The Apple Watch will have a special battery-saving feature that will essentially turn it into a basic timepiece.
The previously unreleased detail about the smartwatch’s functionality showed up Sunday in a New York Times story that digs into Apple’s development of the long-awaited wearable.
“The company also developed a yet-to-be-announced feature called Power Reserve, a mode that will run the watch on low energy but display only the time,” reports the Times.
Apple says the Watch’s battery will last a full day and require nightly juicing through its inductive charger. It’s also been reported that the Watch will run only a couple of hours at full use. But interactions with the Watch are designed to be brief, which should help offset the lack of battery life.
A Power Reserve mode would certainly help conserve battery in a pinch, but limiting the Watch to functioning only as a timepiece sounds like a less-than-ideal solution. It’s unclear whether the feature will be shown off at Apple’s March 9 “Spring forward” event, which is assumed to reveal even more about the upcoming smartwatch.
Additional pricing, specific availability details surrounding the Watch’s April launch and third-party apps for the wearable are all expected to be revealed next Monday.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
One response to “Apple Watch will have ‘Power Reserve’ mode for saving battery life”
I have many Apple products (too many probably) and I really like them all, but isn’t the watch a ‘solution’ to a problem that doesn’t exist?