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Here's Why the iPhone Battery Status Icon in iOS 16 Is So Controversial

I wonder how it would look like if the icon went from green to yellow to orange to red gradually as the battery depletes?

That would interfere with the yellow battery icon when in low power mode, but it would be another alternative.
 
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Actually i don't care as long you see approximately how much juice is in the battery and if you have to charge it or not.
Guess there are more important things we want/need as this , , just my opinion :rolleyes:
 
In the big picture, it’s not going to mess up your life for 98% of the population.

But details do matter. Both from a usability and accessibility perspective.

All these ‘minor’ decisions add up to make an OS that is either slapped together without thought or one that is considered. I’d rather go with the latter.
 
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I vote for Alternative A.

In Apple’s version, the battery 🔋 indicator is always full until the remaining charge drops to 20%… instead of working the way it does now which is that the shaded region increases/decreases with the state of charge 🪫.
 
I have a phone without a notch and it shows the percentage NEXT TO the battery bar. The notch does not contain anything useful. I never felt the need to film myself and Face ID can probably be tricked if someone is famous and Madame Tussaud's has a wax copy of them.
 
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Looking for the first person who is genuinely confused over how much battery life they've got left with Apple's implementation. Clue: your iPhone battery does not suddenly magically increase to 100% when the indicated SOC drops below 20.
 
HK-Dragon said:
Actually i don't care as long you see approximately how much juice is in the battery and if you have to charge it or not.
Guess there are more important things we want/need as this , , just my opinion :rolleyes:
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No I agree. I never found having the exact percentage useful, personally. The only purpose of even having the battery level visible (for me) is to know when to charge it; I can easily figure that out by glancing at the graphical indicator. Knowing that the battery is at 54% vs 47% doesn't do anything. (And the level is just an estimate anyway, one that gets less accurate as the battery ages...)

Good that there's the option for people who want it, I just personally don't find it useful at all.
 
emulajavi said:
Another suggestion

Just leave the white ouline of the battery icon with white numbers inside. No background until the red 20% one. That way the full background won’t trick you to thinks it’s full at 60%

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Nice job completing your rings.
 
another day ending in y.. another day for people to complain about something, anything, that apple does..
 
azentropy said:
I can see why Apple went the route they did, it is easier to read.
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Agree. It's by far the most legible under most circumstances.

Having single digits be partially light/dark is far less legible than having a fixed "background" rectangle/color for the entirety of both digits.

It's also far better to have both digits always either filled in or transparent with an outline but never one digit different from the other.

Additionally, the percentage number can be toggled off, so you get to pick between A. continuously updating percentage bar, or B. continuously updating percentage number.

All thinkable user scenarios in consideration, Apple's is the best solution for most.
 
Skyscraperfan said:
I have a phone without a notch and it shows the percentage NEXT TO the battery bar. The notch does not contain anything useful. I never felt the need to film myself and Face ID can probably be tricked if someone is famous and Madame Tussaud's has a wax copy of them.
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You and me both. Hate FaceID and all that sail in her because it is a technology more easily fooled and less easy to use than the superior fingerprint-reading technology it replaced. But on this forum we are outnumbered. The native lack of battery-percentage levels on phones equipped with a FaceID notch is just another reason to hate it.
 
tweaknmod said:
I sincerely hope the MacRumors Directors and Writers stay out of their own comment sections. If not, I think they would find the reations of their readers incredibly frustrating.

A few points I think MacRumors readers would do well to remember:
  • People are discussing this, and it is controvercial to some people, as they referenced with the tweets.
  • If you don't care about the topic, simply move on.
  • The author even seemed to anticipate readers calling this topic unworthy of an article, and directly addressed why people might care about it. I'm sure many commenters haven't actually read the article.
  • This is a business, and they need to produce a constant stream of content.
  • They are producing content for a wide variety of readers; I guarantee there are many articles you find interesteing whereas I couldn't care less.
  • Professionals work on these articles – human beings. Many comments here are just plain rude and disrespectful. The fact that is common practice online is no reason to ignore it.
Please show a little more respect for those that work hard to produce the content we're so quick to judge.
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Right? I don't know what MR comments are on about. None of them said "we find this new feature controversial" nor are they "complaining", they simply had an opinion on something that could be different.
 
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Unlike my normal complaints about how Apple does certain things, I LIKE that the percentage will be back on a new Apple phone I'll be getting this year, and I think the design is okay.
 
For this reason alone, I wish Apple didn't have beta programs for people to test. They are acting like this is the final release, and Apple messed up. I'm a 1000% positive people requested this feature through the feedback app, and Apple listened. Is there implementation the best? No. That's why you provide feedback in the app so it can get better before release. Also, grow the f**k up people. You bitch about everything.
 
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My vote is for Apple's version. It's the simplest.
To me it get too complicated to see an adjusting icon, digits with borders, and masked digits.
Just focus on a single number that's easier to see with a solid icon.
 
Next controversy will be whether the battery bar is linear. I've never thought it was, it feels like you have so much more battery life at 1% than you do when moving from 2% to 1%. And neither controversy will really matter
 
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This will cause great confusion for me, I NEED a visual representation of a battery draining to grasp the very concept of battery life. I cannot live without it, please Apple DON'T do this!
 
kveira88 said:
For this reason alone, I wish Apple didn't have beta programs for people to test. They are acting like this is the final release, and Apple messed up. I'm a 1000% positive people requested this feature through the feedback app, and Apple listened. Is there implementation the best? No. That's why you provide feedback in the app so it can get better before release. Also, grow the f**k up people. You bitch about everything.
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The idea of a public beta release is to provide feedback for the final product so that Apple can change things. In this case it may be minor, but if you do a quick glance at the phone and see that the powerbar is full, you may mistake it as being fully charged due to previous iOS releases that show the bar decreasing when the phone discharges. And then you'll be on the forums screaming at Apple when you realize that your battery is near dead and there is no place for you to charge.
 
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Go back to the way it was. Nobody needs the battery indicator visible all the time. It only creates an unhealthy compulsion to stare at it.
 
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