Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 136 posts

Re: Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

#21

Post by rodiger »

nicce wrote: post #15
bydo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think the newer 5G modem would help, too.

Maybe. 5G still uses more power than 4G over long duration, if both are enough for streaming. 5G power usage benefits come when you download something, and it simply takes less time.

Maybe that means it spends less time buffering so smaller total power footprint?

Re: Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

#22

Post by Matthias247 »

LolWolf wrote: post #7
spuz wrote: post #4

There is a big difference between the local video playback and the streamed video playback on the older model. The new model seems to bring the two in line. iPhone 12 Pro Max Video Playback: 20 iPhone 12 Pro Max Video Playback (streamed): 12 iPhone 13 Pro Max Video Playback: 28 iPhone 13 Pro Max Video Playback (streamed): 25 As far as I know, the new models are slightly thicker and have a higher capacity battery whic…

Maybe a hw decoder? (These already exist, but I mean, really tightly integrated with the browser.) Or some other offloading to hardware? That would be my best guess

Sure they have hw decoders. But they are used in all cases, and get fed the same input. Either some software optimization how network is used or a different modem (potentially doing also more TCP offload stuff) seems more likely.

Re: Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

#23

Post by KoftaBob »

me_me_me wrote: post #12
spuz wrote: post #4

There is a big difference between the local video playback and the streamed video playback on the older model. The new model seems to bring the two in line. iPhone 12 Pro Max Video Playback: 20 iPhone 12 Pro Max Video Playback (streamed): 12 iPhone 13 Pro Max Video Playback: 28 iPhone 13 Pro Max Video Playback (streamed): 25 As far as I know, the new models are slightly thicker and have a higher capacity battery whic…

Or maybe it was a random hardcoded performance target. Next version improve it artificially by x% by simply changing the hardcoded var. And boast you device is so much better It might sound like a tinfoil comment but apple was already caught underclocking older devices 'for the good of users'

There's a big difference between under-clocking phones with older batteries to prevent random shutoff, and what you're claiming.

Re: Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

#25

Post by spoonjim »

spuz wrote: post #4

There is a big difference between the local video playback and the streamed video playback on the older model. The new model seems to bring the two in line. iPhone 12 Pro Max Video Playback: 20 iPhone 12 Pro Max Video Playback (streamed): 12 iPhone 13 Pro Max Video Playback: 28 iPhone 13 Pro Max Video Playback (streamed): 25 As far as I know, the new models are slightly thicker and have a higher capacity battery whic…

The variable refresh rate is what enables the huge battery life improvement. The iPhone 12 has to update its screen 60 times per second, even though movies are shot at 24 frames per second. That means it's showing you the same frame 2 or 3 times, but initiating an entire redraw operation to do so.

The new screen can just leave the image up for 1/24th of a second and then draw the next frame.

Re: Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

#26

Post by stouset »

nicce wrote: post #15
bydo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think the newer 5G modem would help, too.

Maybe. 5G still uses more power than 4G over long duration, if both are enough for streaming. 5G power usage benefits come when you download something, and it simply takes less time.

Can’t you achieve the same results then by pretending that one long stream is just a bunch of independent chunks and download them separately in bursts? No need to trickle it the entire time.

Re: Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

#27

Post by azinman2 »

KoftaBob wrote: post #23
me_me_me wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe it was a random hardcoded performance target. Next version improve it artificially by x% by simply changing the hardcoded var. And boast you device is so much better It might sound like a tinfoil comment but apple was already caught underclocking older devices 'for the good of users'

There's a big difference between under-clocking phones with older batteries to prevent random shutoff, and what you're claiming.

And this is exactly where I feel HN had really gone downhill. The quality of the comments keeps decreasing. There’s plenty of technical information out there on the underclocking to prevent reboot issue, and years ago I would have expected this audience to be well versed in it before commenting.

All good things just come to an end, I suppose. The question is where to go instead?

Re: Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

#28

Post by nomel »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #18
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

This is a huge qualitative difference beyond just the numbers. With a battery life that is longer than 24 hours, I can just have a single charger at home, and go through the entire day without worrying about charging. It basically removes battery level from the things you have to be thinking about as you go about your day.

I would hope that your new phone lasts more than 24 hours regardless. I also may not be terribly with it, but I'd also hope that no one is trying to stream video 12+ hours a day.

I was surprised to see some of my younger relatives using Youtube as their free music streaming service. You can find almost any song, with static images in the video. They listen with their phone in their pocket, while streaming regular YouTube. One of them had an android phone that let you disable the touchscreen with a switch, along with some way to turn off the screen.

I have to admit I do the same sometimes with podcasts on YouTube.

Re: Video streaming battery life improved from 12h (12 Pro Max) to 25h (13 Pro Max)

#29

Post by zerocrates »

nomel wrote: post #28
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hope that your new phone lasts more than 24 hours regardless. I also may not be terribly with it, but I'd also hope that no one is trying to stream video 12+ hours a day.

I was surprised to see some of my younger relatives using Youtube as their free music streaming service. You can find almost any song, with static images in the video. They listen with their phone in their pocket, while streaming regular YouTube. One of them had an android phone that let you disable the touchscreen with a switch, along with some way to turn off the screen. I have to admit I do the same sometimes with…

I seem to remember that Youtube also has "keep playing audio when you turn the screen off" as a premium feature for their subscription?
Post reply on HN