A Google engineer has proposed a change to Android's source code to decrease power consumption. Here's what's changing
Smartphone buyers are now clear in their minds: phones, especially top-of-the-line ones, must be beautiful to use, powerful, with a big, bright screen, and the battery must last as long as possible. The minimum tolerated is an entire day, at least when the device is in its first years of life. But getting all of these things together requires a big, expensive, bulky, heavy battery. Or a top-notch software optimization.
Google unveiled its Pixel 4 smartphone last year, and everyone wondered why the new device had an even lower battery than the previous Pixel 3: 2,800 mAh versus 2,915 mAh (different thing for the Pixel 4 XL, which has more battery than the Pixel 3 XL). To questions about why it made this technical choice Google has always responded by saying that its smartphones are ultra-optimized and don't have all those useless battery-draining apps that instead come pre-loaded on most Android devices. The problem, though, is that Pixel 4 users almost always get there at the end of the night with the smartphone turned off. With the next Pixel 5, or with Android 11, however, could come a novelty: the Ultra Low Power Mode.
Android: what is the Ultra Low Power Mode
We start by saying that the arrival of a power saving mode "Ultra" on Android is a mere speculation, but of those that are not so far-fetched. The assumption, in fact, comes from a "commit" (i.e. a proposal to modify the Android code) made by a "System Power Engineer" of Google. That is, an engineer who works on battery management. It is, at least at the moment, a generic proposal and without any support code already developed. But at least it's a proposal and this, indirectly, means that Google has realized that it must do something to increase the autonomy of Android smartphones. And, indirectly, it could mean that the next Pixel 5 won't have a very big battery.
The power consumption of Google apps
Also because, to be fair, this isn't the first time Google has been criticized for "energy" issues. Recently, for example, Microsoft made an "energy saving" proposal for Chrome's code (remember that Microsoft's new Edge browser is based on Chromium's code). Proposal arising from the fact that Chrome consumes too many resources and devours the battery of the laptops on which it runs, not to mention the continuous noise of the cooling fans that starts when you open the browser and ends only when you close it. Google recently accepted Microsoft's proposal to make Chrome less energy-intensive, but in the meantime Microsoft has already done its own thing: try switching, with the same number of tabs open, from Chrome to Edge and you'll understand how much software optimization counts in an app's energy consumption.