Two Intesting iPhone 2 Tidbits

I heard two interesting tidbits about the possible design of the iPhone 2 at the weekend:

Better Battery Thanks To Better Software

3G is generally assumed to be a drain on battery life because of the hardware, which sucks down juice, but it is actually the iPhone’s software that is the problem, according to engineers working on Google’s Android phone. According to a conversation reported to me by a colleague at Wired.com, Google’s engineers say the first iPhone OS was basically a hack. It was adapted from the desktop OS and had none of the advanced power-management features necessary to properly run the networking chips. But the iPhone 2 will have not only better integrated circuits, it will have proper power-management software also.

The iPhone 2 Won’t Have an All-Plastic Case

There are several rumors speculating that the iPhone 2 will have an all-plastic case, replacing the metal back of the current design. But an engineer I talked to last year said the metal cases of the iPod and the iPhone were probably designed to dissipate heat from inside the device . They were likely big heat sinks. And that’s why I doubt the iPhone will have a plastic back, because plastic doesn’t conduct heat as a well as metal.

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