Where’d My Power Go?

One of the biggest issues over the past year has been power, and I’m not referring to the various elections that are in process both in the US and in my home province of Ontario. I’m actually referring to the electrical type of power. In recent months we’ve seen Apple come out with the fact that they cycle back their battery life for their older models, wireless charging has become more and more prominent (and demanded), and our usage of wireless devices is higher than ever so our ability to stretch out our battery life becomes ever more important. Knowing where we get our power and more to the point how we use our power is, and always has been, an important issue.

So let’s go through these things;

1) Apple’s Battery Scale Back – I have spoken to many different people about what they thought about Apple’s confession of scaling back the battery power of the older model iPhone. The only people who were surprised in any way by this were the people who did not own phones. Apple forever has always had the business model of “you should only use the best and the newest model of our stuff” so the fact that the battery’s stop working as efficiently after a couple generations come along is not that surprising. Frankly, as a guy who had his iPhone 6 for about 3 years and after that time I was ready to upgrade. Now I have an 8 and it works like a dream. Also, Apple tends to cycle out their older models when new stuff comes in, so having their older models have worse battery life, in my mind, is just apart of their strategy for cycling them out anyway.

I don’t blame Apple for wanting people to buy their newer products. I do think that however, they should have just taken the 6 off the market instead of trying to offer an inferior product.

2) Wireless charging craze – Wireless charging has become so popular and so much more accessible over the past couple of years (all Android users roll their eyes in 3…2…1…) and now that Apple has gotten into the game, it’s really taking off. Apple for years has not had wirelessly charged devices (a personal source of frustration) but now that they have made a deal with QI charging (pronounces Chee) the devices that they have come out with can be charged wirelessly. I’ve been trying it and I really like it. in fact I’ll be talking about my experiences in a bit more depth later this week. Because of Apple’s thing of “as little wires and jacks as possible” wireless charging is certainly the way of the future.

Since I’ve started using it I really like wireless charging. I do really like the fact that I can basically just drop my phone on the charger and walk away. I don’t have to worry about plugging it in. it’s great. I just need something that will charge my watch, phone, and Air Pods at the same time. I’ve been hearing rumors of a charging mat that Apple may be releasing later this year (stay tuned) which will hopefully solve my problem.

3) Greater usage of mobile devices – there has been a growing group of people who have stopped using computers entirely and have started using mobile devices as their main computing devices as opposed to using them as secondary devices. Certainly, Ipads but also smartphones are being used as full office machines and so It’s important to ensure that these devices have the same level of battery life as our computers do. Perhaps even more so because the mobile devices are more likely to be used, quite literally, on the go and so people will be less likely to be connected into power when using them as they typically are when using a computer for a long period of time.

As I’ve been writing this article I’ve been noticing more and more how much I use my iPhone. For sure I have a few games and stuff but I’m also checking e-mail, texts, and social media to see what’s going on. I get my news on my phone through Feedly and I am able to do 90% of my job through my phone. I even get office calls on my phone through Skype. Using my iPhone has become a necessity, and having enough power to keep it going throughout the day is a big deal. Since I upgraded to my 8 my battery life has drastically improved, and my productivity has improved along with it.

So why are these three issues important? As apart of being able to organize your digital life, you need to be able to know What devices you want to use, how their battery life works and how to effectively make sure that they stay charged. As a society that is becoming more mobile we need to have devices that will keep up with us, but at the same time, we need to be able to keep up with the technological advances that are steamrolling their way through. Sometimes this means upgrading to the newest device, trying out a different charging system or using your device in a new way.

How do you use a wireless charger? How do you feel about Apple’s battery Scale back? 

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