Bulging Laptop Batteries And My iPhone Battery Tale Of Woe

Bulging Laptop Batteries

While perusing the iTunes app store the other day we stumbled upon a new app from Consumer Reports. The app is free and as we’ve so often mentioned, free is good so we downloaded it straight away.

Upon launching the app for the first time, however, we were shocked and dismayed to find the first article about “bulging” Apple laptop batteries. Apparently this isn’t an isolated issue and many MacBook and MacBook Pro owners have experienced similar issues.

Consumer Reports reported the issue to Apple and after a fairly lengthly customer service call to Apple they were authorized an immediate overnight shipment of a new battery.

Aside from the long call, this speaks to why Apple tops our annual survey on computer tech support.

states Consumer Reports.

Oh and the free Consumer Reports is kind of cool as well. Check it out on iTunes here. If you want to read the online version of "Apple's Bloating Batteries" check it out over at Consumer Reports.

iPhone Battery Tale Of Woe

Speaking of batteries, my iPhone has been suffering progressively worsening battery life. I’d start the day off fully charged and by supper I’d be at or getting close to 20% left. This was odd as I’d not overly taxed the phone. I’d probably use an hour or so of Talk Time, checked my email every hour or so and brought up iCal 10 or 15 times. I'd also take a trip to Twitterland via Twitterrific (now replaced by Tweetsville by the way) and maybe use a few other apps along the way but did nothing that I felt should be running the battery down that fast.

A visit to Apple’s support forums has hopefully nipped this issue in the bud. Seems that although lithium-ion batteries like the ones in iPhones and iPods don’t suffer from “memory” problems like NiCad batteries do (we all knew that) they do benefit from completing complete charging cycles. Apparently this tunes the charging circuitry so that your phone knows when it’s fully charged and when it needs charging.

That day I let my phone discharge completely, to the point that it was at 5% and would only offer me the option to make an emergency call or charge the phone. I plugged the phone into a wall outlet for 5 or 6 hours and now everything seems to be back to normal.

Here’s a link to the myriad battery charging threads in the discussions forums. Apple also posted this interesting and useful lithium-ion battery tips page as well as this iPhone specific battery tips page. I believe much if not all of this info is contained in one of my many owners manuals but who reads those things?
Er, maybe I should. Nah!

For those too lazy to click on links, here are the iPhone specific tips Apple suggests. The ones in bold and underlined were news to me:

• Minimize the use of location services
• Fetch new data less frequently
• Turn off push mail
• Auto-check fewer email accounts
• Minimize the use of third party applications
• Turn off WiFi
• Turn off Bluetooth
• Use Airplane mode in low or no coverage areas
• Adjust brightness
• Turn off EQ
• Turn off 3G

Ok, lets get real. The reason I own an iPhone is solely (almost, I do use the phone for "phoning" people occasionally) for using third party applications so that one is just ridiculous. Also, putting the phone in Airplane mode kind of defeats the purpose of having a cell phone, doesn't it?

Anyway, the tips are good and along with following the monthly charging cycle tip I'm hoping to get more out of my iPhone's battery. One more little tidbit I hadn't even thought of:

Make sure your computer is on while charging iPhone via USB. If iPhone is connected to a computer that’s turned off or is in sleep or standby mode, the iPhone battery may drain. That's

a quote straight from the iPhone Battery tip page. I knew it wouldn't charge when the computer is turned off (duh!) but didn't know about the sleep or standby mode thingy. That's some good info!