The thinner casing of the expected iPhone Fold means a smaller battery, but a new leak backs up claims that Apple plans to mitigate this by improving power efficiency.
Render of a possible iPhone Fold
It's previously been reported that Apple -- and Samsung -- are having difficulties making thinner batteries. More recently, leaker "Mobile Phone Chip Expert" has claimed that Apple is concentrating on extending battery life by improving power efficiency in the iPhone fold's display.
Now leaker yeux1122 has backed up this report, saying (in translation) that Apple will "achieve the goal of slimming the battery by improving the Display Driver Integrated Circuit (DDI)," in particular.
The DDI controls operation of the display. If Apple can make that more efficient, it will lower both overall power consumption and heat output.
Note that in his previous leak about the difficulties in making thinner batteries, yeux1122 claimed that it hadn't been possible to make the substrate, the base material of the battery, as thin as anticipated.
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That meant, he or she said, that the battery in an iPhone fold or an iPhone 17 Slim could be no less than 6mm. Since then, other rumors have claimed that the iPhone 17 Slim will be just 5.5mm, and now leaker yeux1122 is agreeing that Apple's focus has moved on to maximizing battery life.
That said, if Apple is able to improve power efficiency to make the most of slimmer batteries, it can do the same for all iPhone batteries.
Consequently, if this leak is correct, it promises greater battery life for every model of the iPhone. Conceivably, only the iPhone 17 Slim and iPhone fold might by necessity get this feature, but it will surely be adopted across the whole lineup.
Note that leaker yeux1122 has only an average track record for accurate Apple leaks. He or she, for instance, claimed incorrectly that the iPhone 16 Pro would launch with a 2TB storage option -- and that Apple had abandoned plans to make its own 5G modem.