iPad Pro Why doesn’t Apple ever significantly improve battery life?

[Marswarrior462]

I have a fully loaded M4 iPad Pro here, and the biggest thing that’s disappointing about it besides the lack of Mac apps and OS customization is the battery life. The iPad has always been rated for 10 hours of battery life since the original iPad, but with the introduction of the M1 chip in the 2021 iPad Pro, since it resulted in a big battery boost in the Macs, it should’ve been a perfect opportunity to greatly improve the iPad’s battery. If the M1 wasn’t good enough, why couldn’t Apple give the M4 iPad Pro the battery boost it deserved? The M4 is a 2nd gen 3nm N3E chip built on ARMv9.4 architecture, which should make it more efficient. It’s the biggest chip upgrade since the M1, but instead, the battery life remained the same.

To make things worse for the battery (but better for battery health overall), Apple introduced a long-overdue toggle to limit charging to 80%. I keep that setting on all the time. The problem is that the iPad doesn’t even last 10 hours. Once you factor in the 80% charge limit, and the fact that it‘s not recommended to ever let your device fall below 20%, that brings the battery life of the iPad down to 2-5 hours, which is pathetic. Is anybody else bothered by the lack of battery improvement in the iPad Pro? Why doesn’t Apple want to give the iPads (or at least the Pros) decent battery life?

 

[tbeaumont]

I have the m4 1TB iPad Pro and noticed that after 13 charges that my battery has fallen below the design capacity already per Coconut Battery. Overall loving the new iPad.

 

[ericwn]

I feel how frustrating this can be. In fairness Apple has had way bigger batteries in Macs and that is what’s causing the great battery life compared to the iPad. Simply by switching from intel to m1 the MAC gained a lot of power efficiency.

The iPad seems focused on mobile use cases and in fairness, when I am mobile with it, those hours that I get are sufficient mostly. Of course more would be better but please not at the cost of adding more weight.

 

[bzgnyc2]

I have a fully loaded M4 iPad Pro here, and the biggest thing that’s disappointing about it besides the lack of Mac apps and OS customization is the battery life. The iPad has always been rated for 10 hours of battery life since the original iPad, but with the introduction of the M1 chip in the 2021 iPad Pro, since it resulted in a big battery boost in the Macs, it should’ve been a perfect opportunity to greatly improve the iPad’s battery. If the M1 wasn’t good enough, why couldn’t Apple give the M4 iPad Pro the battery boost it deserved? The M4 is a 2nd gen 3nm N3E chip built on ARMv9.4 architecture, which should make it more efficient. It’s the biggest chip upgrade since the M1, but instead, the battery life remained the same.

To make things worse for the battery (but better for battery health overall), Apple introduced a long-overdue toggle to limit charging to 80%. I keep that setting on all the time. The problem is that the iPad doesn’t even last 10 hours. Once you factor in the 80% charge limit, and the fact that it‘s not recommended to ever let your device fall below 20%, that brings the battery life of the iPad down to 2-5 hours, which is pathetic. Is anybody else bothered by the lack of battery improvement in the iPad Pro? Why doesn’t Apple want to give the iPads (or at least the Pros) decent battery life?

On one hand I'd say you can't fault Apple for reporting battery life in terms of 100->0% usage. That is a legitimate maximum battery life time and most comparable to previous models and competitors. Otherwise, we're penalizing Apple for offering the 80% max charge option, which would be counterintutitive.

On the other hand, the problem is that the OS and related apps continue to get less efficient squandering the improvements in hardware technology. I bet 95% of the time your iPad Pro is doing the same things an iPad Pro 1st gen with an A9X processor did just fine. Then as you note in the meantime processor fabrication technology (and I assume screen and similar) has improved substantially. If programmed efficiently, an M4 doing the same work as an A9X should use less power. But in practice power usage keeps going up. Either Apple needs to get back to working on the core OS and frameworks (and similarly 3rd party developers) or we're going to continue to suffer hotter and hotter computers/tablets/phones that need bigger and bigger batteries to keep up with the software that 95% of the time is doing the same things we did with it 10 years ago.

What could drive the shift is new benchmarks and energy usage measurement. Instead of measuring TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second), perhaps we need to benchmark new devices on Trillions of Operations Per Watt. Similarly, better OS measurement and reporting of app energy usage. Most people don't really understand where all their battery usage is going. If Apple took the lead and modeled the best behavior I bet you'd then see 3rd parties follow suit.

P.S.The ironic thing is that Apple is probably best positioned in the industry to take advantage of a reframing of computer performance in these terms.

 

[TgeekB]

Apple makes batteries?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

They had the option of longer battery life, or thinner. They chose thinner.

 

[smirking]

I have the m4 1TB iPad Pro and noticed that after 13 charges that my battery has fallen below the design capacity already per Coconut Battery. Overall loving the new iPad.

The % of design capacity rating isn't very reliable. It's just an estimate and especially when your battery is new and hasn't been through many discharge cycles, it's even more suspect.

My M1 Pro MBP dropped to 99.5% after only 20 cycles, but wait... after 100 cycles, it magically regenerated and gained an additional 2% of power capacity and had 101.5%

Both numbers were probably wrong. The truth is somewhere in between.

 

[bzgnyc2]

They had the option of longer battery life, or thinner. They chose thinner.

Third option: more efficient. The hardware is generally getting more efficient with each generation yet we need faster and faster models just for things not to feel slugish. Where's all the power going? There are some things that are inherently power hungery but most things we do these days are bogged down in software. More efficient software running on hardware with refined power curves would get us devices cool to the touch with longer battery life.

 

[bzgnyc2]

The % of design capacity rating isn't very reliable. It's just an estimate and especially when your battery is new and hasn't been through many discharge cycles, it's even more suspect.

My M1 Pro MBP dropped to 99.5% after only 20 cycles, but wait... after 100 cycles, it magically regenerated and gained an additional 2% of power capacity and had 101.5%

Both numbers were probably wrong. The truth is somewhere in between.

A good example of implying more accuracy than there is through too much precision. It would be like if I said "just head up the road 5280 feet and turn 90.00 degrees counterclockwise" instead of "head up the road about a mile and take a left".

In the case of batteries the numbers presented from calculations using control circuit data overstates its confidence. Like through the varying chemistry, manufacturing, historical environmental exposure, and demand/performance curves we know how good the average $100 battery is doing to 1/1000 accuracy...

 

[surfzen21]

I have a fully loaded M4 iPad Pro here, and the biggest thing that’s disappointing about it besides the lack of Mac apps and OS customization is the battery life. The iPad has always been rated for 10 hours of battery life since the original iPad, but with the introduction of the M1 chip in the 2021 iPad Pro, since it resulted in a big battery boost in the Macs, it should’ve been a perfect opportunity to greatly improve the iPad’s battery. If the M1 wasn’t good enough, why couldn’t Apple give the M4 iPad Pro the battery boost it deserved? The M4 is a 2nd gen 3nm N3E chip built on ARMv9.4 architecture, which should make it more efficient. It’s the biggest chip upgrade since the M1, but instead, the battery life remained the same.

The Macs went from x86 to ARM. That is the reason for the jump in battery life. The iPads and iPhones have always been ARM based chips. The M1,M2,M3 are just variants of the A series chips. You are not going to get that huge boost in efficiency going from an A series to an M series ARM chip.


I have a series 8 iPad that I use strictly for reading so battery life is never something Ive worried about. I just bought a M3 Pro MacBook Pro and am shocked at how good the battery life is. I don't use it a ton and charge it every other week. My old intel mac laptop would need a charge every other day.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Why doesn’t Apple want to give the iPads (or at least the Pros) decent battery life?

Apple reads its buyers via market research and provides the battery life/weight/thickness buyers seem to want.

 

[Rychiar]

its thin and light. of course it has the same battery life. ya want a brick it will have more

 

[Marswarrior462]

So you’re saying the battery size and iPadOS is holding the iPad Pro back from getting as good battery as the Mac? Why does Apple think the battery life is good enough for the iPad? Especially when you factor in the charging limit and the fact you don’t want to go below 20%, you’re not getting all day battery life. Apple seems to target all day battery life for all of their products, but in the case of the iPad, it is not even close

 

[surfzen21]

So you’re saying the battery size and iPadOS is holding the iPad Pro back from getting as good battery as the Mac? Why does Apple think the battery life is good enough for the iPad? Especially when you factor in the charging limit and the fact you don’t want to go below 20%, you’re not getting all day battery life. Apple seems to target all day battery life for all of their products, but in the case of the iPad, it is not even close

iPad Pro 11-inch - 31.29-watt-hour battery

iPad Pro 13-inch - 38.99-watt-hour battery

MacBook Pro 14 has a roughly 70-watt-hour battery

MacBook Pro 16 has a roughly 100-watt-hour battery

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Third option: more efficient.

Not really a third option. The greater efficiency, is what creates the first two options.

 

[sparksd]

iPad Pro 11-inch - 31.29-watt-hour battery

iPad Pro 13-inch - 38.99-watt-hour battery

MacBook Pro 14 has a roughly 70-watt-hour battery

MacBook Pro 16 has a roughly 100-watt-hour battery

Yep, and a battery such as the one in the Mac Pro 14 is not going into any iPad:

https://www.ifixit.com/products/macbook-pro-14-a2442-a2779-a2918-battery?variant=40136736079975

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

Do people really want ever thinner and lighter iPads? If I had a 13" Pro, I'd be worried about it flexing like my iPad Air 2 does. I take care of it, but have had to bend it flat a few times.

Give me something a bit thicker, with a better battery, and more structural rigidity!

 

[surfzen21]

Give me something a bit thicker, with a better battery, and more structural rigidity!

That's what she said!

 

[sparksd]

Do people really want ever thinner and lighter iPads? If I had a 13" Pro, I'd be worried about it flexing like my iPad Air 2 does. I take care of it, but have had to bend it flat a few times.

Give me something a bit thicker, with a better battery, and more structural rigidity!

I love the thinner 13" Pro and like it much better than the M1 12.9 I had. I have zero worries about flex and we still have an Air 2 in great shape.

 

[TechnoMonk]

I will take thinner with same battery life of my M1 iPad Pro when I upgrade in the future. And better thermals.

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

Evidently people do want thinner.

I just miss my original 1st gen iPad. That was a tank. I still have it somewhere, and it's like new. I want an iPad built like that.

 

[Rainshadow]

So you’re saying the battery size and iPadOS is holding the iPad Pro back from getting as good battery as the Mac? Why does Apple think the battery life is good enough for the iPad? Especially when you factor in the charging limit and the fact you don’t want to go below 20%, you’re not getting all day battery life. Apple seems to target all day battery life for all of their products, but in the case of the iPad, it is not even close

Yes it is. You just use it weird. I limit to 80% and the m4 11” iPad is my main device. If I don’t use my pencil or make videos on it, the thing lasts 2 days. But yea, I go below 20%.

In my opinion, you can’t complain about there not being enough battery when you personally limit the device to 60% of its capacity. That’s just silly. This is a tool. Use it as such.

I for one would love more battery but MUCH prefer the thinner size. Not to mention, folks with the 13” m4 claim they are getting 13-15 hours - at least that’s what I’ve heard. I have the 11” m4 and no issues here.

If you are using your iPad more than 8 hours a day… unless it’s your main work device… you probably should evaluate your screen time.

 

[jazzzyJeff]

So you’re saying the battery size and iPadOS is holding the iPad Pro back from getting as good battery as the Mac? Why does Apple think the battery life is good enough for the iPad? Especially when you factor in the charging limit and the fact you don’t want to go below 20%, you’re not getting all day battery life. Apple seems to target all day battery life for all of their products, but in the case of the iPad, it is not even close

10hr battery life is probably what they decided based on their research and the use cases of iPad and apparently it still holds true. People started spending more and more time on their iPhones and they went ahead and finally increased the battery life dramatically starting with 11 series.
What you've failed to notice in your argument is that you're in control of the 80-20 limits and they're there as a guidance which you're free to remove. The battery life advertised is the total capacity and you're aware of it before purchasing the M4 but now complaining that you only want to use 60% of it and dissatisfied with your experience.

Advertised is under very controlled environment and the usage of specific apps can either have you as close to the 10hr limit or as far away.

 

[Marswarrior462]

10hr battery life is probably what they decided based on their research and the use cases of iPad and apparently it still holds true. People started spending more and more time on their iPhones and they went ahead and finally increased the battery life dramatically starting with 11 series.
What you've failed to notice in your argument is that you're in control of the 80-20 limits and they're there as a guidance which you're free to remove. The battery life advertised is the total capacity and you're aware of it before purchasing the M4 but now complaining that you only want to use 60% of it and dissatisfied with your experience.

Advertised is under very controlled environment and the usage of specific apps can either have you as close to the 10hr limit or as far away.

The reason for these limits is I’m trying to protect my battery health. I don’t want my battery capacity to go down

 

[NewOldStock]

Charge to 100% and Use what's needed through out the day charge back to 100% ready for the next day.
Long term storage 60% to 70%.
Only full discharge and recharge of said battery can be software calculated correctly.
Voltages calculated matter in software calulations up and down fully-full to empty back again.
Just like a Vehicle fuel tank.