New Optical Film From 3M May Double iPad Battery Life

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While iPad–and by extension, iPad 2–news always comes at us hot and fast, it’s not every day we hear out of the folks at 3M, who are arguably the world leaders in terms of chemical products. But the kings of Post-It Notes have a new surprise, and it’s all about a polymer film that will drastically increase the battery life and screen brightness of your iPad 2 (and quite possibly your original iPad to boot).

We already know that the iPad 2 has a pretty impressive battery life, what with its A5 chip and substantially sizable battery churning out fully ten hours of life. But the film, as the folks at Cult of Mac and 3M explained, works to boost the brightness level of the iPad 2 screen without pulling battery juice, thus allowing you to turn down the brightness and get the same level of use, but at a greatly increased battery life. In fact, they’re currently pegging it at fully double its current life, meaning about 20 hours of operation on a single charge with the new film.

Plus, further reports suggest that one of Kindle’s biggest selling advantages over the iPad 2–it’s outdoor readability levels–will be wiped out thanks to this new film from 3M.

The film is currently on display out at the SID Display Week show in Los Angeles running through the rest of this week if you want to get an eyeful of it yourself. The lone problem, though, is that Apple doesn’t seem to be talking about this themselves, so actually getting this film on your iPad 2 display may be a taller order than you might expect. Hopefully 3M will go third-party on this one and you’ll be able to apply that film yourself, boosting the battery life and getting to use your iPad 2 outdoors just like a Kindle.

No word, sadly, on just when that day will come, but would you like to get your hands on some film that would reportedly double your iPad 2′s battery life by letting you dial down the brightness? The comments section waits for you to fill us in!