One of the most significant barriers to evolving the devices we use every day is, surprisingly, a very basic component: the battery. Although they often go unnoticed, batteries are fundamental in our daily lives, limiting everything from the duration of our device usage to their power, size, and capabilities. And this is where the next great revolution from Apple may come from.
Goodbye to the limit of efficiency
We find batteries beyond Apple, from electric cars to smart speakers or even connected homes. For all companies and devices, the ability to store charge is fundamental, and the lithium-ion technology of the batteries we use seems to have reached its peak.
A few weeks ago, the company TDK, a supplier for Apple, announced that it might be about to radically change the landscape with a development that promises to revolutionize not only Apple's products but the entire tech industry. We are talking about a new technology for solid-state batteries that could reach an energy density of 1,000 Wh/L, approximately a hundred times greater than their current solid batteries. Something that has the potential to overcome one of the main bottlenecks of the tech industry: battery autonomy and efficiency.
The immediate application of this technology seems oriented towards smaller devices. If AirPods today last almost 8 hours of listening, we would be looking at 800 hours of battery life, making the conversion. More than a month of battery life on a single charge, assuming we used them continuously.
An Apple Watch with this technology? If the battery life of the Apple Watch Ultra is now two days, would we be talking about 200 days without a charge? On paper, yes, but the situation is, in reality, even more interesting. An Apple Watch's battery lasts two days because Apple has managed to optimize its power and capabilities to minimize consumption.
Faced with a power source of the proportions we are talking about, the chips could be more powerful, the AI systems that run on them could be more capable, and suddenly, we would lift all the efficiency restrictions we know today. Where would technology go knowing it has a battery for everything it needs?
It's too early to say, but what is clear is that the tech industry has been, until now, in a constant race to improve processing capabilities and connectivity without compromising autonomy. Batteries have received relatively less attention, despite being the heart that fuels all these other innovations, with a battery that could last 100 times longer while occupying the same size, the very concept of a device would change.
Thinner, much more powerful, and with charge storage capacities that now sound like science fiction, the revolution is served. Yes, AI or hyper-connectivity—see Apple Intelligence in which Apple has been so smart or 5G and satellite connectivity—are also called to mark a before and after in Apple's devices. But something as humble and to which we pay so little attention as the battery might be, no more and no less, the next great revolution from Apple.
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