Solar Charged iPhone?

May 27, 2008 – 7:35 pm | in Technology |

According to The New York Times, employees at Apple, Inc. have filed a patent for integrating solar cells into a layer below its touch-sensitive screen. Most cell devices don’t allow enough room for a solar cell to be effective.

Apple’s technology would stack the solar cells underneath both the screen and the LCD. That would potentially allow the full 2.4 by 4.5 inch glass face to operate as a solar panel.

Leave it to Apple to innovate, but do cell users really want to leave their phones baking in the sun for an hour just for 20 extra minutes of talk time?

I guess it depends on how well the solar panels work, and how Apple can tame the energy sucking beasts of their new 3g phones. Apple would be the first to implement a solar paneled charger right in the display and casing of the phone, but they’re not the first to try to charge portable devices using solar.

According to the NY Times, “Better Energy Systems, a UK company, has released a small, handheld charger that gives 20 minutes of talk time on a mobile phone for every hour of sunlight to which it is exposed, and Sunload, a German company, sells a range of bags fitted with thin six-watt solar panels that can charge a range of portable devices.”

Eventually, this car phone thing is gonna be huge.

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