renowned for striving to make quiet computers. And your comment about hot MacBooks directly contradicts your claim that heat would be ignored as a factor.
- tjoff 13y agoReally? MacBooks have never been quiet, apple don't want to pay the premium for low power chips so even if they tried they would fail (exception: MacBook Air). Of course you have to take heat into account, but it's not like it takes priority.