iOS 11.3 Will Allow iPhone Users to View Battery Health and Disable Apple's Power Management This Spring

[MacRumors]

Apple today announced that iOS 11.3 will provide users with an iPhone 6 or newer with more information about the health of their device's battery, including a recommendation if it needs to be serviced. In the same menu, it will also be possible to see if Apple's power management feature is active and turn it off.

Apple is delivering on its promise to provide iPhone users with more visibility about battery health as part of an apology over its lack of transparency about power management changes it made starting in iOS 10.2.1. Apple is also delivering on its promise of allowing users to disable the feature, although it doesn't recommend it.

The power management changes fueled an argument that Apple intentionally slows down older iPhones at wholesale to encourage customers to upgrade to newer models. Apple denied it would ever do anything to "intentionally shorten the life" of any of its products, but some critics don't believe that to be true.

Apple also reduced the price of replacement batteries to $29 for iPhone 6 and newer through December 31, 2018, as another part of its apology, although supplies are running low for some iPhone models.

MacRumors put together a list of frequently asked questions about Apple's power management changes for those looking for more information.

The first beta of iOS 11.3 will be seeded to developers later today, followed by a public beta soon. The software update will be released to the public this spring for iPhone 5s and newer, all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, the fifth-generation iPad, iPad mini 2 and newer, and the sixth-generation iPod touch.

Apple says the battery and power management features will be coming in a later iOS 11.3 beta release, so they won't be available today. The option to turn off the power management feature will be available on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone SE.

Article Link: iOS 11.3 Will Allow iPhone Users to View Battery Health and Disable Apple's Power Management This Spring

 

[nwcs]

Welcome news to get more info. This will also quieten the panicked hysteria surrounding the power management. Maybe...

 

[jmh600cbr]

What about messages in iCloud?

 

[User 6502]

About time. It’s a shame it took hundreds of lawsuits to push Apple to do the right thing.

 

[RDowson]

Dev beta 1 today?

 

[x-evil-x]

I want a new phone that I bought for pain and suffering

 

[Christoffee]

Apple Diagnostics “battery health”, or iPhone throttling “battery health”.

They seem to be different things.

 

[nviz22]

Spring? Why wait till March? Make it happen ASAP.

 

[TimWillz]

Really looking forward to this update!

 

[robertpatryk]

New Animoji! Best - day - ever

 

[martyjmclean]

Looking forward to it! I also hope they fix the Music widget bug.

 

[v1597psh]

Dev beta 1 today?

Indeed

 

[Xaositek]

The developer preview of iOS 11.3 is available to iOS Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today, followed by a public beta preview available at beta.apple.com. iOS 11.3 will be available this spring as a free software update for iPhone 5s and later, all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation, iPad mini 2 and later and iPod touch 6th generation. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available on all devices or in all regions or all languages. Not all features will be in the beta releases.

 

[GTO]

Can't wait more to turn off this throttling mess!!!
My 6S Geekbench score :
Single : 1450
Multi : 2488

 

[pete2106]

Finally. I've been waiting to have a feature that causes my phone to randomly shutdown while I'm in the middle of something.

 

[lsutigerfan1976]

What about messages in iCloud?

That’s what I was think. And this article says in the Spring. Makes me wonder if they really don’t push iCloud messaging till the new iOS comes out.

 

[MacDawg]

Spring? Why wait till March? Make it happen ASAP.

*Pushes update out in a hurry to satisfy outcry... masses react with "why do they push out these updates so damn fast without testing for bugs!"

 

[MrSpock75]

Will this also work on iPad?

 

[Kobayagi]

Wow, this is huge. Seems like Apple really listens. It's good they are giving people this choice.

 

[cmChimera]

No big macOS 10.13 update?

 

[dominiongamma]

Wow, this is huge. Seems like Apple really listens. It's good they are giving people this choice.

The only reason they are doing this is for PR and they got caught. If no one brought this issue up they wouldn’t be pushing an update

 

[essential]

I plan on turning off the power management but I wonder if there will be some kind of history to see when you're being throttled if it's left on, or you were throttled when using these apps, similar to how battery usage is set up now under settings.

If you're looking at a static battery health page, at that moment you're probably not being throttled, so if that's the only page that tells if you're being throttled in real-time, I don't know how much that helps. It'll be interesting to see how this all works in practice.

Also, I hope these battery stats match up exactly to Apple's in-store diagnostics. Many people with bad batteries passed their diagnostics in the past and were turned away for a replacement (prior to the recent $29 policy). If you can go in to Apple and show them your battery is being throttled from the app, they should not be able to deny battery replacements going forward ... ideally they don't deny battery replacements going forward under any circumstance as long as you're paying full price, but definitely not if you show you're being throttled because of battery health, even if it's above 80% capacity.

 

[HailstormX]

No big macOS 10.3 update?

What?

 

[Baymowe335]

And everyone sues for their phone shutting down and asks why Apple allowed this to happen.

 

[Abazigal]

About time. It’s a shame it took hundreds of lawsuits to push Apple to do the right thing.

I am not entirely convinced that was the right thing to do (enabling a toggle) but what’s done is done, I guess.