Apple is working on what could be a revolution for its most popular devices: a miniaturization of components for a bigger battery.
For several years the real Achilles’ heel of iPhones was the battery. It was hard to find an Apple customer who was happy with the autonomy of his iPhone, and it was common to find dozens of users with iPhones huddled near the charging stations (at airports, for example), all waiting in line with a few percent of charge left.
In short, it was unlikely that someone would choose an iPhone as a daily companion for adventures without the company of a powerbank that could guarantee the afternoon appointment with the charge. Then the Plus series iPhones followed by the latest generations, thanks to larger sizes, more efficient chips and larger capacity batteries, have mitigated the problem, and although now the number of Apple customers who with iPhones, iPads and MacBooks manage to get sufficient autonomy has grown considerably, Cupertino would be thinking of a definitive solution for a problem that still plagues some, especially customers of smaller products such as iPhone 12 mini.
Apple miniaturizes components to get more battery
According to information obtained by DigiTimes, Apple is working on using miniaturized components for the next generations of iPhones, iPads and MacBooks. It is intuitive to understand how this move could have positive repercussions on autonomy: the smaller the volume occupied by the components, the greater the volume available to the battery.
A physically larger battery guarantees, intuitively, a longer autonomy. The source says that “the chips for iPhone, iPad and MacBook are reducing their size while ensuring higher performance, thus gaining space for batteries with higher capacity”.
The realization of the new miniaturized components, called IPD (Integrated Passive Devices) is being taken care by TSMC (which has been working with Apple for years) and Amkor. There’s no official word yet on the timing of the arrival of IPD components, but it’s said that Apple has already given TSMC the go-ahead for a new generation of IPDs to be used on future iterations of the iPhone, iPad and MacBook.
If that meant mass production would have already started, there’s some chance we could see them as early as 2022’s iPhone 14 or next year’s lineup of iPads and MacBooks, or at the latest in 2023.
Iphones could have benchmark battery life
This way Apple could finally push as hard as its Android competitors on the capacity of its batteries. On the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro for example, which aren’t particularly small smartphones, there are 2,815 mAh batteries, when an Android device of the same size can easily accommodate 4,000 mAh batteries (then there are real 15,000 mAh battery monsters).
This would be a great thing for Apple and its customers, since despite the reduced battery capacity of the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, by virtue of excellent software optimization and energy management of the A14 Bionic chips, the two smartphones still manage to ensure an autonomy for many sufficient to “close” the day. With the same hardware, an iPhone 12 with a 3,500 or 4,000 mAh battery could have an autonomy of other times.