1. A lithium ion battery charger is smart, it will not overcharge or harm your battery in any way keeping it charged.
2. In terms of discharging a lithium ion battery - they are not susceptible to memory like ni-cd and ni-mh batteries, so regular discharging is not required.
3. Apple and other companies will suggest discharging your lithium ion battery fully. The reason being that a complete discharge followed by a full recharge will update an internal counter which records the capacity of the battery. The capacity decreases over time, so your battery charge indicator will need this full discharge/recharge regularly to stay accurate. Not important for actual capacity you get out of your battery.
4. There is a recommendation that in order to get the MOST NUMBER OF DISCHARGE CYCLES out of a lithium ion battery, you should only discharge it to 50%. I put MOST NUMBER OF DISCHARGE CYCLES in bold because it is important to know that this is the most important factor in the life of your battery - you do not need to discharge the battery to 50% in order to get a longer life, but if you do need to discharge it, 50% discharge is optimal to avoid any damage by over-discharging. If you discharge your battery EVERY day because you charged it to full, you are going to severely decrease the lifespan.
5. (Edited in) Laptops and phones use a State of Charge estimation model to decide how full the battery is. Depending on the device, the manufacturer may suggest fully discharging and fully recharging the battery so that the estimation model understands the capacity of the battery and avoids overcharging: http://chargedevs.com/features/the-challenges-of-battery-sta...
My recommendation: Don't discharge when it is full. Only discharge when you need to. Charge it at 50% if possible to avoid over discharging. KEEP IT COOL - heat kills batteries lifespan as well.
Edit: All applications and devices are different. My recommendation might not be the best - some have suggested avoiding keeping your battery at 100% constantly, whereas my suggestion assumes that the charger won't harm the battery by overcharging. For example: battery is at 100% on the device, but in actuality it is sitting at 90% state of charge in the context of lithium ion technology.
1. A lithium ion battery charger is smart, it will not overcharge or harm your battery in any way keeping it charged.
2. In terms of discharging a lithium ion battery - they are not susceptible to memory like ni-cd and ni-mh batteries, so regular discharging is not required.
3. Apple and other companies will suggest discharging your lithium ion battery fully. The reason being that a complete discharge followed by a full recharge will update an internal counter which records the capacity of the battery. The capacity decreases over time, so your battery charge indicator will need this full discharge/recharge regularly to stay accurate. Not important for actual capacity you get out of your battery.
4. There is a recommendation that in order to get the MOST NUMBER OF DISCHARGE CYCLES out of a lithium ion battery, you should only discharge it to 50%. I put MOST NUMBER OF DISCHARGE CYCLES in bold because it is important to know that this is the most important factor in the life of your battery - you do not need to discharge the battery to 50% in order to get a longer life, but if you do need to discharge it, 50% discharge is optimal to avoid any damage by over-discharging. If you discharge your battery EVERY day because you charged it to full, you are going to severely decrease the lifespan.
5. (Edited in) Laptops and phones use a State of Charge estimation model to decide how full the battery is. Depending on the device, the manufacturer may suggest fully discharging and fully recharging the battery so that the estimation model understands the capacity of the battery and avoids overcharging: http://chargedevs.com/features/the-challenges-of-battery-sta...
My recommendation: Don't discharge when it is full. Only discharge when you need to. Charge it at 50% if possible to avoid over discharging. KEEP IT COOL - heat kills batteries lifespan as well.
Battery technology has changed a lot since I worked in the industry - they're always advancing and changing. There are many resources to keep yourself well informed: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_li...
Edit: All applications and devices are different. My recommendation might not be the best - some have suggested avoiding keeping your battery at 100% constantly, whereas my suggestion assumes that the charger won't harm the battery by overcharging. For example: battery is at 100% on the device, but in actuality it is sitting at 90% state of charge in the context of lithium ion technology.