Apple claims to have cracked the eight-hour battery life
goal this week, with a 17-inch laptop that can operate for a full
working day without external power. But it made a big sacrifice,
making the battery a non-removable feature.
Senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing Phil
Schiller, who unveiled the new 17-inch Macbook Pro at the
Macworld event in San Francisco, said that making the battery
non-removable enabled the company to cram more lithium polymer
material into a smaller form factor, increasing the battery life by
three hours over the old model.
The battery, which holds 95 watt-hours of energy, can be fully
recharged up to 1,000 times, said Schiller, adding that this was
roughly three times the industry average. The average Macbook Pro
user would get a five-year lifetime from the system, he added.
"It is PVC and BFR [brominated flame retardant] free, and we
will also have a takeback and recycling programme," Schiller said,
talking up the firm's green credentials.
The new Macbook, which ships at the end of this month, also
comes with a 256Gbyte solid state memory option. Previous solid
state options topped out at 128Gbytes.
Some exhibitors on the show floor seemed surprised that the
company had not opted for a silver-zinc battery. This new
generation of batteries, offered by firms such as
ZPower, offer more
capacity than conventional lithium ion, are 95% recyclable, and
inherently safer than lithium batteries. The industry rumour-mill
had indicated that Apple might debut a silver-zinc battery at
Macworld.
Apple also attempted to muscle in on the online collaboration
market with a new beta service called iWork.com. The service,
accessed via the latest version of its iWork office suite (also
launched at Macworld), enables workers to share presentation, word
processor and presentation files. Individuals can then leave
comments in files shared using the service, although online editing
is not yet a feature. iWork.com also enables iWork users to upload
and share files in Office format. It is currently free to iWork 09
users, but will eventually be a fee-based service, Schiller
said.
This will be Apple's last keynote at the IDG-run event, and the
first not to feature CEO Steve Jobs. He issued
a
letter this weekend dismissing
concerns about his health and committing to stay on as CEO of
Apple.
Read more
Read All About IT blog -
Apple Keynote - the details