Battery use isn't linear. If 24-hour charging cycles are required for the average case what that means is that you're limiting use for a lot of normal cases. Use the phone a bit more than average or have a long period of poor reception, and then you've exhausted the battery. Which is precisely the case today, it's trivially easy for anyone to exhaust the battery on a modern smartphone in much less than a day.
In contrast, a phone that requires charging every week, for example, you'll tend to keep at a higher total charge and will survive periods of heavier usage better.
That's not dismissing the fact that most people are willing to accept the tradeoffs of modern smartphone battery life, but make no mistake the necessity of daily recharging for average use is a problem.
I'm probably on the opposite extreme (never have watched a movie or tv show on my iphone nor any youtube video longer than about 3 minutes), but I'd be shocked if long video watching was a common case.
Battery life on any iPhone sucks the big one. Hell, it sucks on any smartphone I've ever seen. Big, power-hungry touchscreen phones are simply not in a place where we can afford to use them all day.
I sit down and play Mirror's Edge for 10 minutes and out goes 10% of my battery. Holy crap.
But even taking gaming out of it, even moderate browser usage over 3G burns through that battery like kindling. I have to charge the iPhone at work if I plan on going out in the evening. Even with judicious limitations on usage (and isn't that defeating the point of a smartphone?), if I leave with a phone at 9am, go somewhere after work, there is a good chance I won't have enough juice to call for a cab at midnight.
I don't have a problem with a 24-hour charging cycle, my problem is that current smartphones - iPhones and all - have trouble lasting that full 24-hour period unless you severely handicap your own use of the device.
Not sure but I did it once because I had a lot of time to kill waiting for my girlfriend to finish up at work.
Another annoying scenario is when you lock the screen but keep a high CPU app running. Go back and resume a couple hours later and your battery is decimated.
In contrast, a phone that requires charging every week, for example, you'll tend to keep at a higher total charge and will survive periods of heavier usage better.
That's not dismissing the fact that most people are willing to accept the tradeoffs of modern smartphone battery life, but make no mistake the necessity of daily recharging for average use is a problem.