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

Wow! Talk about first world problems! How much must you be looking for something to whine about in order to make this an issue. It's a picture of a battery with a percentage of remaining charge in it. It's crystal clear to anyone with any modicum of human intelligence. Yes, I'm sorry that your cat has a difficult time interpreting the picture, but short of that, I think it will work out for most humans!
 
So first page 80% of comments idk what to say. Content on what Apple has offered so far I guess.
Personally I prefer the "Alternative A" so battery bar is still there but with a number. Grey filling is also slightly easier on the eyes.
 
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npmacuser5 said:
I like the percentage number. One example my Apple Watch. After extended use, I know with a quick glance if the Apple Watch battery will last for the upcoming activities. Sleep on my watch requires about 15% of battery for normal hours. When Apple alerts me that I have 25% before bed, no worries if I do not charge the Watch. The numbers over time are very helpful. Anything that adds to my productivity welcomed. Now there is a very long list of added features that for me are just annoying.
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Actually, they could make it look just like the battery complication on the AW
 
I'm glad it's back, but it feels like it was a spiteful implementation. As in the designers didn't want to do it, so they did the minimum amount of work to hopefully have users turn it off, which they can then use as a metric to why they can remove it in the future.

The odd part to me is the Mini can easily fit the battery, the icon is nearly the exact same size...but I guess they have given up on the mini and don't care anymore.
 
jclardy said:
I'm glad it's back, but it feels like it was a spiteful implementation. As in the designers didn't want to do it, so they did the minimum amount of work to hopefully have users turn it off, which they can then use as a metric to why they can remove it in the future.
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The minimum amount of work would have been just to slap a Number% on the screen in place of the icon. This feels to me like they spent time designing a solution.
 
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These idiots complaining on Twitter are going to ruin this for all of us. Apple will just take it away again. They've done it before and they'll do it again. Just turn it off if you don't like it!

I'm a UI/UX designer and I think it's fine. It's clean and simple. I much prefer this over the old one (which you can easily re-enable). I actually like that the whole thing turns red. When it's a sliver of red I often don't notice it and forget that my battery is about to run out if I pick it up later after I've already seen the 10% warning. Then my phone goes black and I momentarily freak out thinking it's broken before realizing two seconds later that oh yeah, the battery was really low and oh crap, I need to charge it now.
 
This is terrible. My eyesight is not the best (it's an age thing - it happens to us all in the end) so I likely won't be able to read the figures without putting my reading glasses on. Sometimes (if I'm out walking my dogs for example) I won't have those with me so I'll have to take a screenshot and zoom in to the photo to see the percentage. Utter nonsense!

The icon as it works right now, however, is just fine - I may not be able to see perfectly how filled up it is, but it's enough for me to know whether my phone is going to drop into the red any time soon.

Apple really hasn't thought this one through. Design over function.
 
darngooddesign said:
Alternative A fails WCAG (foreground/background) contrast guidelines. Then again, so does Apple's low battery icon so I actually like Apple's regular icon and the low battery icon from A.
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I'm not a designer, so I'll take your word for it! :)
 
SaxPlayer said:
This is terrible. My eyesight is not the best (it's an age thing - it happens to us all in the end) so I likely won't be able to read the figures without putting my reading glasses on. Sometimes (if I'm out walking my dogs for example) I won't have those with me so I'll have to take a screenshot and zoom in to the photo to see the percentage. Utter nonsense!

The icon as it works right now, however, is just fine - I may not be able to see perfectly how filled up it is, but it's enough for me to know whether my phone is going to drop into the red any time soon.

Apple really hasn't thought this one through. Design over function.
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Just so you know, the Battery % is an option you have to turn on.
 
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Apple was certainly wrong about removing this feature years ago, but… why do I need to know exactly if I have 68 or 55% of juice. I mean, I can see without the number if I have plenty of juice or if I’m low. I don’t need a very specific number. Do i plug it in at 35 or 20%?
 
Could it be better? Sure. Is the current option in the beta better than nothing (or having to pull down Control Center)? Absolutely.
 
indychris said:
Wow! Talk about first world problems! How much must you be looking for something to whine about in order to make this an issue. It's a picture of a battery with a percentage of remaining charge in it. It's crystal clear to anyone with any modicum of human intelligence. Yes, I'm sorry that your cat has a difficult time interpreting the picture, but short of that, I think it will work out for most humans!
Click to expand...

You're right of course but, c'mon, Apple killed this in 2017 and took five whole years to come up with half a solution that only works on half their phones. Jobs would have had someone executed over it years ago. Probably...
 
That font size inside the battery is too small for millions of people, I had to switch back to the other way.
 
Stridr69 said:
Talk about a first world problem. Personally I've gotten used to the current version so don't really care at all about what percentage of battery is left. William Shakespeare's play comes to mind here: "Much Ado about Nothing"
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There's a SNL skit for that...

First world problems include...
1) I have to access Google Maps through a browser, not the app
2) Taking a picture of the sun produces a slight purple-ish hue
3) Iphone feels like 3 pieces of paper stapled together

And the people who created the phones gets to directly reply to them :D

... although I'd like to see if they came out with a sequel to that ski.
 
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ackmondual said:
There's a SNL skit for that...

First world problems include...
1) I have to access Google Maps through a browser, not the app
2) Taking a picture of the sun produces a slight purple-ish hue
3) Iphone feels like 3 pieces of paper stapled together

And the people who created the phones gets to directly reply to them :D

... although I'd like to see if they came out with a sequel to that ski.
Click to expand...
Gotta listen to some "First World Problems" by Weird Al too. First time I heard it without even knowing the title, I knew it from the very first verse. My house is so big, I can't get Wi-Fi in the kitchen.
 
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It'd be dumb to think they haven't tried every single one of yalls ideas for improving it. They obv had it turned on by default in the latest beta to test one of the ideas and hear the feedback. The iteration we're seeing wins for accessibility/readability reasons, especially at a glance, but not so much while the the phone is charging and you have white text on bright lime green.

Just let them test their ****, don't go threatening employees or anything cuz of this change so they'll feel safe to continue to testing out weird ideas in the future. It's fun.

They probably also don't dislike the press this little thing is garnering. And then another boom of press when they revert back to the old design when we have more screen space when they get rid of the notch on the newer phones ;)

Come to think of it, they're probably just testing solutions for battery percentage on older, non-pro-max phones.
 
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