Apple hiring to improve battery life in future versions of OS X

Anthony Chivetta, a member of Apple's OS X team, posted links to a pair of new job openings on his team via his Twitter account on Monday. There he revealed that Apple is looking for employees who can "help improve the performance and battery life of OS X.

One of the positions listed is for a Software Power Infrastructure Engineer. In that role, the employee will "design the latest tools to automate the collection power information."

The second opening is for the role of Software Power Engineer, as Apple seeks candidates who will work on the power efficiency of both OS X and its bundled applications.

Both jobs are to be located at Apple's corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

Power efficiency has been a key focus for Apple's Mac lineup in 2013, thanks in part to Intel's latest Haswell processors. The company's MacBook Air models were updated in June with the new low-power processor offering all-day battery life. New Haswell-equipped MacBook Pros are also expected to arrive in the coming weeks.

Power consumption and battery life are also key areas of focus for Apple's forthcoming OS X Mavericks operating system update. Apple has boasted that Mavericks is both the most powerful OS X ever, while also being the most power-efficient version of the platform.

Key features in Mavericks include Timer Coalescing, which groups low-level operations together to reduce CPU usage, and App Nap, which places applications that are hidden from view in an idle state. The Golden Master of Mavericks was provided to developers last week

While these new hires sought by Apple won't play a role in the launch of Mavericks or this year's Mac hardware, the available positions suggest that improving battery life is a key area of focus for the company in developing its next generation hardware and future versions of OS X.