During its iPhone 11 keynote presentation, Apple mentioned that the new handsets have greatly improved battery life across the board. This time around Apple wasn’t satisfied with just optimizing the hardware and software, but actually put bigger battery packs inside.

This may still seem a puny upgrade compared to Android phones that now routinely chase the 4000 mAh mark but let’s not forget that Apple designs all three components – the battery, the operating system, and the hardware package, so it can juice out a lot more out of such integration.

There is no doubt that the 11 Pro Max is the best iPhone in terms of battery life that Apple has ever created, and the company is pretty proud to point this out in its marketing of the handset. Next year, however, the iPhone 12 Pro Max, or whatever it gets named, may sport an even better battery life. How come?

Why are we showing you this dry tech jargon? The focus is on the “smaller size” and “ultra-thin” blurbs, as, for the first time in the Galaxy S line history, all of the upcoming phones in the series, including the S11e, or whatever it’s named, are expected to sport at least 4000mAh batteries. The S11 will allegedly have a 4500mAh pack, while the S11+ is said to be closing in on the 5000mAh physchological threshold but may or may not cross it, depending on what rumor source one gives credence to. 

This significant bump in the eventual S11 pack capacities and, hence, battery life of the series, is partly made possible by the new tailored PMP battery packaging method that ITM delivered to Samsung. We may reasonably expect that its dedicated Apple supply plant will be used for similar custom-made iPhone 12 battery cell wrappers that could provide a similar boost to their capacities as ITN has managed to achieve for the Galaxy S11 series. 

Alternatively, given that the iPhone 12 gang is expected to sport a new, edgier throwback to the iPhone 4 model design, Apple could use the space-saving PMP battery packaging to make place for new internal components. Like with new mobile chipset nodes, however, which offer either a smaller footprint or higher performance than the existing ones, phone makers usually opt for a combination of the two. 

Thus, Apple’s iPhone 12 battery capacities may be way larger than what the iPhone 11 models offer, or the packs may be smaller, freeing space for other things on the inside. Taking the typical middle road approach that phone manufacturers usually pick, will mean that the iPhone 12 series may introduce a significant bump in battery life over their predecessors, and, given the power-hungry 5G connectivity, Apple will indeed have to boost the capacity in order to maintain the level of endurance expected from a flagship handset these days.