It’s the bane of many smartphone owners’ existence - with all those wonderful online features comes significantly reduced battery life. As phones continue to offer more and more features, it’s the battery technology that is struggling to keep pace.

However, a listing on the US Patent and Trademark Office’s website suggests Apple might finally have a partial solution to the smartphone battery woes, and could technically be applied to tablets and other mobile devices as well.

The patent filing - which can be read in its entirety here - uses GPS, location, time and other data to analyse the amount of battery consumption that is likely to be required at any given time or location. It will also have a ‘memory’, adapting based on a user’s previous usage in the same situation (e.g. whether or not they have access to a power supply). It could also theoretically identify “instances the user may need the device to last longer between charges, especially... where the user may be on abnormal schedule”.

Based on location and time, the proposed technology will be able to estimate the power demands of services such as 3G or bluetooth and determine whether the phone has enough internal power to support them. The phone can then adjust “one or more characteristics to reduce a power consumption of the mobile electronic device" i.e. minimise applications or power-intensive features that are not required.

Since the technology is only at patent stage, however, it is likely to be some time before it is applied to consumer products, if it even makes it past the design process.