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Question about battery charging symbol

S

sharke

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 1, 2011
4
0
I'm new to the iPhone. As I had understood it, when the phone is fully charged and still on the charger, the plug symbol which appears on the batter meter indicates that the phone is being powered through the mains. Which is what I want, because when I work from home and I'm using the phone all day I don't want to be using the battery.

However, I've noticed that if I start using the phone when the plug symbol is on, the plug symbol will eventually revert to the charging symbol again, suggesting that it hasn't been using the mains but has drained the battery a little.

When I took it the Apple store, to be honest they didn't really have a clue what I was talking about and they gave me a new phone. The new one does the same thing. Can someone please clarify that when the phone is plugged in and fully charged, it should operate off the mains and NOT drain the battery? If so, do I have a faulty phone?
 
Comeagain?

Comeagain?

macrumors 68020
Feb 17, 2011
2,190
46
Spokane, WA
It's doing what it's suppose to be doing. It will use some of the battery, but not much. Besides, you want it to be using the battery so you don't completely kill your battery. Cycling it is good.
 
S

sharke

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 1, 2011
4
0
Comeagain? said:
It's doing what it's suppose to be doing. It will use some of the battery, but not much. Besides, you want it to be using the battery so you don't completely kill your battery. Cycling it is good.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not intending to use the phone on the mains for it's entire life - I do get out and about! It's just that when I'm working from home I do use the phone pretty intensely with bluetooth calls. I had figured that if I was running the phone off of the mains, this would prolong the battery's long term lifespan because I wouldn't be using any of it's finite charging cycles. It's quite literally the difference between charging twice a day and charging once a day for me (like I say, I'm a fairly intense user).
 
J

Jest3r

macrumors regular
Nov 22, 2010
197
108
sharke said:
I'm new to the iPhone. As I had understood it, when the phone is fully charged and still on the charger, the plug symbol which appears on the batter meter indicates that the phone is being powered through the mains. Which is what I want, because when I work from home and I'm using the phone all day I don't want to be using the battery.

However, I've noticed that if I start using the phone when the plug symbol is on, the plug symbol will eventually revert to the charging symbol again, suggesting that it hasn't been using the mains but has drained the battery a little.

When I took it the Apple store, to be honest they didn't really have a clue what I was talking about and they gave me a new phone. The new one does the same thing. Can someone please clarify that when the phone is plugged in and fully charged, it should operate off the mains and NOT drain the battery? If so, do I have a faulty phone?
Click to expand...

At idle, the phone consumes less power than it is receiving from the charger, so it will stay at 100 percent. If you make a call, the phone is then consuming more power than the charger can supply, so the battery charge would go down.
 
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