Hmmmm, Peter.....so messaging, email and phone calls are the killer apps for you. Quite honestly, they're likely the major ones for the bulk of iPhone users. So, it would seem the FAIR comparison re abttery life would be for you to compare your Blackberry performance against iPhone users with a similar usage pattern, not folks intensively using the iPhone for multimedia apps you don't see value in.

AND...as part of the comparison, how does the experience of doing messaging, email and phone calls compare between platforms. Am not ready to say that the iPhone will win across the board, but I will put a stake in the ground that it will likely offer a better overall user experience in general.

IMHO, I think you've set up a strawman argument based on one specific anecdotal event, using two different usage patterns to support an argument you apparently had a strong opinion about
already.

Alas...the difference between "journalism" and more rigorous, fact-based approaches to assessing such issues. Am totally broken-hearted that you've chosen not to buy the iPhone. I will likely lie awake fretting over this issue for multiple nanoseconds....(Translation: Why should I care what you decided? The posting provided no specific data and objective assessments that could ever serve as a basis for me - or anyone else - to be base our own decisions on.)

Maybe I don't speak for everyone else, but I couldn't care less about why you don't have an iPhone or how you work. What I want to know, which you did not tell us, is what you guys were doing. Were the iPhones in use while your Blackberry sat in your pocket? Were you trying out their phones and draining the battery? Do they use push email services or have they set their phones to check as frequently as possible? I mean, what the heck were they doing during a concert to drain the battery? All those words and no information...

And no, I don't have an iPhone either. But I'm not going into why.

Hi,

This article doesn't even discuss what your friends were doing with their iPhone throughout the concert. If the article is intimating that an iPhone cannot be left on stand-by for more than a day - I assure you that is absolutely false.

What was your friend's usage compared to yours? Were they surfing the net while your phone was idle? I don't want to discount your post, but its not clear to me at all that is a comparison of any sort if a discussion of how the phones were used were not included. When was the last time your friends charged their phones heading into the concert? Without more concrete detail, the post is purely anecdotal.

Further, how does a post that is purportedly a discussion of iPhone battery life digress to a discussion of the keyboard? The truth is, the keyboard is adaptive based on each user's strike zone behavior. You really do need to use it for a couple of days because the phone memorizes your typos and increases/decreases strike zones based on what you typically type and how poorly you type.

They need to turn down the brightness a couple notches. I've put in 20 hour days with mine, and not hit below 40% or so. Keep that brightness on HIGH, and batter life is much shorter.

But that's the way it's always been with smartphones.

At least you do say the experience is different. Kudos for keeping the comparison honest. I'm sure what they were doing on their "phones" was way different than what you were doing on yours.

I get tired of hearing people complain about the battery and comparing it to their previous cell phone that was somehting like a RAZR. Well, duh I say. Back then you were taking and making calls, maybe some text messages, some pictures, a little email. Compare that with what I'm doing now. Browsing the real web. Basically playing with iTunes, iPhoto, iCal, Mail, Safari - all above and beyond what I was doing on my cell phone to begin with. So yes, expect worse battery life. Need longer battery life? Than do no more than what you are doing now with your current phone, and you will probably almost (if not) equal your current battery life.

The catch is, with all these cool new features, you *have* to play with them. I find myself just waking it up to look at it sometimes. Look through my settings. I have no intention of changing anything, I'm just looking. ;-)

Peter,

I'm with you... almost. I've had a couple of plain-old cellphones, finally had a Treo 650 for a year, then my iPhone. Occasionally with an iPod, I've done what you're colleague did and set up a long playlist and let 'er rip and see how many hours it lasts, but at the end of the day, the trick is... does normal, without-thinking, typical use get me through the day? An overnight recharge is easy to implement, so I'm not worried about how many days, just does it get me through a day?

The only place the iPhone falls short is... when I use it as a heavy duty websurfer rather than just as a phone. The only time I've been close to running the battery dry has been when I spend a 2-3 hour session at the end of the day surfing and reading on the web... after a full day of "normal" phone usage.

And believe me, I couldn't surf with phones #1 & 2.. and didn't WANT to surf with the Treo. What an ugly experience!

so I have to say, the only way the iPhone doesn't meet battery requirements is because.. I want to over-use it. Not because the battery is under-sized. If you get the difference.

As it turns out, since the ipod, surfer and phone are all in one device and that device is a phone... it is ALWAYS with me which means I can easily get a little recharge in the car and get a long recharge when I'm at my desk.

If I had to have 3- rechargers in the car or at my desk, I quickly prioritize and only plug in the phone... the others die. But all being combined and needing one charger... they all stay charged.

Kind of a funny way of looking at it... but it sure works in my book.

Jim

"Alas...the difference between 'journalism' and more rigorous, fact-based approaches to assessing such issues"

Alas, the difference between reading comprehension and lack of reading comprehension. This is a blog piece, filed under our Musings category, not hard news or a review worthy of rigorous fact checking. It's an opinion piece, Gregg.

"What was your friend's usage compared to yours? Were they surfing the net while your phone was idle?"

H:

Mostly the same; some light web surfing, a lot of e-mails and calls.

"Further, how does a post that is purportedly a discussion of iPhone battery life digress to a discussion of the keyboard?"

I didn't make this post to discuss the battery life exclusively, but to reflect my experience with the BlackBerry and the iPhone and explain why I'm sticking with the BlackBerry for now.

Your mileage may vary, obviously.

"You really do need to use it for a couple of days because the phone memorizes your typos and increases/decreases strike zones based on what you typically type and how poorly you type."

I'm sure it does -- my colleagues were vehement in their opinion that you get used to the keyboard (though none posited that it is, in fact, the keyboard getting used to you). But the fact is that right now, I'm far more efficient with the BlackBerry than I am with the iPhone.

"Do they use push email services or have they set their phones to check as frequently as possible?"

Our corporate network doesn't use BlackBerry Enterprise Services, so we check our e-mail IMAP accounts frequently -- every few minutes.

In my seven weeks of experience with the iPhone I have found that the most battery-consuming thing I do are the demos to friends and acquaintances who want to see how it works. On days when it is just my iPhone -- and I use it a lot for text messaging and email -- I find it has excellent battery life. I can't imagine the regime that would exhaust its battery in a single day.

That said, I have gotten a charger for the car, in addition to the one at home.

Bottom line: This isn't just a phone, and its power consumption is directly related to all the other ways you use it.

In my usage pattern, I go three or four days between charges most of the time. Less than that if I turn on periodic mail checking, or if I actually use the iPod part heavily or if I enable WiFi for long periods. And some of the charges are triggered by "oops, I'm going out and MIGHT talk a lot" so I charge at about 70% just to be sure (I don't yet have a car charger).

But aside from my weight, I'm not what anyone would call a heavy iPhone user.

i beg to differ, i put my iphone to the ultimate test. I used it as a camera on my kid's disney vacation. Every night i synched and downloaded over 200 photos and still had over 70% batterry left.
PS- I'm typing this comment from my iphone right now...lol

When I first got my iPhone at the beginning of the month, I was quite concerned about the battery. I seemed to need to charge it every night. I was also playing with it ALL THE TIME. In the last week or so, I've noticed the battery usage leveling out. I now only need to charge it every 3 or 4 days or so. I'm now using it primarily for surfing when I'm bored and in an appropriate location, email checking when out and about, texting, and phone calls. I occasionally am using the iPod features, although I'm sure that will change when I travel. I am no longer using it for everything all day.

Using the iPhone heavily in the beginning is something I think we all went through, and it happens everytime you get the opportunity to show off your iPhone to a willing set of eyes and fingers. Don't judge the iPhone battery on your experience at the concert. If the iPhones were recently new, or the owners were still awed and amazed, it was in heavy use before you even got your hands on it. Chances are, those same iPhones have great battery life under normal operating conditions.

Cheers!
Michelle

I've lived with a Treo 650 and a Blackberry 8700c prior to my iPhone. Device settings and usage pattern obviously influence battery life and perceptions about how long the juice lasts. Others have raised the important questions regarding the inadequacy of the comparison made in your article. Let me add a couple of other considerations.

The Treo 650 could accept user installed applications. I only used those that were commercially available (not that it really matters that much). After a year of use, the Treo would not accept OS updates from Palm. I wiped the phone clean of all of my apps, but still no upgrade of the OS was possible. Tech support did not help. I finally gave up with the recognition that something stopped working on that phone, and without the ability to install my favorite 3rd party apps, I was willing to try the legendary crackberry.

I only used the 8700c for email and occasional web access. It's a fine email device client but having to manually switch the time when traveling from one time zone to another was a bummer. Syncing with my Mac was not a big problem using 3rd party software. I could have upgraded to a newer crackberry, but when iPhone was released, I waited until the middle of July to make the switch.

I use all of the iPhone features and apps except YouTube. Sure, I look forward to improvements to AT&T's network which I consider the weak link right now. However, the experience in CA and other markets where AT&T have a strong network presence is vastly different than in its weaker markets where older Cingular equipment has yet to be updated. I look forward to those updates and new widgets to try on the iPhone, hoping that I don't have a Treo 650 deja vue.

Overall, the iPhone experience has been my most robust one with the greatest overall satisfaction. Plugging in the phone every night for recharging is my routine practice anyway so I'm less concerned about long intervals between charges.

I am a regular reader of iPhone Central. I find the articles to be mostly informing. After reading this article by Peter Cohen, I now realize the bar has substantially dropped for articles on this site. The article was almost devoid of any real substance. However, I enjoyed reading the reader responses to the article. Much more informative.

I'm going to have to agree with some of the other commenters here, it doesn't seem like you're basing your points off of a valid comparison. You don't seem to have accounted for the fact that the iPhones were probably being put through heavier use then your blackberry nor do you mention what their initial charge was before the event. I usually get 2 days of use out of my iPhone with average use and could probably get 3 if I was willing to let it run all the way down.

I have never run my battery dry in one day. I've talked for hours, played music, texted, surfed the web and not once did it go to below 20% in one day. It has after two days. I went three days without charging once and it gave me the "low battery" message but I had also used it for over 6 hours and it had over 72 hours of standby time.

I think that if people keep waiting for the next best thing they're going to be dissapointed. When the 3G iPhones come out, they will have their shortcomings too. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. But hey the iPhone comes close and I'm enjoying the hell out of it. I'm not going deprive myself of the fun I'm having to wait for something a little more perfect.

Peter:

I totally disagree with you, but as you can deduce from my screen name, that is nothing new in our career paths [big grin/inside joke].

But I commend you for posting your opinion and defending it, as this helps the entire Mac community, so keep up the good work. And as you noted, the "journalism" critique is way off-base.

My son has a CrackBerry and he and I have had numerous iPhone vs. BB "shootouts." Our bottom line conclusion: Each of us is happy with our chosen phone and each acknowledges both phones' relative strengths and weaknesses.

If the traffic here ever subsides, maybe we could grab a cuppa and compare notes.

-dan

Peter/Dan:
Sorry, but IMHO, this is not a reading comprehension issue...and from my perspective, a rather false nuance over "it's an opinio piece" defense.

This is a website/blog under a MacWorld brand presenting info directly related to the products & issues normally covered by MacWorld. This blog is heavily weighted towards reporting facts & info to its readers. Peter is an employee of MacWorld.

On his posting, Peter refers to Apple's specs on the battery, then goes on to relate his experience as being somewhat of a real-world test.

To me, dunce that I may be, this put's Peter's posting well within the context of journalism, in the same way that a newspaper editor doing an op-ed piece in his own paper is not removed from the contrct and principles of journalism.

At least one other reader noted that the piece had diminished thr credibility of the site in his estimation.

While the intent may not be there, perception is reality, and the context of the posting as I noted above, fairly easily can be perceived as coming from a journalist in a journalistic setting on a subject matter directly pertinent to both.

Peter, you need to stop! Admit it, you paid for a Blackberry not all that long ago and now you're too cheap to purchase an iPhone. You have, as with so many people regarding so many different topics these days, tried day and night to convince yourself of something void of any hint of reality... that the Blackberry is better than the iPhone. And even though you're obviously stressing and agonizing over it, you've somehow managed to do just that.

Others with Blackberries are drooling for an iPhone. Ah, but not Peter Cohen... he'd never fall prey to all of this iPhone silliness going around when he's got that slick Blackberry vibrating in his pocket. Or, is the vibration in your pocket the real reason for the Blackberry persistence?

Peter, Peter, stop fooling yourself. We have something you don't have, and you can't stand it. We have the coolest thing to be released in years and you stubbornly try and convince yourself it's not that cool. Your "old skool" Blackberry is just that, Peter, "Old Skool."

At the very least, please stop trying to bring iPhone lovers down into your private and supposed "anti-iPhone" hell. It's so juvenile to be so envious over something you actually try and make others feel the same way as you are trying to make believe you feel. Grow up, Peter! Come into the modern and adult iPhone world and stop pretending... you'll be the better man for having done so.

We love our iPhones. Could things be better? Sure, and they will once Apple stops thinking like you, allows themselves into this century, and natively allows 3rd party apps and such.

But Peter, the iPhone battery? Can't you at least come up with something a lot less transparent than that? I've had a lot of cell phones. And the iPhone's battery is pretty good as far as I'm concerned. Yet, I don't think I got a special battery that lasts longer than anyone elses, which, is really what you seem to want from the iPhone. That's it! Let's give wittle Peter his own special wittle battery with it's own special wittle charge time... then he'll buy an iPhone! *puff* *puff*

Really, Peter, if you don't want an iPhone then just admit you're too cheap to buy one. But please, stop this crusade of secretive envy you seem to be on to discredit the iPhone. I realize it must be torture for you not having an iPhone. But please allow us to enjoy the coolest thing in years... our beloved iPhones!

Get a grip, Peter! Have you thought of professional help? And to think, you're a grown man.

Hello Peter,

I am not sure if you addressed the following issue in your article since frankly I found it a little boring and thus did not read the whole thing.

But here's my point:

It's quite possible that the same soporific properties of your prose infects every other aspect of your life, and while your friends at Ozfest were busy communicating with their friends via iPhones, your friends were... well ... those very same people at the Ozfest right next to you. Honestly, Pete, how much communicating were you up to? I don't mean to pry, but if all your friends were within earshot, did you even use your phone? And if you did, if you did not block Caller ID, is it possible that your calls were not accepted, and your battery did not get a statistically comparative workout?

Would you not agree that if your iPhone friends have lots of friends, their batteries are driven harder than someone who has very little opportunity to communicate electronically?

Please know that I am not suggesting you are boring or that your only friends were themselves at the Ozfest so that communicating electronically with them would have been unneccessary. What I am suggesting is that if someone were making a comparison between the battery life of two phones, but one of the phones was in the hands of a boring person whose only friends were at an Ozfest next to him making electronic communication unneccessary, the comparison would be fundamentally flawed.

An APC portable battery charger is a music with the iphone. @50 at circuit city

I agree completely with you. I had an iPhone for one week. During that time the things that concerned me most about it were the dismal battery life and the fact that the speaker output was clearly meant for those living in a soundproof environment.

They may as well have not included the speakerphone as a feature as it is unusable. During the week that I had the phone I missed every other call due to the poor vibrate feature and missed a lot of email alerts. What's the point of carrying a wireless device if it doesn't alert you?

As far as battery life goes, I started the day at 8am with a full charge and was seeing low battery alerts by 4pm - unacceptable. This is a great device if you wish to carry around a charger with you and top off throughout the day.

I am waiting for v2.0 to hopefully address these issues. In the mean time, I am quite happy with the BlackBerry Curve.