The #1 Problem The New iPhone Needs to Solve
Dear Mr. Cook,
I can’t begin to imagine the pressure mounting on you and the rest of the Apple team ahead of Tuesday’s big iPhone announcement. All of us Apple fans are eager for you to come out and drop the mic with new technologies that will finally prove the critics wrong about the company being unable to innovate in the “post-Jobs” era.
As I sit and type this while relaxing at home, I assume you all are huddled up in the new "Steve Jobs Theatre," rehearsing every single second of the program for Tuesday to make sure that every word, demo and keynote slide is absolutely perfect. There have been a lot of “leaks” posted about the new iPhone - no physical home button, better camera, wireless charging, etc). All or none of these things could be true, but in my opinion, none of them address the real elephant in the room - the iPhone is 10 years old and its battery life still sucks.
We are all using our phones more and more each day and we are constantly faced with the inconvenient truth that by 3 pm, all that amazing technology will be rendered useless if we don’t get ourselves to the nearest outlet and power up. Every time that “low power” screen comes on it serves as a reminder of our imminent death and makes us fear the grotesque reality of a world without our smartphone (seriously, when was the last time you didn’t use your cell phone for a day).
In order to address this problem, we’ve developed compensating behaviors like spending hundreds of dollars on ugly battery cases that make our iPhone look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, installed thousands of charging stations in airports and made sure that whenever we get under 50%, we locate the nearest outlet and claim it as our own. All of these things are fine for companies like Samsung, but this reality should be keeping you up at night. This type of problem is one that Apple has the passion, experience and cash to solve. I can almost see the Keynote slide and Jony Ive dramatic demo video in my head. Come out and make battery cases obsolete on Tuesday! Relegate the charging stations to sad places where only Samsung owners have to go. You can do it.
In the past few years, you’ve given us amazing things like a better camera, bigger screens, Air Pods and Apple Watch. What do all of these things have in common? They all drain the heck out of our batteries! I’m sure that there will be another batch of amazing tech announced on Tuesday as well, but without a significant upgrade in battery life, we won’t be able to enjoy it the way you’ve designed it to be enjoyed.
I know this is not exactly what you need to hear right before a big launch, but I just wanted to let you know that there are a lot of us out here hoping that a real upgrade in battery life will be announced on Tuesday. Either way, I will be buying the new iPhone and continue to hold stock in the company, but it’s good for a boy to dream.
Good luck next week.
Nick