you can use a computer without ever connecting it to voice or data services, you cannot do the same with a mobile phone.Originally Posted by gorilla
Talk3G Senior Contributor 
you can use a computer without ever connecting it to voice or data services, you cannot do the same with a mobile phone.
I think we're on a hiding to nothing with timely OS updates. It comes down to money and when most people upgrade their phone every two years (or more) is it really such a big deal not to have the latest OS? Maybe it harms the 3rd party app developers more than the consumer.
Are you saying that the phone will become less functional (or less secure?) without the future OS releases?
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Here is a screenshot of my battery life after I updated yesterday: https://talk3g.co.uk/attachment.p...3&d=1325777973
That indicates I could get safely get 28 hours of (my) normal use.
What are your expectations on how long a smartphone battery should last?
If I could guarantee 36 hours reliably, I'd be satisfied as I'm never going to be that long without power.
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Talk3G Super Mod 
I installed the leaked Samsung 4.0.3 ICS ROM onto my Galaxy S II the other day. I had quite forgotten how much I disliked Touchwiz. Subsumed beneath this very comprehensive skin the Android 4.0.3 OS is almost invisible.
Perhaps most annoyingly for me is that the new ICS Touchwiz has removed Time Lapse from the Camera app. WTH? Why would Samsung do that? Instead they've bloated that app with all manner of filters and stuff that don't exist in Google Android ICS (witness the Galaxy Nexus). It really is annoying that they've done this. If I were going to keep the SGS II for any length of time I'd put CM9 on it at the earliest opportunity. But as it is, the SGS II is scheduled to be eBayed in the next week or so.
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@benfitter
No one's forcing any manufacturer to provide new versions of their software for existing devices.
Apple need to, the OS is a revenue generator for them. Similarly, Google need to try and keep Android up to date. But there's nothing really in it for the Android manufacturers, they're always going to want you to buy a new phone.
Customers will ultimately decide, and I think we're already seeing that the vast majority of smartphone buyers, particularly at the lower end, really don't care. They just want their phone to work and do what it said it would when they bought it. At the high end, however, Google do have a dilemma, because a) according to Apple a high end smartphone should get updated with new software that enables it to do even more than when you bought it, and b) Google need to attract the high end apps, and they require not just the high end smartphones but they need them to be running the latest software - preferably all the same version so developers don't tear their hair out.
The Motorola play might help... but I suspect it'll only help if you buy a high end Moto
Urgh, my battery life varies widely depending on usage. Tonight I still have 57% left, but I've only been off charge for 11h 33m and actual usage is at 2h 38m.
I think if we could get to a place where we were getting 8-9h usage over a 24-36h standby period then that'd be bliss. Surely that's not asking for the moon, I don't think we're a million miles off it. Not like when I had my Nokia 6680 and I could demolish it in a couple of hours using Agile Messenger :/
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Talk3G Super Mod
With smartphone OS updates I do feel that Apple have set the bar. Ben's comments on Apple's need to do this are spot on. While not selling the iPhone as a loss-leader it is, nevertheless, a gateway product into what Apple really "need" to sell, and that is content from the iTunes and App stores. If they can maintain at least an illusion of the bestest and greatest via software updates it really is a small price to pay for the massive [continuing] revenue that content sale produces. That is not ignoring the fact that we do pay a premium price for what is [at least portrayed to be] a premium product in the iPhone and iPad.
So, any competing smartphone OS maker who decides to get into the game is compelled to update the OS from time to time, if for no other reason that to at least appear to compete with Apple. But the hard part for Google is to get the manufacturers, and networks, to play the same game. Google may very well ramp up to sell content in the same way that Apple does via on-line stores. But there remains not very much in it for the handset makers other than to supersede their product regularly and encourage people to buy the latest. Lip service is paid to OS updates by comparison with Apple in this respect.
Batteries are one of my favourite subjects as I have been commuting the 52-mile round trip to work each day on an EV for the past 3-1/2 years (a Vectrix Maxi scooter if you're interested). In that time the advancement of the technology of available to buy batteries has progressed at a snail's pace in comparison to silicon technology. There is absolutely no notion of Moore's law at work in battery tech. Mostly this is due to the fact that the science of batteries is constrained by a number of factors. Chemical technology evolves very slowly, and there are limits to what is known so far. New chemistries seem to work in the lab but are difficult to commercialise, or even impossible sometimes. That may be down to the toxicity of the chemicals used, that would never get licensed for commercial use. Then there are the physics, only so many electrons can be stored in a given space, and you cannot shrink them. So the latest push is to increase space (surface area) in a given physical space. Nanotech is getting involved, there was an AA sized battery produced during 2010/11 that had an electrolyte surface area the size of a football pitch! And then there are different substances being explored for the cathode and anode materials.
A great number of announcements are made each year relating to battery tech, but none so far have surfaced at the factor gates. They remain firmly in the lab or are soon consigned to the dustbin of history. It is proving to be very difficult indeed to improve storage by very much at all, and so there is a slow, grinding, evolutionary process with small gains every year or so.
The storage of electrons in any majorly significant capacity over and above what we can achieve today remains to be developed and commercialised. From all that I read there is nothing at all particularly exciting on the horizon.
And so the answer, for now at least, appears to be developing strategies to cope with our usage requirements. Opportunity charging is something that I practise regularly. Any time I can I will jack in to the mains power to top up, be it via a charger or a PC's USB port. I find that works really well, is not at all tiresome, and soon becomes habit.
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@iChrisTaylor
Just a wee update:
So ICS is running like a dream on the SGII; it's hard to believe that this is an "experimental" ROM. With these sorts of ROMs you should expect some random reboots but for me, nothing. Not that I'm complaining - it just demonstrates how capable our good friends at XDA really are. I won't be running a Samsung ROM anytime soon, but they really do have their work cut out coming up with a ROM that will outshine CM9.
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