back to article Battery deal points to thinner, lighter iPad 3

Apple's upcoming iPad 3 - now expected in February 2012, or thereabouts - may be rather thinner than the current model. Apple has allegedly chosen battery units for the iPad 3 that are thinner, lighter and last longer than the ones in the iPad 2. Like the latter, the new batteries are made by Taiwan's Simplo and Dynapack, …

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  1. Mostly_Harmless Silver badge
    Flame

    it's just a consumer electronics product

    New version of a product, due in a number of mnonths, likely to be better than its predecessor.

    You could say that about pretty much any consumer electronics product, so why oh why do people get so gussied up when it's an iThing?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Mostly_Harmless

      Indeed, why have you got so gussied up about this iPad story?

    2. ThomH

      It's because Apple aren't going to tell us

      Apple are a prominent technology company, who are sometimes the first to succeed commercially in a field. They sell only about a dozen different products in total, so changes to any product are newsworthy. However they don't generally announce their plans in advance, so there's often speculation. Sites like El Reg like to carry stories that their readers will find interesting so they like to provide information that allows their readers to speculate.

      So: gussying is caused by the official information vacuum.

      Some companies don't adopt the same tactic because they're more connected to outside ecosystems, making it more likely that people would just feed on information supplied by another company instead and forget about them.

      If you look at the phenomenon of vapourware you'll see that some companies have played exactly the other way — releasing information about products that they never launch, sometimes maliciously.

      So it's definitely not true that everybody else would play it like Apple if they could, even if it is true that Apple's ability to get free publicity for doing absolutely nothing is enviable.

    3. Jedit Silver badge
      FAIL

      Don't be an idiot

      The iPad 3 is a forthcoming product which is expected to have new features. Do you perhaps expect a dedicated technology news site to not post news about such things?

  2. Ian Halstead
    Thumb Up

    On the subject of battery technology - continuous extrusion

    Interesting piece on Radio 4 recently about Leeds Uni having developed continuous extrusion lithium polymer gel batteries that are safer than typical lithium batteries using liquid electrolytes, and extrusion means a continuous manufacturing process and just chop to length. This could slash manufacturing costs.

    I don't suppose for a minute that there's a UK based manufacturer who's licensed this....... is there? Be nice if there was.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    But will it have light bleed?

    As per title, will they resolve that issue? Picked one up this week, 6 months on, yes still got light bleed!

    Maybe Samsung are poking ther voodoo needles in to the panels :)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Gimp

    Lighter: go ahead, thinner: meh

    At least that's my opinion of what is needed. If you make them any thinner, they'll become transparent.

    1. K. Adams
      Facepalm

      "...make them any thinner, they'll become transparent."

      Or fold in half at an inopportune moment, in a manner for which they weren't designed...

  5. James Micallef Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Completely agree

    What's with the anorexia? Just as there is a point along the thin-ness scale (apparently missed by the fashion industry) where a woman stops being sexy and starts being skeletal, there's a point beyond which there's no practical or aesthetic reason to make a phone or tablet thinner. Thinner + sharp edges + glossy finishes = more difficult to hold, more of a pain to grip, easier to slip, and more fragile.

    In fact I would rather phones stayed the same size as say an iPhone 3 or Nexus, and any extra thinness squeezed out of other components be used to squeeze in a bigger battery.

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