And if you have a framework you know you're going to be able to replace by the time it becomes unusable. They already have a more energy-dense version of the original battery. Who knows what the future batteries are going to be like ? I suppose it will only get better.

Yeah, I don't know many people who spend +6hours straight in front of a computer without taking a break. This can't possibly be healthy.

Contiguous computer usage can sometimes be a nice benefit of long battery life, but I believe that for most people the bigger factor is no need to tote chargers or batteries when going out.

Another thing is when combined with good standby time, long battery life means the device will be more predictable and ready to use at any given point without leaving it plugged in all the time or having to remember to plug it in regularly. This isn't as important for a "daily driver" laptop that gets regular/constant use, but for tablets and 2-in-1's that serve more auxiliary purposes it's huge.

it's not that you go 6 hours straight in front of a computer as much as the laptop can't get 2 hours of charge in the 15 minutes I'm inside getting a drink and going to the bathroom.

it's better now that everything does reasonable fast-charging, but this sets up a pretty simple inequality: T(using)/T(charging) <= rate(charging)/rate(using). In other words if I am inside for 15 minutes out of every 2 hours, I have 7 parts using to 1 part charging, so with ideal usage my charge rate needs to be 8x the use rate. if you have an 85W charge rate, that means your average power consumption needs to be under 85/8 = ~10.625W average system power. with the screen and everything included. And in practice an 85W charger does not charge at 85W into the battery - not just system power, but the delivery isn't 100% efficient to begin with (look at your charge rate in system report or with aldente/coconutbattery!), you might get 70W out of that 85W connection to begin with, and 60W goes into the battery after running the laptop.

of course in practice you can accept a little attrition over time, you just need enough excess capacity to last you the day even if it's depleted at the end, but x86 laptops aren't idling at sub-10W with max screen brightness (probably no 1000 nits screen either). that number might be 25W average system power (not just processor!) or more for x86. when you're running an IDE and the screen is all the way up you probably are pulling closer to 17-18 watts even on apple silicon (the "stats" utility is great for showing this, use combined modules on the menu bar). you pretty clearly are going to burn through a large chunk of that battery even with frequent top-ups.

the better argument is "why don't you just pull over an extension cord" but that's the point, it's a quality-of-life change in the amount of charging you need to do and the degree to which you are tethered to the cord. Being able to go outside and run max screen brightness in mid-day while the dogs play in the yard, while running moderate workloads, and basically get like 6-8 hours of actual working usage plus any additional charge I can cram in while I'm inside for a break.

Traveling, traversing meeting rooms. Going on site. There are lots of reasons battery life is important in the corporate world without being present in front of your computer for more than six hours consistently.

Yes and No. You're right that battery life can be way more important for someone constantly running from meeting to meeting, or from site to site.

Then the corporate world has a solution for that for as long as computer existed: there's charging cables in basically every meeting room, every guest desk etc. In the olden days people would also keep around secundary, tertiary batteries to make the day. This would translate to a mobile battery in this days and age.

It's always nicer to not have to rely too heavily on these, but if your job is to be on the go all day long, you can't solely rely on your device battery either way.

It's an excelent point, that Apple used to understand better than most other computer companies: technology for technology isn't worth much, the user needs to be at the center of it.

That's why people moved to macs even as they didn't have the faster processors or better hardware. Specs were only numbers, and macs had attractive user features.

Now we're on the other side, where keynotes heavily rely on performance and technical prowess, and yes I'd totally see them come up with a mid-air floating iPad with absolutely no story behind it, the same way we have an m4 iPad Pro with no software to match it.