A British Company Has Managed to Fix The iPhone's Biggest Problem

D'you remember the days of the Nokia 3210? Built like an indestructible brick, with a battery that lasted longer than some animals' lives.

Well, those days are sadly over, and most of us spend our waking hours anxiously thinking about where to get our next fix of battery juice to keep our energy-guzzling devices going; a problem compounded by the fact that every time the batteries improve, they're asked to do more energy-draining tasks.

A British company claims to have finally taken the 'great leap forward' in battery design by building a cell that would power devices for a whole week without recharging.

Related: 20 Ridiculous iPhone Cases You Didn't Know Could Even Exist

The paradigm shift comes courtesy of moving to a 'fuel cell' design which would use layers of steel and plastic to combine hydrogen and oxygen and create power.

Intelligent Energy claims it has a working iPhone 6 prototype which contains a rechargeable battery and its patented technology to combine it with Apple's tech without altering any of the design characteristics of the phone. A specially-adapted headphone socket would allow users to 'top up' with hydrogen gas. The company is believed to actually be working with Apple themselves, although this is yet to be confirmed.

The company already has a proven history of creating hydrogen-based charging devices, but has never previously made one small enough to fit inside a smartphone: clearly, they've cracked the magic formula.

The byproducts of such a power source are a small amount of heat and water vapour, but this is not thought to be an issue to the operation of the electronics. Apparently the phone would produce an "imperceptible" amount of water - hopefully not enough to make it look like you've had an accident by leaving it in your trouser pocket.

The Telegraph has seen the prototype in action at Intelligent Energu's Loughborough headquarters with the company claiming that they are ready to go to market within "a couple of years".

Henri Winand, chief executive of Intelligent Energy, said "To our knowledge this has never been done before. We have now managed to make a fuel cell so thin we can fit it to the existing chassis without alterations and retaining the rechargeable battery. This is a major step because if you are moving to a new technology you have to give people a path they are comfortable with."