The battery life/longevity is a well-known concern among IPhone users. The fact that it essentially sucks has been the one problem that Apple has been unable to lick with any significant degree of success. So instead, they put in a feature in the new IPhone 3GS that will tell users exactly how fast their battery is draining.

The new IPhone 3GS allows users to add a percentage meter right next to the usual battery level icon. So this basically means that users of the 3GS will now be able to know exactly when they should start frantically searching for a power source as their battery life inexorably approaches zero. Its pretty; its neat; so I guess its pretty neat.

But how does one change the battery meter to show percentage? Dont get befuddled; just follow these steps to unleash the power of the percentage meter in your IPhone 3GS:

1.First, go to your home screen and look for the Settings icon. If you dont know which one it is, its usually the gray one with gears.
2.Tap to enter and you will be presented with several tabs. Tap the one for General which is usually towards the bottom of the screen.
3.Find Usage where you will find Battery Percentage. The default setting is for the feature to be off, so just tap to turn it on.
4.Go back to the home screen and you should see some numbers with a percent sign next to your battery icon. Voila!

The percentage meter feature is only available in the 3GS model, so if you have an older IPhone dont bother to look for it at present. It will probably become available to older IPhones when an update is offered so keep this site bookmarked for when that happy event occurs. In the meantime, you will just have to be content with the bars in your battery meter, and start thinking recharge when there is only one bar left. Thats a rule of thumb, folks.

One thing about the percentage meter is that it will allow the user to calculate how many minutes of real time it will take to lose 1% of the charge, and you can have some fun experimenting: x minutes for idle time; x minutes for watching video; x minutes for listening music; x minutes for a call. Then you can do this all over again with one or more of the features on i.e. Bluetooth, Push, etc. Hopefully, someone publishes the results online so everybody can benefit from this nifty new feature, even those without a 3GS.

Of course the percentage meter in no way extends the viability of the IPhone 3GS battery in one charge cycle; only an external battery can provide more juice with the portability demanded of most mobile phone users, and in the case of the IPhone not many external batteries have the juice to give more than one charge cycle. The IMP500 from Newtrent is one of those few who can.