Among industry experts, it has long been known that so-called “always-on” mobile Internet applications present a huge and currently largely unsolved problem for battery life longevity. There various technical and non-technical reasons for this that I will not get into here. The point is that among normal users, it hasn’t so far created any outrage – not because it’s not a problem but primarily because people do not use always-on Internet services in significant numbers yet. But as that may change, it’s good to see what you can expect when you do start using them. (as always-on, I mean applications that require TCP/IP connectivity to outside the mobile operator’s network at all times)

Let’s take one mainstream application as an example. Widsets, despite the braindead name, is a semi-popular application that is basically, simplifying somewhat, a glorified RSS reader with some scripting support. It’s a convenient application in the sense that you can have news etc update on the background and it works on lots of devices.

But what does it do to your battery? Should one care? Let’s take another Nokia application, Nokia Energy Profiler, and find out.

To cut a long story short and go straight for the bottom line, take a look at this graph. It depicts the estimated battery lifetime when the phone is idle (i.e. on normal standby mode) and when there is a WidSets application running on the background with just five widgets.

Would you start using an application that cuts your standby time by 80%? It means going from a phone that could barely handle a day’s activity to one that requires recharging before lunch.

It should be emphasized that this isn’t a Widsets-specific problem nor is it a Nokia-specific problem; similar figures can be seen for most if not all always-on mobile Internet applications on all devices.

Interestingly enough, there are many things developers, operators and handset vendors alike could do to alleviate the situation. But nobody is because nobody’s complaining. If mobile Internet services take off like many predict – and many more hope – we just might get enough people to complain about it.