Adrian Kingsley-Hughes for ZDNet:
iOS 13 will include a new feature to help extend the life of your battery. This is welcome news for those who plan of keeping their iPhones for longer than a few years.
It took my iPhone 8 Plus less than 18 months of use for the battery to show signs of wear. This is essentially a natural by-product of the regular recharging that the iPhone needs in order to keep it running.
It seems that Apple is aware of this battery wear issue, and is building a new feature into iOS 13 that will try to mitigate some of the damage that the regular charging does to the lithium pack.
The new feature, called “Optimized battery charging,” will be turned on by default on devices…
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, as we wrote last week, iOS 13 has extra smart battery charging built right in!
More info on what Apple’s doing in iOS 13 is here.
And, again, just to reiterate: Don’t run your iPhone down to zero if you can help it and keep it on charge whenever possible.
We just checked a Day One (November 3, 2017) iPhone X that is basically connected to a charger 20 hours per day. Settings > Battery > Battery Health. The iPhone was always on charge whenever possible. Its battery currently has a maximum capacity of 96%.
See also: I used an iPhone X for a year and had 99% battery health – here’s how I did it.
I’m happy for you. I have an iPhone X that I bought about a year after they came out. It’s on the charger for 6-8 hours each night. Occasionally I have to top it up in the evening (as in, it’s down to 10%). The battery health is down to 86%, which is quite a bit lower than I expected.
I had a thought about AirPods as well. When they’re not in my ears, they’re always, by design, in the case — which means that 5 or 6 times every day they get charged back up to 100%. No wonder my first pair were down to an hour and a half of play time after two years.
I’m looking forward to the change, at least for the phone. And yes, of course, I know that all phones have this problem, although you’d think from the press coverage that it’s unique to Apple.
My X is also down to 86% health but after 18 months. I’m hoping it drops below 80% by December to get a replacement covered by Applecare, running it down to 10-20% regularly should do the trick?
New iPhone 7 for Christmas. Recharge about daily (usually not lower than 40% by the end of the day). Current battery health 96%.
So if I need to get up 2 hours early (and by extension, my day is 2 hours longer), I start with 80% battery instead of 100%.
Awesome.
My iPhone 7Plus is at 95% after a year and a half. No special techniques or even attempting to ‘manage’ power.
Is this problem due to Apple using inferior batteries than what most Android smartphones have? Aren’t batteries pretty much standard or is Apple simply trying to save money to gain profits? Exactly who decided that iPhone batteries are wearing out “too quickly?” It’s odd that Android smartphone batteries would last longer considering all those standard-supply quick-chargers for Android smartphones.