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 which would explain the increase from 20 to 28. However, I can't explain why streamed video playback has more than doubled. Perhaps they simply fixed a bug?
I think it is about half due to variable refresh rate and less than half due to hardware efficiency improvements, and maybe 10% due to a larger battery. The 12 and 12 Pro got 11 hours of streaming playback, the 13 gets 15 hours with it's larger battery and more efficient hardware, while the 13 Pro gets 20 hours with it's variable refresh rate.
It appears that the battery on the 13 and 13 Pro are close in size since they both get 75 hours of music playback. The battery is slightly larger on the 13 than the 12 which got 65 hours of music. (I assume hardware efficiency would have very little effect on AAC decoding at this point, there couldn't have been much left to optimize.)
So all in all, looks like variable refresh will be a potentially very impressive feature, both for smoother UI and better battery life.
Doing other stuff with the system likely preempts the slowdown. Someone in another thread reported that just moving their mouse increased refresh rate.
I can't see it as an option for my MBP, though I do have the monitor connected in a roundabout way, through a dock. Monitor did support FreeSync, which is the open one too, so wondering what's going on there. Monterey Beta 6 here (along with all the pains that that version brought).
We can roughly calculate the expected improvement based on “non-streaming” factors (8h extra/28h*25h=7.14h of expected improvements that include things like screen refresh rate, decoding and better battery) so therefore 25h new streaming video, minus 12h previous streaming battery,
minus 7h expected improvement leaves about 5 hours of streaming performance improvements (WiFi/Network/bug fixes/???). Seems like a lot.
Perhaps they’re assuming a cinematic frame rate of 24fps for streaming video and matching the refresh rate to that versus whatever refresh rate an iPhone 12 Pro has - guessing 60hz?
Still seems a big increase but maybe the combination of the variable refresh display, larger battery and refined 5nm node (TSMC 5NP) all add up to something substantial?
I was wondering if this was also factoring 5G in given last year’s 5G modems were noted as particularly power hungry. I’m guessing Apple is testing on WiFi though.
5g modems are still power-hungry which is why iPhone will still default to '5G Auto' which uses LTE most of the time, and switches to 5g for data-hungry tasks.
They highlighted dynamic refresh rate on screen. So screen can run at 30FPS (half of normal speed) if you are streaming 30FPS content (which many folks do). Or even 24FPS (which now won't need to be converted - nice!).
The cinematic mode is done by recording a depth map (calculated using the ISP and Neural Engine?) alongside the regular video. On older phones you could do this using the SDK, but iirc it was a much lower resolution depth map (like 480p or less?).
Given that they've also added ProRes encode/decode, it's likely fair to assume that they've redone the entire codec hardware.
So yeah, this is my long-winded way of agreeing with you that it is indeed more efficient.
Yeah I tried to find another source and could not find anything. Does anybody else know? I just see a lot of posts complaining about CPU usage with AV1 on a M1 macbook.
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.
I’d have thought the streaming test is done over wi-fi. Maybe the Targeted Wake Time in WiFi 6 combined with higher bandwidth can account for the difference.
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.
I am surprised to see someone saying HLS wouldn't work this way. I'm not up to speed on the latest in HLS, but when I used it circa ten years ago, HLS worked by providing parts of a stream as individual video files, so I'd expect this is more true for HLS than a single-file-as-a-stream, not less. Videos were divided into fixed-length files, e.g. 10 seconds each. The playlist file saying what video files to use could list all of the file names up front for every provided quality level.
Indeed you’re right (and this was my understanding too) - I misread what a previous commenter was intending. I thought they were saying most broadcasts are 1-piece blobs, thus good for 5G bursting. My experience w HLS is indeed some small-number-of-seconds frames at a time. I guess I’m not sure here whether 5G is more battery-efficient or not. “Fast-enough” is all that’s required, so I guess it’s just the calculus of energy/bytes and how long the radio can sleep between segments. Seems very circumstantial to me…
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.
the numbers shown compare video, streamed, versus video downloaded. this is specifically an improvement on video streaming. i don't see where this theory that variable refresh rate would make a difference would come from.
there may be variable refresh rate differences! i just don't think that's what this comparison is highlighting.
> i don't see where this theory that variable refresh rate would make a difference would come from
People are comparing between the 13 and 13 Pro which get the same battery life for audio playback. There are very few other stated differences between them.
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?
The comment was quickly flagged by other users and is now dead. I'm not sure the hysteria is warranted, you're never going to find a public site where nobody ever posts anything dumb.
I find that https://lobste.rs has similar technical stories I enjoy.
Their account/comment system (a tree of trust based who invited whom to the site) does a good job of limiting drive-by negativity and other unpleasantries.
I don't have an account there yet due to being shy and not knowing many techy persons IRL I might get an invite from. (If anyone wants to invite me I'd appreciate it)
In general, I moved from Android to iPhone a couple of years ago and must say the battery on iPhone lasts so long compared to my old Android phone that there's no comparison really. Apple's work on iPhone battery management is impressive!
I don't want to question wether Apple's work on battery management is better than Google's, but want to outline the meta of such statements. In general, I don't think it's good to compare a new bought device with the device you are replacing, since the old device is probably a couple of years old. So the specs of the old one must be worse than the specs of the new one.
Another example would be Tesla buyers who are replacing their old car and comparing the new car to their old.
This is a little presumptuous or possibly a misunderstanding of the parent's comment mentioning "old Android phone". It's entirely possible that the person did a lateral generational phone switch, but you've assumed that they upgraded to a newer phone.
I love older generation phones because they're so cheap and your car comparison is perfect because buying a phone new IMO is one of the worst financial decisions you can make unless it has functionality you really need. Phone value drops sharply after the first 1-2 years and so I have a lot of fun buying last generation's phones (Android and iPhone) and comparing them to each other. Holding off on the newest phones really shows me how imaginary the price of an absolute brand new phone is.
Talking about how expensive the phones have become lately, the max out specs on new iPhone 13 Pro Max costs $1,600 and if you add taxes it would be $1,760!
According to https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/sales-tax-rate?con..., out of G20 countries, 16 have sales tax rates greater than or equal to 10%. This seems to only counts national sales tax, since it lists 5% for Canada, but about 85% of Canadians live in areas with more than 10% total sales tax.
That conflates VAT rates and sales tax rates. The two tax structures are very different, and a comparable VAT has a higher nominal rate than a sales tax, because the taxable amount is typically smaller.
eh, I have the 12 pro, 256gb. did not see much in the 13 pro that was interesting and most improvements will come with iOS 15 but between my ~$700 trade in value and subsidizing the rest of the device with some accrued points from my credit card company, might as well. I definitely have wanted the portrait video mode, since apps have been doing it for a very long time, Instagram at one point had the focus filter that did that.
from my experience, buying the expensive electronic ONCE gives a lot of benefits and choices, because the future purchases aren't that expensive.
sure, I'm still likely paying more than the person that brags about how they wouldn't imagine spending even $200 on a phone, so there is no real need to have that conversation and spreadsheet analysis
but between starting with up to date technology, instead of starting with 3-6 year old technology, and having a store of value, versus a decrepit paperweight, I'm into keeping my mobile devices refreshed. Specifically my iphone.
> I love older generation phones because they're so cheap and your car comparison is perfect because buying a phone new
Agreed. I, for one, have pretty much always bought used, and normally one generation behind. When something new comes out, the older phone is boring, which does knock the price down a little.
I had a similar experience and what it seems like is that Apple devices have pretty amazing standby time as compared to most android devices I have used. This has probably gotten better over the years but when I got my first iPhone it seemed like the battery didn't budge at all if it was in standby, such as leaving it unplugged overnight. I never had the experience with an android device.
> when I got my first iPhone it seemed like the battery didn't budge at all if it was in standby, such as leaving it unplugged overnight
Apple has very stringent limits on how long apps can run in the background, while Android is more lenient. That is great for battery life and privacy, but not giving the user a way to whitelist apps from these optimizations means apps like SyncThing (which only exists for Android) or WhatsApp Web are harder to develop.
It's even worse - 12h battery life wouldn't really be a problem if I could swap in a spare battery or choose to bulk up my device with a 100 watt hour battery.
It really depends on what phone you had and how old it was when you switched.
Most of my friends are very surprised when I mention that my Android phone lasts more than 2 days on a single charge; their iPhone barely lasts a day. If they switched they'd come to the same realisation as you did but with phones reversed. If they upgraded to the latest iPhone I am sure they'd also be pleasantly surprised.
I think something that has happened in the last 2-3 years is that the average phone has gone from 'full day battery' on purchase to '2-3 day battery' and there has not really been much marketing around that fact (or at least as far as I can see), so people on older models don't quite realise what they're missing (and are of course also suffering from battery degradation).
I've never had an iPhone, but I could say the same thing about my old and current Android phones. I had a Galaxy Note 4 for a few years, the last Note with a replaceable battery, and I had spare batteries that I occasionally swapped in. When I upgraded to a Note 20 I thought "oh no I can't swap batteries" and bought a power bank along with it. I've never needed it, even when travelling. At the end of each day I usually have mid 80s percent battery left. The battery's only slightly bigger, but the power management is way better.
I switched from Pixel 3 XL to iPhone 11 Pro and the battery life was way worse on iPhone. It's about half as good as the Pixel was. It was like that on day one. It was my single biggest gripe about the iPhone.
I'll be carrying my charger with me. These numbers are great on paper, and sure they can reflect the overall trend of higher battery life, but are not examples of real world results.
I wouldn't be surprised if these results are on airplane mode with the brightness locked to the lowest setting and the volume off with no Bluetooth accessories. The title says "video streaming battery life" however the website actually says "video playback."
If I'm navigating with Apple Maps, which is using GPS (and other sensors depending on your transportation mode), along with a higher screen brightness so I can see in the daylight, I'm not going to get anywhere near 28 hours. And I wouldn't call that a _very_ "heavy" use case.
Testing conducted by Apple in August 2021 using preproduction iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max units and software, subscribed to LTE and 5G carrier networks. Video playback consisted of a repeated 2-hour 23-minute movie purchased from the iTunes Store, tested with stereo audio output. Video playback (streamed) consisted of a repeated 3-hour 1-minute HDR movie purchased from the iTunes Store, tested with stereo audio output. All settings were default except: Bluetooth was paired with headphones; Wi-Fi was associated with a network; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks, Auto-Brightness, and True Tone were turned off.
I've been able to use it for well over a full work day (on the order of 12+ hours) before dropping to 30% battery (from a full charge)
And that includes 8+ hours of using VDI, streaming video from YouTube, random other web browsing, etc
My iPhone 11 (if I'm not running some poorly-optimized games) will run for over 14 hours between charges of "constant" use (streaming audio (podcasts and Pandora), YouTube, email, facebook, etc)
I'd find it exceptionally hard to believe that the two-generations-newer, more-efficient (and powerful) A15 + larger battery is not going to be more performant and long-lasting between charges
It was >~300mAh smaller and unsurprisingly did not last as long -at least initially- Likely due to the 12’s 5G modem, so it may have changed with their LTE fallback optimization.
Yeah I think in terms of battery health you don't want to be doing that either, starting the day full and having it discharge all day until its mostly tapped by the end. I had a 2020 intel macbook and while it wasnt the 24 hours the m1s get, apple claimed it was good for 12 hours so I decided it would be fine to use for my 8 hour workday without a charger.
After a year and like 230 battery cycles of doing that, the battery was down 15% capacity and I was reaching for the charger by the end of the day. I feel like if I had just kept it plugged in instead of discharging it so much each day, I wouldn't have lost so much capacity in so little time.
The other way around is problematic as well. A friend of mine had a 2018 15” MacBook and had to get it repaired under warranty because the battery swelled up and made the trackpad stop working correctly. The “Genius” at the Apple store said it was because he always left it plugged in, and that the problem is fairly common. Apple has recently started allowing MacBooks that are plugged in long term to hover at around 90% battery instead of always keeping it topped up presumably for this reason.
25h (pro max) or 20h (pro) streamed video playback is extremely impressive, as that means both screen and some kind of wireless data connection must be enabled, and those are usually the most power hungry components. I'm guessing this is at low display brightness, but still...
The large difference to streaming, my guess is that it has to do with a new Video Decoder that fully support VP9 rather than partial hardware acceleration. Previous A14 AV1 and VP9 support on M1 / macOS / iOS all points to higher CPU usage and VP9 is not enabled by default unless you request 4K Content.
So when viewing Youtube, defaulting to VP9 in the same resolution would reduce the data requires to download, as Google uses lower bitrate to achieve perceived quality, this along with some optimisation in 5G Auto Load, better Modem with lower energy requirement ( Expected to be Qualcomm X60 on Samsung 5nm ), variable refresh rate and larger battery.
Note Offline different between 12 and 13 is 40%, that is Battery capacity increase, VRF and new video decoder.
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.
My three-year-old Android OnePlus 6t lasts 36 hours on a charge even after 3 years of daily use. I have to laugh at these Apple fanboys who don't understand how far behind apple is in many ways...
Go to 24Hz video for a 20% difference right there. Keep going, Apple didn’t say this wasn’t while viewing a 15fps 1900 silent video.
( I had to look it up, the first silent films were 14-26fps cranked by hand. The first talkies mechanically linked the projector to the phonograph at 24fps)
YAWN. UNIMPRESSIVE! Quite frankly I don't approve of how Apple invests 100% of r&d into tweaking hardware specs and never improves or innovates (other than power savings) in their software! If Steve Jobs were alive he would be disgusted! Facial recognition was just a technique to reduce hardware costs!
Folks are calling the 13 an "S" tier phone(ala iPhone 5 -> iPhone 5S) disguised as a new device.
Apple decided to take the 12S design and call it the 13 for a two key reasons.
1.) they can get the unlucky number out of the way and save their big new design paradigm for 14.
2.) due to supply chain issues, it is more feasible to source the iPhone 12-esque parts for the next year. Normally they would release an S version mid-year and release the next numbered phone later that year. This gives them more time.
Is it such a big deal with numbers? I mean, yeah, maybe some teenage girl with an astrological sign in her bio will be mad, but anyway, do people really care?
Well, while I was replying, I just remembered that Chinese companies usually skip 4 in their models because it's an "unlucky number."
Maybe you're right. Still, it's a funny thing if it's true.
Those numbers are meaningless if we don't have the benchmark specification. And Apple really love to throw numbers like this with no context (but hey, it work, so why stop).
There's more detail in the iPhone battery information page.
Testing conducted by Apple in August 2021 using preproduction iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max units and software, subscribed to LTE and 5G carrier networks. Video playback consisted of a repeated 2-hour 23-minute movie purchased from the iTunes Store, tested with stereo audio output. Video playback (streamed) consisted of a repeated 3-hour 1-minute HDR movie purchased from the iTunes Store, tested with stereo audio output. All settings were default except: Bluetooth was paired with headphones; Wi-Fi was associated with a network; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks, Auto-Brightness, and True Tone were turned off.
Year after year, real world tests show that Apple’s battery estimates err on the conservative side. Enough that we should stop seeing comments like this and yet here we are.
What is meaningless is raw specs on their own. Your massive phone battery is useless if you’re using it to power a 1000W space heater.
While the real world tests after release essentially always bear out Apple’s battery life and performance estimates as reasonable and fairly typical, I don’t fault anyone for generally holding product claims with skepticism. Apple is somewhat unique in reporting these values honestly.
Hah good point! My wife will often watch on her phone or iPad while sitting in from of a large screen that is off. When I ask her why, she says it's just easier to use the device and then if she has to get up she can just take it with her without switching devices.
Me on an airplane! Spent maybe 12 hours on my phone last weekend flying across the country and back. Some planes still don’t have chargers so this will be awesome
My phone's OLED HDR screen (S21 Ultra) completely blows away my TV screen. Lying on the couch with the phone right up against my face is actually the closest thing to a cinematic experience I get.
Honestly it's almost better. The black levels in real cinemas are terrible.
When I would commute from Orange County so Santa Clara the flight was often ~40 minutes. Combine with takeoff and landing it didn't make a lot of sense to pull out an addition device but it was easy enough to watch a short TV show on my phone.
When I'm watching the kids or doing chores I am often watching some "background noise" TV at the same time. If I'm not at home, the phone is the obvious choice. If I am at home, I'm often moving from room to room and it's a lot easier to just take the phone with me than constantly switch devices. And when I'm laying in bed at night feeling lazy, I just watch on my phone instead of moving out to the couch in the living room (sometimes, and sometimes I say in the living room and enjoy my big TV).
Most people outside US use public transportation. It is good way to kill time on commute. This is why bigger screens became hugely popular over time. Even in US, the subways are full of people looking at their phones with earbuds
Netflix will download TV shows and movies but only onto your phone! You should check it out it's pretty awesome for going to the gym using wireless headphones and the treadmill... Android 1plus6t & Bose qc35.
Mobile is the main format for content consumption on YouTube, Instagram and YouTube, all platforms which are predominantly used by young(er) audiences.
I barely ever watch YouTube (for entertainment purposes) on my notebook or desktop, but primarily on my phone. Many of my friends don't even own a TV or a monitor setup.
I don’t think that’s the type of streaming video they optimized the IP on the SoC for. It’s clever, but not really useful. And who does it help exactly? Because the implication if you’re reduced to watching on a small screen is that you’re mobile, and on 5G. So the addicted user is now paying big $ for high speed data. Like giving a gambler a new line of credit.
The real question is, who interprets "You can stream 20 hours of video on one iPhone charge" as "you should watch 20 hours of video on one iPhone charge". The metric is clearly about battery life, not watching video.
