The style over substance debate surrounding Apple products continues, with Jony Ive defending the iPhone’s battery life.
While Apple has almost made it acceptable for a phone to last no more than a day on a single charge, this is a drawback of modern devices that still grates with many consumers.
According to Ive, however, bestowing the iPhone 6 with a longer battery life would have diminished the device’s overall design considerably.
The company’s design guru told the Financial Times that giving the iPhone the ability to go longer between charges would have made the handset fatter, heavier and ultimately less “compelling”.
The report adds he expressed that “it’s because it’s so light and thin that we use it so much and therefore deplete the battery.”
Discussing the design vs. performance trade-off, he added: “I see design as a way you look at the world and as a thought process.”
Related: iPhone 6S rumours
While the iPhone’s battery life is now an accepted issue for many, with the Apple Watch on the verge of release, the staying power of wearables has become the industry’s latest talking point.
Discussing the company’s first wearable, Ive has suggested that he is more concerned with creating a good product than launching a consumer hit.
“I’m much more concerned about how we can make them as good as possible than how many we’ll sell,” he stated. “We’re brutally self-critical and go through countless iterations of each product.”
Discussing how this self-critical processor continues as the product gets ready for market, he added: “Even now, when the design of the Apple Watch is incredibly mature and has gone through thousands and thousands of hours of evaluation and testing, we’re still working and improving.
“You are trying to keep everything fluid for as long as possible because everything is so interconnected. The best products are those where you have optimised each attribute while being very conscious of other parts of the product’s performance.”
Although part of this performance is battery life, recent reports have suggested the Apple Watch will last less than a full day on a single charge.
Apple is set to confirm all the Apple Watch ins and outs – including battery life and pricing – at a special launch event tomorrow, March 9.
Stay tuned to TrustedReviews for all the latest on the Apple Watch announcement.