iOS 26 Features Battery Settings Overhaul

[ddhhddhh2]

I’d consider limiting the charge level as crippling the phone, personally

Once you realize that keeping a lithium battery at a high charge level can be just as damaging as letting it drop to a low voltage, you might start wishing your device would never charge all the way to 100%. Even though Apple has said that “when you set the charging limit between 80% and 100%, the system may occasionally allow a full charge to 100% to calibrate battery readings,” the long-term effects are worth considering.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been really happy with the battery life on my iPhone 16 Plus — I can actually go two days between charges. Interestingly, from day one until now, my battery health is still at 100%. Compare that to my old iPhone 7 Plus: even after replacing it with a brand-new original battery, and sticking to my usual habit of charging to 100% all the time, I remember clearly — within the first month, the battery health had already dropped below 100%.

So regardless of what others say or what conspiracy theories float around, I personally stick to a max charge limit of 85% and never let the battery drop below 30%. I absolutely refuse to get obsessive about always hitting 100%.

By the way, when it comes to battery lifespan, I have two cases that might be worth sharing.

First, I had a Dyson vacuum cleaner that I used for over four years. My usage pattern was pretty light—about once every one to two weeks, and each session lasted around 15 minutes. Here’s the key part: I always left it on the charging dock, keeping it at 100% all the time. Then one day last year, it suddenly stopped working. Just a few days earlier, I had used it and everything seemed perfectly normal—battery levels looked good and there were no signs of any issues. Then out of nowhere, the battery just died.

The second case was with my old MacBook Air i7. I also always kept it fully charged at 100%, and the battery cycle count was extremely low. But one day, it just shut down unexpectedly while I was using it. No warning signs at all. After replacing the battery, everything went back to normal.


These two cases might be useful as reference points when thinking about battery health.

 

[applefan8254]

Can apple add two pogo pins to magsafe kind of like the smart connector to transfer power directly? "smart connector magsafe" batteries and accessories could transfer energy at much higher speeds with no heat loss and thermal issues, while still being backward compatible with magsafe/qi2. Imagine snapping on a "smart connector magsafe" battery pack and watching your phone battery fill up in 20 minutes instead of hours, all while staying cool to the touch.

Either that, and/or - can we get the ability to hotswap the internal battery while on the go like we used to be able to do with Android phones in the early to mid 2010s?

 

[svish]

Happy to see this change. Will be very useful. Time remaining to full charge should have been implemented few years ago.

 

[Reeneman]

Happy to see this change. Will be very useful. Time remaining to full charge should have been implemented few years ago.

Apple needed AI for this feature 😆

 

[FeliApple]

From what I’m seeing in this screenshot, you can now see the hourly breakdown of battery usage and screen-on time of the past 8 days. That’s amazing, something I wanted ever since Apple changed the battery reporting method back with iOS 12. On iOS 12-18, you can’t know your total SOT if the charge cycle spans more than 24 hours unless you manually write it down.

With this, you don’t need to do that (unless the cycle lasts more than 8 days, which in my case, has literally never happened).

Great QoL change that should’ve been there since iOS 12.0.

Also, finally, on the full-day report you get the exact percentage of battery life consumed, unlike earlier, where you had to estimate the bar. This is so obvious that it should’ve been here from day one, but better late than never, I guess.

Sad that, since I don’t update iOS and just upgraded both the iPhone and the iPad, I won’t be getting this for a while. But it is what it is. At least it’s here.

 

[Fuzzball84]

A19 required?

These features utilise advanced on device LLM to interogate battery drain and battery status. Obviously it will need the A19 SoC as the compute power of the A18 is not sufficient for these basic tasks.

In reality many of these advanced battery features would be possible on much older iPhones models, but they want people to upgrade. So.

I do wonder if they will rename the SoC after the year also. It’s now completely disjointed between software, hardware and SoC etc

 

[Fuzzball84]

Apple needed AI for this feature 😆

And Apple is so excited to see what you do with time remaining to full charge 😂

 

[Fuzzball84]

Once you realize that keeping a lithium battery at a high charge level can be just as damaging as letting it drop to a low voltage, you might start wishing your device would never charge all the way to 100%. Even though Apple has said that “when you set the charging limit between 80% and 100%, the system may occasionally allow a full charge to 100% to calibrate battery readings,” the long-term effects are worth considering.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been really happy with the battery life on my iPhone 16 Plus — I can actually go two days between charges. Interestingly, from day one until now, my battery health is still at 100%. Compare that to my old iPhone 7 Plus: even after replacing it with a brand-new original battery, and sticking to my usual habit of charging to 100% all the time, I remember clearly — within the first month, the battery health had already dropped below 100%.

So regardless of what others say or what conspiracy theories float around, I personally stick to a max charge limit of 85% and never let the battery drop below 30%. I absolutely refuse to get obsessive about always hitting 100%.

By the way, when it comes to battery lifespan, I have two cases that might be worth sharing.

First, I had a Dyson vacuum cleaner that I used for over four years. My usage pattern was pretty light—about once every one to two weeks, and each session lasted around 15 minutes. Here’s the key part: I always left it on the charging dock, keeping it at 100% all the time. Then one day last year, it suddenly stopped working. Just a few days earlier, I had used it and everything seemed perfectly normal—battery levels looked good and there were no signs of any issues. Then out of nowhere, the battery just died.

The second case was with my old MacBook Air i7. I also always kept it fully charged at 100%, and the battery cycle count was extremely low. But one day, it just shut down unexpectedly while I was using it. No warning signs at all. After replacing the battery, everything went back to normal.


These two cases might be useful as reference points when thinking about battery health.

This is true about battery longevity but for most people they don’t care and they don’t keep the devices long enough to warrant such practices.

I just hope we get to a point where battery chemistry and management is such that it doesn’t matter how you use it because it will do such a good job of mitigating any use or storage situations.

 

[horst-kevin]

We have an old Galaxy Tab A8 lying around that supports both charging until 85% and slow charging to reduce battery aging. My iPhone 14 doesn't support either.

 

[bbzzz]

all that development I don't need but still no charge to 100% now button

 

[neuropsychguy]

Will they finally implement the 80% charge limit function for older devices? No reason not to, other than to intentionally cripple them.

Do you have evidence it's purely a software issue? Might there be some hardware Apple is using to control that feature that older devices lack? It seems like for the iPhone 15 Apple included a revised charging controller (power-management IC and its firmware) that simply isn’t present on earlier hardware, which is why the feature doesn't work on older phones.

It would be good if Apple clarified whether there's a hardware limitation to the feature. Apple adds many other features to older phones with OS upgrades (e.g., this article about added battery tracking features). That this one feature a minority of people will use hasn't been added to anything older than the iPhone 15 strongly suggests something hardware-based is the limitation.

Edit: Here's more about the 80% charge limit. With an iPhone 15 or later, you can turn on the charge limit setting, plug in your phone to charge, turn it off, and it will stop charging at 80%. Can that be done with older iPhones? No. Is it purely a software limitation? We don't know. The fact that this limit works with the phone off suggests it's at least possible there is some different hardware required for it to function. To not acknowledge that's a possibility seems rather dogmatic.

In any case, I'm not sure why some people criticize Apple over the 'missing' feature that appears to have little real world benefit: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/09/24/clover-iphone-15-battery-limit

 

[ikjadoon]

Do you have evidence it's purely a software issue? Might there be some hardware Apple is using to control that feature that older devices lack? It seems like for the iPhone 15 Apple included a revised charging controller (power-management IC and its firmware) that simply isn’t present on earlier hardware, which is why the feature doesn't work on older phones.

It would be good if Apple clarified whether there's a hardware limitation to the feature. Apple adds many other features to older phones with OS upgrades (e.g., this article about added battery tracking features). That this one feature a minority of people will use hasn't been added to anything older than the iPhone 15 strongly suggests something hardware-based is the limitation.

Apple's refusal to backport a feature != it must be hardware.

These iOS 15 Features Aren't Available on the iPhone X or Older

Apple released iOS 15 today following over three months of beta testing, but not all of the new features are available on older iPhones. According to the iOS 15 features page on Apple's website, the following features require an iPhone with an A12 Bionic chip or newer, which means the...

forums.macrumors.com

I remember that the A11 Bionic in the iPhone X could not "support" animated backgrounds in the Weather app in iOS 15; those required an A12 Bionic.

For animations in the weather app. Meanwhile, entire 3D games ran on the iPhone X, but Apple couldn't bring weather animations to the same phone: that was a bridge too far.

If you have an iPhone with an A12 Bionic or later, Weather’s animated backgrounds now boast thousands of variations that more accurately represent the sun position, clouds, and precipitation.

 

[racerhomie]

Fair point, but lots of cars do this and it’s a huge help. Apple could note what’s causing any limitation.

iOS will be handling it regardless, but I’d like to understand better how fast my device is charging so I know when it’ll have enough charge for me to be able to use it again (not just when it’ll be full).

If you want to find out by yourself, there are USB C adapters on Amazon that tell you how much power they are drawing from the wall. It’s a nice nerdy device

Power Meter Energy Monitor Plug, Tapsin Energy Monitor Backlight LCD Display UK Plug with 7 Monitoring Modes Overload Warning Wattage Volt Amp KWH Meter Analyzer Socket

Power Meter Energy Monitor Plug, Tapsin Energy Monitor Backlight LCD Display UK Plug with 7 Monitoring Modes Overload Warning Wattage Volt Amp KWH Meter Analyzer Socket

www.amazon.co.uk

You can now buy a 100W USB-C cable with a built-in power meter

They’re just $20 on Amazon, and they work!

www.theverge.com

 

[Artemiz]

Do you have evidence it's purely a software issue? Might there be some hardware Apple is using to control that feature that older devices lack? It seems like for the iPhone 15 Apple included a revised charging controller (power-management IC and its firmware) that simply isn’t present on earlier hardware, which is why the feature doesn't work on older phones.

It would be good if Apple clarified whether there's a hardware limitation to the feature. Apple adds many other features to older phones with OS upgrades (e.g., this article about added battery tracking features). That this one feature a minority of people will use hasn't been added to anything older than the iPhone 15 strongly suggests something hardware-based is the limitation.

Are you familiar with the optimized charging feature? All the control circuits are part of the battery management system. It’s how it holds the charge at 80% for hours before charging to full. It’s how the charging is paused when the device heats up. It doesn’t take a paradigm shift to make it happen. All the tech is already there and has been for years.

 

[eclipse01]

Is iPad OS getting all these as well? They seem to be lacking a few of the battery details that are on IOS

 

[jclo]

This article would be a lot more informative if it said which Apple devices can take advantage of these features.

I’ll be doing a more in depth feature guide for this later. Right now it’s just too early for me to tell - Apple doesn’t give us a list anywhere so I have to rely on feedback from beta testers. So anyone running the beta, let me know which device you have and if you have this battery stuff.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Apple's refusal to backport a feature != it must be hardware.

These iOS 15 Features Aren't Available on the iPhone X or Older

Apple released iOS 15 today following over three months of beta testing, but not all of the new features are available on older iPhones. According to the iOS 15 features page on Apple's website, the following features require an iPhone with an A12 Bionic chip or newer, which means the...

forums.macrumors.com

I remember that the A11 Bionic in the iPhone X could not "support" animated backgrounds in the Weather app in iOS 15; those required an A12 Bionic.

For animations in the weather app. Meanwhile, entire 3D games ran on the iPhone X, but Apple couldn't bring weather animations to the same phone: that was a bridge too far.

I didn't say it has to be, just that it might be. So many people online say it's only a software limitation. It's as equally likely it is a hardware limitation.

With an iPhone 15 or later, you can turn on the charge limit setting, plug in your phone to charge, turn it off, and it will stop charging at 80%. While that might be done with software, it seems at least possible that the controller is different on newer phones that allows the phones to do that.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Are you familiar with the optimized charging feature? All the control circuits are part of the battery management system. It’s how it holds the charge at 80% for hours before charging to full. It’s how the charging is paused when the device heats up. It doesn’t take a paradigm shift to make it happen. All the tech is already there and has been for years.

Optimized charging: "Your iPhone uses on-device machine learning to learn your daily charging routine so that Optimized Battery Charging activates only when your iPhone predicts it will be connected to a charger for an extended period of time. The algorithm aims to ensure that your iPhone is still fully charged when unplugged."

That's different than the 80% charge limit that works when iPhones 15 and newer are off. With an iPhone 15 or later you can turn on the charge limit setting, plug in your phone to charge, turn it off, and it will stop charging at 80%. If you have an older iPhone or don't have that feature turned on, the Optimized Charging "AI" algorithm cannot function if the phone is off.

 

[ppj845]

My iPad Pro M1 hardware is too weak to even stop charging at 80% or read out battery cycles

 

[DeepIn2U]

In iOS 26, Apple updated the Battery section of the Settings app to provide a much more in-depth look at how your iPhone usage impacts battery life and how much battery apps are draining, plus there are new battery management tools.

At the top of the Battery interface, there's a readout of your current battery and the time that you last charged. If your iPhone is currently charging, it will let you know how much time is remaining until a full charge.

Battery usage is no longer split by 24 hours and 10 days, with Apple providing just a weekly view of average battery use along with a comparison of how much battery you're currently using compared to your typical average.

The new comparison feature will let you know if you're using more, the same, or less battery life than you do on most days. It shows which apps used more battery and by how much, which makes it easier to tell what's draining your battery.

App battery usage includes specific details, such as letting you know if an app ran in the background longer, was on your screen longer, or sent more notifications than normal.

You can tap back through the previous 7 days to see how much battery you used on a given day, with a breakdown for active use and screen idle use. It also shows when you charged and for how long.

There's still a Battery Health section where you can see charge cycles and maximum capacity and a Charge Limit section where you can limit charging to 80 percent. Apple also added a new Power Mode option where you can toggle on Low Power Mode or the new Adaptive Power Mode. Adaptive Power Mode detects when iPhone usage is higher than normal and makes small performance adjustments like lowering display brightness to extend battery life.

These new battery features are available in iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, but Apple hasn't changed the Mac battery readouts. iOS 26 is limited to developers right now, though a public beta is coming next month. iOS 26 will launch to the public in September.

Article Link: iOS 26 Features Battery Settings Overhaul

This is NOT an "overhaul"!

Its fresh makeup for the most part!

Mani swear if macrumors neverexisted so too wouldn't Apple and the success of product sales. So much sugar costing goes on for suchminimal cake batter that Apple puts out.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Optimized charging: "Your iPhone uses on-device machine learning to learn your daily charging routine so that Optimized Battery Charging activates only when your iPhone predicts it will be connected to a charger for an extended period of time. The algorithm aims to ensure that your iPhone is still fully charged when unplugged."

That's different than the 80% charge limit that works when iPhones 15 and newer are off. With an iPhone 15 or later you can turn on the charge limit setting, plug in your phone to charge, turn it off, and it will stop charging at 80%. If you have an older iPhone or don't have that feature turned on, the Optimized Charging "AI" algorithm cannot function if the phone is off.

ROFLMAO!

"ON-DEVICE MACHINE LEARNING" for basic software that has been around since SonyEricsson's feature phone days running supported and non-supported J2ME apps!?

Yes code in smartphones today are more co.olex yet how and how much battery power they call on and to when when used or in background is NOT majorly challenging that an NPU is needed!

If you seriously believe that marketing hype then you believe Craig F really has been doing his full jobs requirements the last 29 hrs. Lol and Santa Clause has you on his Vood list this Xmas lol

 

[DeepIn2U]

Can apple add two pogo pins to magsafe kind of like the smart connector to transfer power directly? "smart connector magsafe" batteries and accessories could transfer energy at much higher speeds with no heat loss and thermal issues, while still being backward compatible with magsafe/qi2. Imagine snapping on a "smart connector magsafe" battery pack and watching your phone battery fill up in 20 minutes instead of hours, all while staying cool to the touch.

Either that, and/or - can we get the ability to hotswap the internal battery while on the go like we used to be able to do with Android phones in the early to mid 2010s?

Forward comoatible!

Apple is the one missing what you request NOT an existing global standard that you linked!

Get it together, state the facts do NOT make up conjecture to suit your favorite brand = youre not paid by Apple for each instance doing what you did above, so why bother doing that?!

 

[DeepIn2U]

It depends on many factors. If you are using it, Battery Percentage, ambient Temperature. It’s best to let iOS handle it by itself. If people saw the weird fluctuations batteries experience during charging they would complain their iPhones are defective

Toomey 'depends' going on within Apple and iOS over the last few years to trust Apple's iOS to successfully "handle it by itself.

Iphone 12 and 13 mini over MagSafe charging each destroyed the battery health if each 100% to 86/82% respectively in less than 6 months!

Craig comes out slanging Ai buzz words and that it was HE that's pushed Apple to implement Ai, and just over a year Apple CANNOT keep up let alone even get the damn basics right that Craig himself jumps into hiding 4 mths into Apple Ai being developed like a coward (!) That only AFTER pulling false marketing major ads, class action lawsuits and web printed apology Apple is NOW trying to convince us that an NPU/nPU's within its hardware will finally res9lve battery charging snd health ailments?!

NeOoooo!

 

[platinumaqua]

As expected, the refresh makes the view more visually bloated and more scrolling is needed to see the same amount of data.

Optimized charging: "Your iPhone uses on-device machine learning to learn your daily charging routine so that Optimized Battery Charging activates only when your iPhone predicts it will be connected to a charger for an extended period of time. The algorithm aims to ensure that your iPhone is still fully charged when unplugged."

That's different than the 80% charge limit that works when iPhones 15 and newer are off. With an iPhone 15 or later you can turn on the charge limit setting, plug in your phone to charge, turn it off, and it will stop charging at 80%. If you have an older iPhone or don't have that feature turned on, the Optimized Charging "AI" algorithm cannot function if the phone is off.

The hard part which is stopping the charge at 80% has already been done. Otherwise the feature wouldn't work. Besides, modern iPhones are never fully "off" even when it appears to be off to support Find My iPhone and transit cards. It's a matter to ensure the charge hold part persists in that state or even just add a message saying charge hold can only happen when the phone is on.

 

[jwdsail]

In iOS 26, Apple updated the Battery section of the Settings app to provide a much more in-depth look at how your iPhone usage impacts battery life and how much battery apps are draining, plus there are new battery management tools.

At the top of the Battery interface, there's a readout of your current battery and the time that you last charged. If your iPhone is currently charging, it will let you know how much time is remaining until a full charge.

Battery usage is no longer split by 24 hours and 10 days, with Apple providing just a weekly view of average battery use along with a comparison of how much battery you're currently using compared to your typical average.

The new comparison feature will let you know if you're using more, the same, or less battery life than you do on most days. It shows which apps used more battery and by how much, which makes it easier to tell what's draining your battery.

App battery usage includes specific details, such as letting you know if an app ran in the background longer, was on your screen longer, or sent more notifications than normal.

You can tap back through the previous 7 days to see how much battery you used on a given day, with a breakdown for active use and screen idle use. It also shows when you charged and for how long.

There's still a Battery Health section where you can see charge cycles and maximum capacity and a Charge Limit section where you can limit charging to 80 percent. Apple also added a new Power Mode option where you can toggle on Low Power Mode or the new Adaptive Power Mode. Adaptive Power Mode detects when iPhone usage is higher than normal and makes small performance adjustments like lowering display brightness to extend battery life.

These new battery features are available in iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, but Apple hasn't changed the Mac battery readouts. iOS 26 is limited to developers right now, though a public beta is coming next month. iOS 26 will launch to the public in September.

Article Link: iOS 26 Features Battery Settings Overhaul

Adaptive power sounds interesting, but ever since I got the new iPhone 16 Pro (god I hate FaceID and miss the home button) I've ben running in Low Power Mode constantly and get two full days from a charge.. (usually plug in when I go to bed on the 2nd day and the battery is still over 20%)

I'm happy with how the phone performs in LPM, and I'm putting 50% of the number of charge cycles on it I otherwise would, helping the phone/battery last longer.

If I can somehow see two full days while on Adaptive power?

Even better.