Hey guys. I come to you today with more great news! Our source in China has been able to play with the prototype model a bit and he has leaked some new information to us. Apparently, the iPhone prototype has the recently-patented Secondary Backlight system built right into it. You will recall from our previous post on the prototype that the new model has an alleged 450 hours of stand-by time. Well, we realized that our source was wrong about how he had presented this information to us. The 45o hours of stand-by time would be a valid claim had he been talking about the current iPhone model, the iPhone 3G.
“a cheap yet energy efficient battery that ” will be able to power an iPhone 3G for up to 8 hours of talk-time on 3G and 15-20 hours on 2G.” The tipster also boasts and incredible claim of 450 hours of stand-by”
What our source meant was that “should the new battery-pack be on an iPhone 3G, it can supply stand-by time power for up to 450 hours.” The cited hours of talk-time however, are accurate with the prototype model as well. So, what really is the stand-by time of the prototype / iPhone 4G you ask? Well here is a detailed explanation.
Remember the patent that Apple filed sometime back? It involved the iPhone having a dual Back-light system. Well folks, that is what we have in the prototype. That finally explains the reason behind the extra powerful battery pack. This new backlight system that Apple has included in the prototype is Apple’s answer to allowing customers to check on their phones’ statuses without having to do much. This new backlight system involves two lighting set-ups. One is the main backlight that functions only when necessary, and the other is a backlight that remains on as long as the phone is locked.
This new systems allows the user to quickly check on statuses such as Messages and Missed calls without having to do anything at all. The new prototype software installed on the model also goes hand in hand with this new feature. When the phone is set to lock, a new display is seen, along with the turning on of the secondary backlight. The backlight fades in gently and reveals a summary screen of sorts. The screen contains information such as Missed Calls, Text Messages, Emails as well as the most recently received SMS’s Preview. The new screen also displays information such as the upcoming appointments in your calendar as well as the amount of Battery remaining. I do believe that this screen can be customized to your liking with components that you use the most. I also have feeling that it might be editable via a drag and drop method. You select the “widgets” that you want from a list, and drop it into pre-assigned slots on the screen. This could very well be Apple’s answer to Dashboard on the iPhone.
So how does Apple make sure that this system is power efficient. Well, first of all, the secondary set-up is designed only to fully light up a small portion of the screen. The light emitted by this system is also a lot dimmer than the full backlight at it’s dimmest. In short, the secondary system uses as little energy as possible . Here is the configuration of the Secondary Backlight.
Secondary Backlight Configuration
The light is only concentrated in a particular spot. The rest of the display is then lit up by light that is emitted by the sides of the main source. Thus, the more vital details and information are presented towards the centre, where the light is brightest. So when you have an always on Backlight system and a battery capable of lasting 45o hours, what do you get?
The answer that our source revealed to us was arrived at after hours of testing by the factory that made the prototype. The verdict, the iPhone prototype has a stand-by time of up to 325 hours. That is a 25 hour improvement over the current iPhone 3G. Our source tells us that the battery times for call usage was accurately mentioned during the last post. So yes, we might possibly be looking at a future iPhone that could have up to 8 hours of talk-time on 3G and 15-20 hours on 2G, as well as up to 325 hours of stand-by. Not too bad if you ask me. Well then, here is a look of the new Secondary-Backlight system.
The New Secondary-backlight system. Notice the dimmed lighting and the use of light diffusion. Click to enlarge.
We will be back with more news on the prototype as soon as we get them. Our source has given us word that he will be messing around with the Video Chat application on his next correspondence.
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