Friday 31 January 2014

Will new iPhone be solar-powered?

Is tech giant Apple planning to make its iPhone with a solar panel in the case?

A common criticism of recent iPhone models is their relatively short battery life, with juice running out in less than a day. Rumours circled this week the iPhone 6 may have a battery boosted by solar power.

That’s after expert Matt Margolis on the Seeking Alpha blog pieced a few clues together. He pointed to some solar patents Apple filed that would let them power devices with solar cells.

Apple is notoriously secretive so the suspense will remain until at least September 2014 when the new handset is expected to be released.

The electronics firm has installed solar panels at

Apple has two solar power farms and a giant fuel cell at its data centre in North Carolina, USA and recently touted its new-look Mac as energy efficient "right out of the box".