Battery is often a primary problem in smartphones. Many companies have sought to increase the battery capacity until we see smartphones with batteries exceeding 4000 mAh, and even reaching 10 thousand in Chinese companies. And because more capacity means more charging time, fast charging technologies have appeared. So what are these technologies and where are Apple from them?

What are the fast charging techniques?

In the beginning, we must know some simple technical points, as the article will not be purely scientific, as we will seek to simplify the concepts. But you must know the following:

1

Batteries capacity is written in milliampere-hours or mAh, bearing in mind that milliamps = 1/1000. Meaning that if you write 3000 mA, it means 3A 3A.

2

Conventional charging is 5 volts and the output amp is different. Old chargers had a power of 700 mA (0.7A), and then it developed into the standard charge of 1000 mAh, or 1A.

3

Personal computers, the output current is 5 volts, and the ampere ranges from 0.5A in the old days to 1A in the modern.

4

The charger that comes with the iPhone is 1A, while the iPad 1-2-3-4 was 2.1A and became 2.4A in the iPad Air and later.

5

To know the power of your charger, look at the writing mentioned on it and the Output box, and you will find a number, say 5V / 1.5A, which means charging 5V and 1.5A or 1500mAh.

Oppo & OnePlus boost technology

vooc

We also learned at the top that the battery has a capacity in mAh, and let us have a 4000 mAh battery. What happens if we connect it to a charger 1A i.e. 1000 mAh ?! It will take 4 hours to charge it. What if the charger becomes 2A or 2000 mAh ?! Will we need 2 hours? If the charger becomes 4A, theoretically it should charge in just 1 hour. This was the method and technique of increasing the ampere, which a number of companies have adopted, the most famous of which is Oppo, in their VOOC technology, which makes their phones reach 75% in just 30 minutes. As well as the OnePlus Dash Charge technology, which enables the phone to reach 3% in just 63 minutes.

dash-charge

These technologies increase the ampere to approximately 4A. But of course, to clarify, the device itself must support the high ampere. You cannot say that I will charge my iPhone 6, for example, with a 4 amp charger, and it will charge in an hour. Apple has placed electrical restrictions to protect the device, and it will charge within the same traditional duration.

Note that all fast charging technologies do not mention charge to 100% but to 60-80%.

Voltage and Ampere Technology "Qualcomm"

This is the most popular and widely used technology from Qualcomm. The name may be strange to some, but Qualcomm is one of the largest in the world in developing processors, as well as making communication chips, and almost all companies deal with it, including Apple (in the field of modems). Qualcomm offers its own technology called Quick Charge, which is now in its third generation, and provides a charging speed from 0% to 80% in just 35 minutes. The second generation provides 60% charge in the same period.

This technology is the most popular in its generations, so you can find it in the Samsung S6-S7 and Note 4-5-7. And LG in the G3 / G4 / G5, Sony Z4-Z5-XZ, HTC 8-9-10, Xiaomi Mi4-5, and even Google supported it on Nexus 6. This technology changes the voltage, not the ampere. Conventional chargers, computers, Apple chargers, and even previous Oppo and OnePlus chargers charge 5 volts and change the ampere. But Qualcomm raises the voltage to 9 volts and 12 volts, and thus the volt and ampere together in charging the device.

There are other companies that rely on the same method, but they offer their own technology, not from Qualcomm, and the most prominent of these companies is Huawei in the Mate 8, although its performance is much lower than Qualcomm technology.

The devices must support the same voltage change i.e. not suitable

Where is Apple?

The fact is that Apple lags behind in fast charging technology, it still relies on charging speeds of 1 amp for the iPhone and 2.4 amps for the iPad. You find yourself taking 4 hours to charge the iPad 9.7 and 12.9 inches. Apple has a problem that prevents it from adopting Qualcomm technology, which is that in order to put QC 3.0 technology, Apple will have to use some Qualcomm technologies, such as Qualcomm processors that support the technology, and here we mean the latest Snapdragon 820 on which the Samsung S7, LG G5, HTC 10, Sony XZ and others depend. Of course, Apple does not allow anyone to interfere with the technologies of its internal devices, as well as its processors are clearly superior to the 820 and even 821 that Google uses in pixels, so it is unreasonable for Apple to reduce the performance for fast charging technology. But!!!

ios 7 battery life

There is a rumor that has spread that Apple has been testing fast charging technology and it will appear in the 6s but it has not happened. Then a new rumor came that Apple would include a 2A charger with the iPhone 7. But all of this did not happen. But Apple secretly allowed fast charging with the iPad Pro 12.9 inches. Although it sends the huge tablet with more than 10 mAh battery with a 2.4A charger, this makes us take 5 hours to charge it. But some specialists reported their acquisition of a 12-inch MacBook with a 29W charger compared to a 12W iPad charger, and they experimented with using a USB-C to Lightning cable with the device, and here was the surprise, which was that it was fully charged in just 2.5 hours. It should be noted that the iPad Pro has a 10307 mAh battery. It took 93 minutes to reach 80% versus 213 minutes for the traditional charger.

For those who have not studied physics, watts = volts * ampere ... iPad charger 12 watts = 5 volts * 2.4 amps. The MacBook charger is labeled with Apple 14.5 volts * 2 amps. So Apple used a technology similar to Qualcomm. See the following image for a charging speed comparison:

ipad-pro

last word

Apple is far behind in providing fast charging technology for its devices. Perhaps this is one of the advantages of the iPhone 8. But we have sure that it cannot buy technology from Qualcomm and at the same time it secretly allows fast charging in the iPad Pro.

In the end, did you notice that all the tests talk about charging rates up to 80% and not 100%? So you find the devices charge to 80% in 45 minutes and then take another 45 minutes, for example, to charge the remaining 20% ​​?! The secret, in short, and without a physical explanation, is to imagine that you have an empty room while you move furniture to it. Moving you will be easy at first because it is empty, but with time it will take time to find a place for new furniture. This is similar to what is happening. Of course, it is affected quickly by many additional factors, such as temperature, for example.

Did you already know about fast charging techniques? Do you think that Apple should support it soon?

Sources:

maxstories | CNET | Qualcomm | OnePlus |Oppo

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