Apple’s new iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max are oddities in a way for the technology company: they’re bigger, heavier, and thicker than last year’s models, bucking the usual trend where Apple tries to release increasingly thinner and lighter phones. Not coincidentally, the new heftier iPhones also promise markedly better battery life than the iPhone XS and XS Max: four hours better on the smaller phone, and five hours better on the larger one.
For years, people have asked why companies won’t just make phones a little bigger and heavier in order to offer better battery life. And with the iPhone 11 Pro lineup, it looks like Apple is finally taking note.
To put the jump in battery in perspective, the last few upgrades for Apple were the iPhone 7 (two hours better battery life than the 6S), the iPhone X (two hours better than the iPhone 7), and the XS and the XS Max (30 minutes and one hour and 30 minutes longer than the X, respectively, due to software and hardware improvements in power efficiency). Instead of making another pitiful attempt at bumping battery life like the XS, Apple is offering twice its best battery life update in a form factor that’s nearly the same size as the XS line.
It’s a move we’ve seen before, though: last year’s XS phones paled in comparison to the iPhone XR, which might be the longest-lasting phone Apple’s ever made. How? Because Apple made the decision to sell a bigger and heavier phone — with a bigger battery — that combined the same efficiency improvements that Apple made on the XS phones.
Improved efficiency plus a bigger battery is apparently a winning formula for great battery life, and with the iPhone 11 Pro models, it looks like Apple is applying that lesson in reverse. The new 11 Pro phones are nearly as thick and heavy as the standard 11 — the smaller iPhone 11 Pro is 6.67 percent thicker and nearly half an ounce heavier than the XS — presumably due to Apple adding beefier batteries in the new models.
We likely won’t know for sure how big the batteries in the new iPhones are until someone tears one apart, and, presumably, the numbers still won’t compare to something like Samsung’s Galaxy S10 and Note phones, which top out at 4,500mAh batteries that are almost guaranteed to be vastly larger than whatever Apple is offering. And that’s to say nothing of the (sadly unfunded) 18,000mAh monster that Energizer wanted to make. But any improvement here is a welcome one, especially if the battery claims hold up.
Apple says that improving the batteries themselves is only part of the story: the company also highlights that the new displays in the 11 Pro are “up to 15 percent more power efficient,” and that iOS 13 itself is designed to more efficiently run on the new phones. There’s also a new custom-designed power management unit (PMU) that Apple says is key to offering the improved battery life. But as we saw last year with the XS phones, that kind of upgrade can only get things so far. At a certain point, it does come down to how big the battery is.
Apple has historically pursued thinness with an aggressive mindset over the past decade. Its phones have gotten slimmer at the expense of battery life and protruding camera modules, and its laptops are thinner at the price of ports and a problematic keyboard. With the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max, it looks like that trend is finally reversing by prioritizing function over form.
Correction: The iPhone 11 Pro is 0.02 inches thicker than the iPhone XS, not a quarter-inch as this post originally wrote.
Comments
"the smaller iPhone 11 Pro is almost a quarter-inch thicker"
might want to check that math…
By OlsonNet on 09.11.19 10:27am
I read that line and was just like…uhhhh…that’s either one thick phone or the XS was much more of a razor blade than I recall.
By TDHawk00 on 09.11.19 10:37am
By GoodTroll on 09.11.19 10:42am
There have been several occasions in the past where newer iPhones have been heavier than the old ones in the same form factor.
By Pixelated on 09.11.19 10:33am
While true, it doesn’t appear that those were accompanied by big jumps in battery life.
I’m glad to see this. It’s not like increasing the thickness and the weight by a small amount actually makes your experience using the device worse. I personally don’t regularly run out of battery life in a single day (work from home, almost always on wi-fi), but it never hurts to have better battery life.
By GoodTroll on 09.11.19 10:47am
Disagree. I can guarantee we will see cases of iPhone wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries increase substantially. It’s a real thing. Ask any doctor.
By wigby on 09.11.19 12:15pm
They’ve progressively gotten thicker since the 6. And battery life has gotten substantially better particularly from the X onwards.
By JamesMarsh on 09.11.19 12:33pm
They have been accompanied by increases in battery life every single year. The XR is the most striking example of this. It had by far the most battery life of any iPhone ever, and was also the thickest ever at 8.3mm.
We don’t even know if the new battery life gains in the 11 Pro this year came from a bigger battery or the better processor. There have been many cycles where Apple modestly increased battery life while shrinking the raw size of the battery. This year could be the same.
By akowalz on 09.11.19 1:09pm
I have no idea how you came to this conclusion. The 3g was 12.3mm thick. Followed by the original (11.6mm) and the 4 (9.3mm).
By ench on 09.11.19 3:36pm
Sorry, I was basing my figures on an article that only listed the thicknesses back to the iPhone 6. The 6 was the thinnest iPhone, but from the 6S on they have only been getting thicker. The XR is the thickest since the phones started increasing in size.
By akowalz on 09.12.19 10:56am
There is too the reduction in 3D touch. When it was introuced it went from 6.9 mm (iphone 6) to 7.1mm (iphone 6s). But it carried a reduction in battery size (mAh). So it was probably aroud 0.2mm than go to a bigger battery in this new iphone. A slimmer OLED display could also help put a bigger battery.
iphone 6 – 6.9mm(1810 mAh)
iphone 6s – 7.1mm(1715 mAh)
By eerburu on 09.12.19 3:10am
Well, we’re not talking about the different form factor. The XR was not the flagship iPhone and was bigger and thicker than the "default size" X/Xs. But sure.
By GoodTroll on 09.12.19 11:50am
In fact, it’s happened every single year since the 6S. The phones and batteries have been getting larger, not smaller, since 2014.
By akowalz on 09.11.19 10:56am
Is this the first of the truly post-Ive phones?
By flathunt on 09.11.19 10:38am
Supposedly he had his fingers on phone designs for several years out (I believe the number 3 was thrown around). So no not yet.
By SasparillaFizz on 09.11.19 1:01pm
Actually, the iPhones have been consistently getting thicker every single year since the iPhone 6S released 2014. This trend continued to the XR, which was the thickest iPhone ever released with the largest battery and the best battery life. Here are the numbers:
Source
The battery life has also increased each year (the battery sizes varied a bit). So, this really isn’t a new trend at all. Verge, please do a little fact-checking before posting a story like this.
By akowalz on 09.11.19 10:46am
Instantly thought the same. How could the verge be not noticing this?
It sounds slightly even can separate a 6 from 6S just by how it feels in my hands.
By poehler on 09.11.19 10:53am
They should delete this article entirely IMHO.
By poehler on 09.11.19 10:55am
I think it’s fine to note that the trend continued this year, and the 4 hour battery life increase on the 11 Pro is single largest ever which is newsworthy. But the context it’s presented in is totally wrong, and should be corrected.
By akowalz on 09.11.19 10:59am
It’s not wrong at all. They increased the thickness for better battery life, which Apple has never done before.
By xenon on 09.11.19 12:09pm
The phones have been getting thicker for years, and battery life has been getting better for years. Not sure how much more clear it can be.
By thevergecommenter101 on 09.11.19 12:11pm
The actual size of the battery has jumped back and forth though. The 8’s battery was smaller than the 7’s. The XS’ was smaller than the X.
By ench on 09.11.19 3:42pm
And we don’t know yet if 11 Pro’s battery is bigger or smaller that XS’. Sure, it probably is bigger, but the article makes an assumption into fact while ignoring the trend of iPhones getting thicker for years.
All in all, it seems like an attention grab more than an actual well-researched piece (which can only be written after release and after we see the battery for ourselves), so the criticism is not baseless.
By kuznetsov on 09.12.19 2:13pm
Good details. I’ve heard that the XR sold pretty well and I wonder if that factored in to them realizing people are ok with sacrificing a little thickness for battery life.
By nos on 09.11.19 11:37am
Came here to say this. Thank you. Comparing my 7 to my partner’s XS, the 7 is significantly thinner… and has significantly worse battery life.
This is a case where the narrative online of "Apple just wants to make everything thinner" has massively outlived reality.
By Egg7 on 09.11.19 12:10pm