Snow Leopard Gives New Life to iPhone Batteries
Mac's New OS 10.6 Could More than Double iPhone Battery Life
Sep 1, 2009
What the company didn’t make a big deal about to the general public when it launched the new “Snow Leopard” OS, was that it could also extend the life of future iPhone batteries between two and five times their current charge because of a new innovation called Grand Central Dispatch, something Apple called “a revolutionary approach to multicore computing” in a pdf it sent to developers, "Grand Central Dispatch – A better way to do multicore."
What is Grand Central Dispatch (GCD)
In essence, Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) manages the code that developers use to write programs for computers with multi-core processors (all new Macs utilize multiple core processors) more efficiently. Because Snow Leopard allows the OS to manage execution of tasks instead of the application, that means less code and fewer hangups as programs execute. Most importantly, it also means processors don’t have to work as hard and a reduced load allows them to run at slower speeds, dropping energy consumption sharply.
In fact, Apple says that just a 20 percent decrease in processor clock speed could reduce a processor’s power consumption by half. Add an additional processor to double performance, and power consumption increases only minimally.
Apple says Snow Leopard is designed to specifically deal with many of the tasks that users dig into constantly, like Mail and Finder. It also will allow faster reboots and start ups.
For desktop users that should make a huge difference. But what about iPhone users? What’s the difference?
The iPhone of the Future
Yankee Group’s Carl Howe says that because GCD cuts power consumption so dramatically, it will allow Apple to put multi-core processors into the iPhone. Now, that doesn’t mean it’ll be dropping in dual 2.8 GHz processors to run apps like Photoshop or Quark Xpress that require massive amounts of computing power; it doesn’t even mean that the current school of 3G S apps will get any more powerful.
The big news is that Apple could be able to scale back on its current 600 MHz ARM processor by using a smaller multi-core that only ticks along on one of the processors for simple chores until more computing power is needed. Then, like a turbocharger, the second processor might kick in to speed the job to its conclusion; that could save a significant amount of energy and extend the life of iPhone batteries in the process.
Once developers start to take advantage of GCD, we’ll likely see a slew of new “green” apps on the App Store shelves that will help conserve battery life.
Add extended battery life to a “greening” of the iPhone and you start to see just how just a tweak of Apple’s operating system can help fuel iPhone’s drive to smartphone dominance.
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