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

[leifp]

My major issues with the 11” M4 iPad Pro are that it’s too thick and too heavy. I also think it’s too large but since it’s gone from 9.7” to 10.5” to 11” I doubt I’ll have my druthers…

I do think the 13” iPP is massively improved over the 12.9” model it replaces, however it’s way too expensive wrt the 11” and I wanted a smaller size. As usual one person’s preference is another’s dismissal…

As to battery life per se: a few more hours here or there doesn’t seem worth it to me. If they find a way to increase battery life by 50%+ without compromising anything else I’d be all for it. Since there are a ton of mitigating factors on battery life (screen brightness, which apps are used, etc) it’s hard to square the circle on your use case and mine, whoever we be.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Unfortunately the Tim Cook era of Apple are obsessed with margins. In the case of the M4 its efficiency meant they could put a smaller, cheaper battery in and still get the same ‘10 hours’ as the previous model and thus make more money.

Certainly not exclusive to the Tim Cook era.
iPhone 3G had a significantly smaller battery than the original iPhone 2G, despite being thicker and using more power hungry 3G radios.
Same with the 4 to 4S, going from an advertised 300 hours of standby down to 200 hours.
But I must correct you. In the case of the 11 inch M4, the battery actually got bigger compared to the previous generation M2.

 

[Isengardtom]

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.

fully agree with this...

Longer battery life, yes please but not with more weight. For me one of the best improvements of the M4 was the weight reduction on the 13" vs the M1

 

[Allen_Wentz]

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

What are all the likes for? The question was about battery life, not capacity. They are two different things, albeit related.

 

[surfzen21]

What are all the likes for? The question was about battery life, not capacity. They are two different things, albeit related.

I dont know. I dont control what other people do.

However, I will say that battery life and capacity are CLOSELY related in the above machines due to the closeness in chips used and that directly relates to battery life.

 

[Droobiemus]

My 15 pro max sucks you-know-what in battery life. 14 pro max was perfect. Really sours me on upgrading because you never know what you'll get.

 

[ApeBot]

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.

I think this is the simple truth.

Extra battery life will be required once a month.. maybe..but thin is every time you pick it up, cart it and look at it.

Personally I wouldn’t mind it being 3mm thicker for another 2 hours of life, but most people would not.

 

[Apple_Robert]

My major issues with the 11” M4 iPad Pro are that it’s too thick and too heavy. I also think it’s too large but since it’s gone from 9.7” to 10.5” to 11” I doubt I’ll have my druthers…

I do think the 13” iPP is massively improved over the 12.9” model it replaces, however it’s way too expensive wrt the 11” and I wanted a smaller size. As usual one person’s preference is another’s dismissal…

As to battery life per se: a few more hours here or there doesn’t seem worth it to me. If they find a way to increase battery life by 50%+ without compromising anything else I’d be all for it. Since there are a ton of mitigating factors on battery life (screen brightness, which apps are used, etc) it’s hard to square the circle on your use case and mine, whoever we be.

You seriously think the m4 11” model is too heavy? It weighs less than a pound.

 

[Analog Kid]

I have significantly more battery life with my 13" M4 than I had with my M1, so I guess I question the premise. Thinner and lighter make all the difference to me on that particular device.

 

[brofkand]

I think people stress battery health too much.

 

[Droobiemus]

I think people stress battery health too much.

When my 15 pro MAX can't last more than a few hours of screen on time.....

 

[RLRabb]

I have significantly more battery life with my 13" M4 than I had with my M1, so I guess I question the premise. Thinner and lighter make all the difference to me on that particular device.

Ditto on all of this.

 

[brofkand]

When my 15 pro MAX can't last more than a few hours of screen on time.....

Battery health isn’t why. It’s because Apple has run out of silicon ideas.

 

[Analog Kid]

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

iPad Pro 11-inch - 444g

iPad Pro 13-inch - 579g

MacBook Pro 14 - 1620g

MacBook Pro 16 - 2160g

 

[Analog Kid]

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?

So you’re complaining you want more battery life, but you’ve chosen to manually reduce the available charge capacity then somehow concluded that 60% of 10 is 2.

I’m surprised you didn’t take this logic to its natural conclusion and declare that 2 is basically zero and your iPad doesn’t even turn on…

 

[Allen_Wentz]

When my 15 pro MAX can't last more than a few hours of screen on time.....

It sounds like y'all need to investigate apps and settings and usage if your 15 pro MAX can't last more than a few hours of screen on time.

 

[HDFan]

My major issues with the 11” M4 iPad Pro are that it’s too thick and too heavy.

You seriously think the m4 11” model is too heavy?

IPad 1st generation 1.03 lb .23 D
iPad 2nd generation 1.04 lb .23 D
IPad 3rd generation 1.04 lb .23 D
iPad 4th generation 1.04 lb .23 D
iPad M4 .98 lb .21 D

(all cellular and WiFi)

How is it too thick and heavy? I actually get alarmed sometimes at how thin it is.

 

[MathersMahmood]

I just got my Pixel 9 Pro XL on release. Trust me Apple does a fantastic job with battery life.

 

[kitKAC]

apple has really made its user base incredibly neurotic

Nah, this place has.

 

[TgeekB]

It sounds like y'all need to investigate apps and settings and usage if your 15 pro MAX can't last more than a few hours of screen on time.

Exactly this. For those people who literally cannot put their phone down they will never be happy with battery life. Game playing, videos, etc eat up battery.
I use mine quite a bit, even for work, and it easily lasts all day. I’m not on instagram or watching YouTube though. BTW I have a 12 Pro, nothing special. Battery is excellent.

 

[leman]

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.

M1 Macs have received a big battery boost because Apple Silicon is more power efficient than the hardware Macs used before the transition. The iPad always used Apple Silicon, making it much more difficult to make meaningful improvements in energy efficiency. Also, M4 consumes more power than M1 or other iPad chips before it, since it is more powerful and clocked more aggressively. It is quite impressive that they managed to keep the same battery life on the new iPad (most likely that is thanks to the more energy-efficient display technology).

There are two principal ways to improve battery life on the iPad. One is significantly lowering the performance and investing the silicon advancements into low-power operation. Another is giving it a much larger battery. Neither of these strategies are compatible with the product vision Apple has for the iPad Pro. Their target is full-day battery life, which the iPad delivers. To make meaningful improvements beyond that the battery life needs to be improved by 50% or more, which is not feasible if one wants to keep the same design parameters.

 

[dominiongamma]

I just got my Pixel 9 Pro XL on release. Trust me Apple does a fantastic job with battery life.

Funny that my pixel has lasted a lot much longer than my 15 Pro Max did

 

[AlexJoda]

Apple should have added a AC pass through mode on the M powered ipad pros to resolve this issue especially when using stage manager. The second USBC port on the magic keyboard would be perfect for this.

Yes, I missing that working with the iPad as a second display (sidecar). You cannot avoid charging the iPad if you connect with with USB-C to the MacBook....

 

[AlexJoda]

I guess I shouldn’t be babying my battery so much to the point where it impacts my enjoyment of using my iPad Pro, especially since I have AppleCare and I can have the battery replaced for free when it falls below 80% health. I just want to make my iPad last as long as possible because I spent almost five grand on it in total including taxes

I just replaced my Gen 2 iPad Pro 12.9 from 2017 with an M1 iPP 12.9 because the Gen 2 will not support IPadOS 18. That 7 year old iPP had 78% batterie life left after 500 charging cycles and 100% charging all the time.

If I would have "babied" that iPP all the time with only 80% charging, it had the same mediocre runtime it had in the end for all the 7 years. That does not make sense!

I bought an "old" M1 iPP now for halve the money of the m4 iPP with only 16 charging cycles. This is a huge improvement to my Gen 2 but not a big difference to the M4.

Saving money with not buying the newest model makes more sense to me than saving batterie life and reducing the runtime....

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

My 15 pro max sucks you-know-what in battery life. 14 pro max was perfect. Really sours me on upgrading because you never know what you'll get.

Interesting, my 15PM’s battery is just fine, even after almost a year of usage.