Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS

Re:Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS by mikeash on Tuesday January 31, 2017 @10:15PM (#13537889)

And when they download Clash of Clans or whatever the hot new game is, and the battery lasts 90 minutes, Apple doesn't get the blame? If it was about ensuring battery life stayed high even when the user is clueless, they'd be doing more than they are.

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Re:Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS by abalone on Tuesday January 31, 2017 @10:58PM (#13538106)

> And when they download Clash of Clans or whatever the hot new game is, and the battery lasts 90 minutes, Apple doesn't get the blame?

Correct. If it lasted 90 minutes they would clearly attribute it to playing the game. If however a regular mix of typical daily activities gets low battery life, that's just the phone's fault.

But I would add that Apple has done a lot of work to make their game APIs power efficient. Metal is a perfect example of a more proprietary approach that achieved significant speed and battery life gains.

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Re:Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS by MBCook on Tuesday January 31, 2017 @11:08PM (#13538156)

You're right, they have done a ton of work. Unfortunately, you can't make developers use it. So you find some games that don't seem to do too much but waste your battery, and others that are very impressive and barely touch it.

I'm looking at you Pokémon GO.

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Re:Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS by MBCook on Tuesday January 31, 2017 @10:43PM (#13538037)

The only thing I can say is games are different. People seem to have a since the games can use a lot of power and be willing to accept that. And you're definitely not wrong, many of them are written terribly and destroy battery life unnecessarily.

But the other thing is it's obvious when I play a game. Where is I don't really think about using Safari, but I'm sure I use it dozens and dozens of times a day. So I'm very conscious of the fact that Pokémon go or whatever else I'm playing eats my battery, but all the little interactions with the web browser eating an extra 20% probably wouldn't raise a flag for me; I'd just think my phone's battery life got a lot worse.

That's my best guess anyway

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