iPhone 4 Battery issue addressed?

[Slik]

I was wondering if anyone has seen if the battery issue has been fixed with the new iphone?

I know people were saying that while running the TomTom app and in the dock, it wouldn't charge as fast as it was discharging....

Was wondering if anyone has tried this with the iphone 4 since it has more processing power and maybe uses less power?

 

[gatorguy]

I've been seeing some reports that the TomTom dock isn't working properly with the new iPnone. It may be a few more days until it's clear one way or the other. FWIW, the latest iPhone is having it's own teething problems, from reports of broken /scratched backscreens (it's glass) to antenna and signal issues and yellow discoloration on the display.

 

[Slik]

Ah ok... I was wondering since I say people putting pieces of paper behind it and was wondering if that is the only fix or if Tomtom was going to roll out another dock.

Mainly just wanted to see if the battery problem was fixed, I am not going to buy the dock if is won't even charge my phone while I am using the GPS, that's kinda defeats the purpose of having a hard wired dock.

I have my iPhone 4 and I lucked out... No yellow screens (even though most peoples have cured and went away) and my reception is flawless too since I cover all my products in Zagg because I hate scratches.


Guess I'll just have to wait and see if a new dock comes out and fixes the battery issue.

 

[Kolenka]

The problem is the hardware/firmware of the car kit.

The kit provides 500mA to the iPhone (which can draw up to 1A over the dock connector for charging). When you have everything turned on, and the brightness up, the phone needs to draw over 500mA to keep everything running. This ends up draining the battery slowly. It's not a problem that can be addressed on the phone, and it isn't limited just to the car kit, but anything that provides 500mA instead of 1A (like stereo units with USB ports).

 

[Slik]

Yes I know that is whats wrong with the iPhone 3G and 3GS....

But with the iPhone 4 the processor draws less power even though it is far superior, so I wanna see it the problem is fixed.... Just because the chargers are the same (5v / 1A) doesn't mean that the iPhone 4 isn't more efficient and draws less power....

So I am wondering if someone has noticed if there iPhone 4 is charging even while its in the dock.....

 

[chilliblue]

I have notice that the my new iphone isnt being charged while in the tom tom dock.

I have just spoke to tom tom and they say its a "compatiblity issue" and dont know when they are going to update it or if theres going to be a add-on.

 

[Kolenka]

Just because the battery life is longer doesn't mean that it is all from energy savings, some of it comes from the battery. But, I figured I'd do an actual synthetic test against my power meter that I have on a battery box I use for camping. I was actually pretty surprised by the results.

So the 3GS draws around 2.7 to 3 watts while fully charged and connected to the battery box. This assumes max display brightness, wifi and bluetooth on, music playing, and TomTom running a demo route. The draw that the USB port allows for is 2.5 watts (half an amp at 5V).

I hooked up my iPhone 4 in the same way and let it charge to full. For the first 15 seconds or so I saw it hover at about 2.5 watts once I confirmed it was full. Seems there is some lag time where it'll draw enough power in order to try to trickle charge any small drain on the battery. After that it dropped to a mere 1.7 to 2 watts and held there for a good 4 minutes. It dropped even lower when messing with the menus rather than having TomTom render the map display. I used Pandora in this case over WiFi just to see how network access would affect the battery draw. It is still likely real situations will draw a bit more power, but half a watt is a decent enough buffer.

So yes, the iPhone 4 will charge on the tomtom car kit dock. Although fairly slowly.

That said, the main benefits of the car kit for the iPhone 4 is the charging and hands free features. The GPS chip and antenna in the iPhone 4 is on par, and in a couple ways superior to what is in the car kit.

 

[mvl]

its possible that other chargers might work. i used an aftermarket 0.5a charger on my go 740 and it couldnt keep up. the pnd chargers for tomtom are 2a and they might help. i dont have an iphone so im not sure.

 

[tjh]

I have no problems with my TomTom kit and charging my Iphone 4, it charges as it should ,and when i run the Tomtom nav program its charging all the time to keep the Iphone battery fully charged ,no fault at all.

 

[Kolenka]

its possible that other chargers might work. i used an aftermarket 0.5a charger on my go 740 and it couldnt keep up. the pnd chargers for tomtom are 2a and they might help. i dont have an iphone so im not sure.

You can hook up a 10A charger, but it means nothing if the kit caps the flow into the iPhone, which it does. The 1.2A charger is enough for the kit, and fast charging the iPhone at 1A, which is the max it supports.

The kit just doesn't make the full amp available over the dock connector.

 

[jimls]

iPhone 4 Battery Charging

Both my previous 3G and now 4G iPhone will charge okay in the TomTom cradle, when using the speaker on the TomTom iPhone Car Kit. If I use the audio output of the TomTom Car Kit to the car aux input, it will hold an adequate charge too.

The iphone doesn't charge adequately when using the Bluetooth connection to my Ford Fusion Sync to listen to music and get the TomTom routing instructions. When using the Bluetooth, the battery slowly discharges. As previously noted, this is because the car kit limits the current to the phone.

So on a long trip I'm forced to mostly use the audio out jack.

Jim