Inside of all of our iPads is an Lithium ion battery. Made out of polymer, this battery is unique because unlike most other batteries, it can be recharged. Apple says that for the first two hours of charging, your iPad battery will charge up to 80%. For the next two hours it will "trickle charge" slowly to complete the charge at 100%. With each new iPad release, the battery life has always stayed the same (10 hours), so we're led to believe that they won't be focusing on increasing the battery life time, but focusing more on expanding the capabilities of the ipad during those 10 hours.
Real World Connection:
These iPads are really very complicated innovations, and thankfully, learning many of these new concepts in class helped me to better understand how they work. In the past few class days we learned about voltage and electricity and how they relate to each other. One analogy we used to help us learn was that voltage was similar to a gravitational field, surrounding an object. But I think the most helpful piece of information was learning how regular batteries work. The electrons from the (-) side flow through the electronic device into the (+) side, and eventually the (-) electrons will run out and the battery will die. I really felt like this concept was the most helpful while learning about all different types of batteries, like the ones in our iPads.
