Future Mac Portable Batterys?
You tech guys out there I have a topic for ya. Is it possible we will be seeing a new battery type in future Mac portables. Can the Lithium Poly battery tech in iPods be used in an iBook or are there other better battery types we may be seeing in the near future, I would like some serious battery life so I can watch 2 DVDs on a long flight w/o an adapter.
Comments
<strong>How'bout an anal methan harvester? You wear special underwear with an absorbing filter that channels the gas to be used in the laptop's fuel cell? Need longer battery-life? Eat more means or try to use your book in close proximity to a small herd of cattle. Rendezvous automatically detects ambient gases and seamlessly collects them for use, only possible with Jaguar!</strong><hr></blockquote>
You know, this thread had potential for actual discussion.
However, you, Matsu, decided to ruin it.
To keep with the mood,
this thread is locked.
The Blade isn?t the only Mac player throwing fuel on the fire these days, at least according to certain highly placed officials in the Rubinstein administration who maintain that Apple is in hot pursuit of fuel-cell technology for a veritable tsunami of future PowerBooks.
"According to the Blade?s beady-eyed moles, Apple is as aware as the next hardware manufacturer of the potential of fuel cells as a superior source of portable power to the charge-constrained batteries weighing down today?s laptops. They report that Apple has been feverishly seeking out fuel-cell companies that might accept their investment dollars ? and afford it a competitive advantage in this up-and-coming market.
Apple hardly has the field to itself. Most notably, Intel has been approaching most of the same players ? with the caveat that it won?t invest in any fuel-cell company that also deals with Apple. By contrast, IBM is reportedly more than happy to play nicely with La Pomme; besides looking to power its own Intel-based ThinkPads with fuel cells, Big Blue will gladly see the technology put at the service of future Apple laptops ? especially if they?re to be based on IBM?s PowerPC 970 (a k a G5) processor.
So serious is Apple about the potential of fuel-cell technology, sources report, that the company is willing to adapt its next-generation PowerBooks to accommodate a fuel cell instead of insisting that the winning supplier provide a fuel cell that fits into the battery compartment of current PowerBook designs."
Cool!
Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
"Most notably, Intel has been approaching most of the same players ? with the caveat that it won?t invest in any fuel-cell company that also deals with Apple."
If this is the case, Apple should invest some with everyone, even a token amount, just so Intel looks stupid.
Isn't this thread a blast from the past? Are we re-instating threads now? or is vB a little wonky?
PS, I've been noticing some strange behavior lately, but iDunno if it's something to do with the way Safari 1.0 handles cached pages, they don't seem to refresh automatically any more.
Screed
Another thing that Apple really needs to implement is sleep-swapping of batteries on the iBooks and 12-inch PowerBook. It's ludicrous that you can't sleep-swap the battery on the 12-inch PowerBook!
Escher
Originally posted by Jonathan
this thread is locked.
It is? I haven't noticed that yet.
Originally posted by Matsu
Isn't this thread a blast from the past? Are we re-instating threads now? or is vB a little wonky?
PS, I've been noticing some strange behavior lately, but iDunno if it's something to do with the way Safari 1.0 handles cached pages, they don't seem to refresh automatically any more.
any locked threads from before the vB transition became unlocked during the conversion
Safari v85 reads pages from the cache by default... refresh to see an updated version of the thread
brad has a better explanation... see the safari 1.0 thread in sw
solution: get rid of browser cache or use OW 4.5b1
Waiting for someone to make a battery charger like that...
Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
I saw the NMR report last night and it reminded me of some discussions I once read here. I searched Future Hardware for "fuel cell" and found this thread which seemed appropriate. Should I have started a new thread when we already had an old, but appropriate IMHO, thread?
Carson O'Genic: You did exactly what I would have done. It makes perfect sense to keep information regarding a particular topic in one single thread. That's true even if it means digging up an older thread. In this case, I think it was an omen, a positive sign, that the transition to vB unlocked the thread in question. Now we just need to keep it on topic to avoid the ire of the moderators.
IMO, the lower power requirements of the upcoming Motorola PPC 7457 (as opposed to Moto's current PPC 7455) will bring a handy increase in battery life. However, I agree that Apple needs to do even more on battery tech. The iPod has a nice high-density battery. I imagine the only thing that prevents Apple from using an iPod-quality battery in the PowerBooks is cost.
If cost is a concern, Apple should sell high-capacity batteries as an option. That's what PC makers do. I have no doubt that many PowerBook users would pay a 50% premium (or more) for a 50% increase in battery life.
Escher
Originally posted by Escher
If cost is a concern, Apple should sell high-capacity batteries as an option. That's what PC makers do. I have no doubt that many PowerBook users would pay a 50% premium (or more) for a 50% increase in battery life.
I would so pay %50 more for %50 more capacity. My Dell has two batteries so that it can run for six hours (and get its weight up to ten pounts). Ideally, a laptop could work for something like eight to ten hours, but that is hard to do for the real world CPU loads that I will inflict on a laptop (100% twenty minutes at a time).