Following a successful launch of its new Windows 10 Surface hardware for this holiday season, and a promising announcement of the dual screened Surface Neo and Surface Duo, Microsoft is looking at a busy year of testing, developing, and debugging on the Neo and Duo ahead of next year’s launch.
Being smaller mobile devices designed for an all-day experience, battery life is going to be a critical part of that feedback process. And recently published details suggest that Microsoft is working on a system to provide more information to users and the OS to help reduce worries about battery life and endurance.
The details come courtesy of a patent, titled “Power Management Of A Mobile Communications Device” looks at a more accurate way to measure the demand that will be placed on a battery by an app or feature, measuring the power left in the cell, and feeding data back to the user to help them make more informed decisions about their battery. Mayank Parmar reports:
Microsoft surprised everyone by announcing that it’s returning to the smartphone market with Surface Duo. Microsoft has prototyped a dual-screened Android device, which is a bold move that could shake up the smartphone industry.
A patent suggests that Microsoft’s Surface Duo, which is a pocket-sized foldable device that is based on Android, might come with an accurate battery life meter.
Of course mobile devices also covers the vast majority of Microsoft’s Windows 10 powered Surface devices, all of which are looking to maximise battery life, but a look through the images and descriptions in the patent show a focus on smaller devices.
The obvious inference is that Microsoft’s Surface Duo is going to be one of the chief beneficiaries of this technology. Android-powered devices, from tiny smartphones to huge tablets, work hard to keep power consumption low and to keep the user in control through ‘low power modes’ and feeding back information on what applications are using up the most power.
The proposed system here increases the potential for feedback, with the code able to predict the impact on battery life (and therefore device endurance) of individual apps and hardware features if they were to be used.
Perfecting this system, with lots of feedback from devices ‘in the wild’ (perhaps through units supplied to developers and partners for testing) could well be another reason why the Surface Duo was announced a year before it goes on sale in late 2020.