General A few general IOS questions

[tonybarnaby]

My 8 plus is my first iPhone. I planned to wait for the X Plus, but i caved. I surprised my wife with an X and an apple watch. It seemed so much better than my S8 plus. I am thrilled with it.

I have 2 questions that i cant get a definitive answer on.

1. Why did apple remove our ability to track charge cycles on the phone itself? Coconut battery doesn't help, since i dont own a pc. I read that ios 9 or 10 allowed you to view this important info. Why remove it? Will it return?

2. Does low power mode really make THAT much difference? I am curious for future reference. A co worker keeps it on 24/7. I tried it and seemed to get a bit better battery life, but sending pictures was noticeably slower with low power mode on. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose, since it takes longer and requires more power to send on low power? I keep all background app refresh off and about 40% brightness, so will low power mode even do much? I wont use it daily, but if i ever get down to 30% and won't be home for a while.

 

[C DM]

My 8 plus is my first iPhone. I planned to wait for the X Plus, but i caved. I surprised my wife with an X and an apple watch. It seemed so much better than my S8 plus. I am thrilled with it.

I have 2 questions that i cant get a definitive answer on.

1. Why did apple remove our ability to track charge cycles on the phone itself? Coconut battery doesn't help, since i dont own a pc. I read that ios 9 or 10 allowed you to view this important info. Why remove it? Will it return?

2. Does low power mode really make THAT much difference? I am curious for future reference. A co worker keeps it on 24/7. I tried it and seemed to get a bit better battery life, but sending pictures was noticeably slower with low power mode on. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose, since it takes longer and requires more power to send on low power? I keep all background app refresh off and about 40% brightness, so will low power mode even do much? I wont use it daily, but if i ever get down to 30% and won't be home for a while.

1. No one really knows the answer to the questions there, aside from perhaps someone at Apple basically.

2. Low Power Mode can certainly make a difference in terms of conserving some power. It shouldn't affect things like sending/receiving data or anything like that. Ultimately it depends on what your normal settings are and how and where you use your phone, so for different people/devices/usage it can make more of a noticeable difference or less of a noticeable difference.

 

[Banglazed]

1. Since iOS 10, Apple removed those ability that allow app developers who made battery apps to see more battery info. Now, iOS 11.3 Apple allow users to see battery capacity health which is still in beta and allow users to disable throttling. Sometimes, providing more info can be a bad thing if you're OCD in maintaining battery health 100%. Regardless, battery chemically age depends on generated heat that maybe Apple don't think info may be useful at all. It could be possible but I don't think Apple will allow it in the future. Then, who knows?

2. Lower power mode does make a difference by disabling features such as mail fetch, siri, background refresh, visual effects, automatic download and other features (may throttle CPU) all in attempt to reduce battery consumption. This might be a handy feature to use after updating iOS to reduce indexing effect or using navigation such as Maps.

 

[BugeyeSTI]

The battery health features in the latest iOS update (11.3) added many feature but it a beta so it may change in the future to include more information. Low power mode is explained below:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205234

 

[KrisLord]

Anyone using low power mode 24/7 is a bit of an idiot.

They might as well sell their phone and use a 6S or 6... I bet they go to bed with 50-60% battery left!

There are battery cases available if people can’t get though a day without it dying, or try and find power during the day, perhaps when driving to work or at a desk.

 

[C DM]

Anyone using low power mode 24/7 is a bit of an idiot.

They might as well sell their phone and use a 6S or 6... I bet they go to bed with 50-60% battery left!

There are battery cases available if people can’t get though a day without it dying, or try and find power during the day, perhaps when driving to work or at a desk.

Why does it matter what someone does with their own device? Why should they be called names for doing something they want or find useful to them in some way?

And if someone needs and gets more battery from that vs. spending money on and using bulky battery cases or looking for and remembering to plug in their device during the day, how is that worse for them when those alternative suggestions can very well be the worse ones for them?

 

[KrisLord]

Why does it matter what someone does with their own device? Why should they be called names for doing something they want or find useful to them in some way?

And if someone needs and gets more battery from that vs. spending money on and using bulky battery cases or looking for and remembering to plug in their device during the day, how is that worse for them when those alternative suggestions can very well be the worse ones for them?

It doesn’t matter what some random co-worker of the OP does with their phone, but would you not tell anyone using low power mode 24/7 to try something else?

Having spent loads on a phone, I’d hope someone would help me use it if I left it on low power mode.

 

[C DM]

It doesn’t matter what some random co-worker of the OP does with their phone, but would you not tell anyone using low power mode 24/7 to try something else?

Having spent loads on a phone, I’d hope someone would help me use it if I left it on low power mode.

If it does what they are looking for and essentially without negative effects for them, then it seems like it might be the option they would actually want to go with.

 

[NoBoMac]

As mentioned earlier, Apple removed the APIs that allowed app developers to monitor battery health. Don't recall it ever being native to iOS re: charge cycle reporting.

I keep all background app refresh off and about 40% brightness, so will low power mode even do much? I wont use it daily, but if i ever get down to 30% and won't be home for a while.

This is a huge step to minimize battery drain.

I turn off GPS when not needed (read: most of the time). How much web/streaming you do will affect. Games might be a big drain. Weak cell signal can affect drain.

I only turn on low power mode when battery level is getting real low and won't get near a charger soon, as it does affect things like getting email in a timely manner, updates to Calendar and Reminders.

Can always get an Anker or similar 12w charger (along with an Anker or Amazon Basics cable) for home use (and get really close to USB-C charge speeds at lower cost than USB-C setup) and then use the 5w Apple cube and cable at work/office, when the charge gets low. Leave the cube in the desk.