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I have charged our iPhone 3GS, 4, 4s, and 5 with our iPad chargers since we bought our first iPad (iPad2) and every one charges quicker. And every single one still works.
 
Call me an idiot, but I'm 99% sure that my iPhone 5 charges way faster with the iPad charger...

Edit. I'll try to look into this more tonight with some testing between my iPhone 5s and 6 and the two different chargers. I think what might be happening is that with the screen off, both charge at the same 6w maximum, but what the 10-12w chargers do is give you additional headroom to charge when the screen is on.

ie. the smaller charger has a maximum draw of ~6w total. If the screen is off, the entire 6w goes to the battery. However if the screen is on, it takes 2-4w to run the phone, leaving less power to go to the battery. The larger chargers will also limit to 6w when the screen is off, but can STILL give the battery 6w when the screen is on. This is where the illusion of faster charging on the 10-12w adapters comes from.

In a sense, both sides are right, although it appears that only the 6+ can actually put more than 6w into the battery.

Is this news? I've charged by 4, 5 and 5s all with an iPad charger

Charging works just fine. No phone until the 6+ charges faster using those adapters.

Edit, see above for clarification.
 
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Fairly comprehensive discussion on the Apple Forums. Even a very competent electrical engineer there agree's that if you charge it quicker you are not doing your battery any good:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2580579?start=45&tstart=0

Apple supply it with a certain charger for a reason, use it. I can attest to the fact that the faster charging with a higher rated charger (approved by apple) ruins my battery much faster!

Lol, hope you don't mean the merlin guy, cause he has no clue. Other engineers are shooting him down left and right. He thinks the wall charger is the one determining the draw, it is the phone itself that controls the battery charging. Basically he thinks the battery is hooked directly to the wire and is forced feed by the wall charger. That is not how it works.
 
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Finally some intelligent people on here! FAster charging does reduce life of a battery! I have a "Pro" battery charge 8 cell! And it has a fast and "soft" charging button! It's recommended to use soft charging ( slower trickle) to extend the life of the battery! Just saying!!! Telsa cars have the same but I don't know of what they say about continued use of fast charging?
 
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This has always been true, I've been charging my iPhone's with my iPads charger for awhile now. It charges it faster and doesn't affect my battery life.
 
Let's, for a moment, ignore the "Apple always includes the best charger with their devices, therefore 12W charger is bad!" argument. Why then would Apple allow the new phones to draw 2.1A when plugged into a Mac? I'm sitting here with my 6 plugged into my MBA and the phone is drawing 2.1A.
 
Reading this thread makes my brain hurt.

The charging circuit in the device determines the charging rate, this is the same reason that when a customer doesn't know anything about their Macbook and wants a charger I sell them the 85 watt version every time. Same price, and it works with all. The screenshot in the OP shows that it has EXTRA OPERATING CURRENT 1600mA enabled. Again, this is done in the charging circuitry of the phone and is completely safe.

Obviously the decision to include only the smaller 5 watt charger was made for packaging size and cost factors.
 
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Reading this thread makes my brain hurt.

The charging circuit in the device determines the charging rate, this is the same reason that when a customer doesn't know anything about their Macbook and wants a charger I sell them the 85 watt version every time. Same price, and it works with all. The screenshot in the OP shows that it has EXTRA OPERATING CURRENT 1600mA enabled. Again, this is done in the charging circuitry of the phone and is completely safe.

Obviously the decision to include only the smaller 5 watt charger was made for packaging size and cost factors.



This would be a proven case if the writer included timing results to say side by side it does charge faster! The circuitry board does determine the amount of current to the battery! As in my previous response with my high end battery charger, it's charging separate batteries and not a self contained battery system! So my soft charging case doesn't apply here!
 
Lol, hope you don't mean the merlin guy, cause he has no clue. Other engineers are shooting him down left and right. He thinks the wall charger is the one determining the draw, it is the phone itself that controls the battery charging. Basically he thinks the battery is hooked directly to the wire and is forced feed by the wall charger. That is not how it works.

No didn't mean Merlin.

Finally some intelligent people on here! FAster charging does reduce life of a battery! I have a "Pro" battery charge 8 cell! And it has a fast and "soft" charging button! It's recommended to use soft charging ( slower trickle) to extend the life of the battery! Just saying!!! Telsa cars have the same but I don't know of what they say about continued use of fast charging?

Well at least you agree with me and some of the others. I'm giving up on this now, if people want to charge their batteries really quick and shorten the life good for them.
 
Why else do you think Apple didn't inclue the higher watt adapters with the PLUS. I also have the adapter but it's the 10W, I think if you need juice fast it's a great compromise. However I don't think it should be used all the time due to it being harsh on the battery. The PLUS has a bigger battery no doubt but the battery for the iPad is probably the same size as this phone currently which would therefore not harm it because the bigger the better and also the more it can withstand. I just wait till the PLUS battery gets to red and plug it in. This battery surprisingly lasts me two days! Yay to the iPhone finally making an accomplishment.
 
Hrmm who to believe... Apple engineers or a bunch of arm chair Internet engineers.

If they didn't intend the batteries to charge at the higher amperage it would have been trivial for them to prevent it. If it was at all dangerous they would have prevented it to stop warranty and support issues.
 
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Finally some intelligent people on here! FAster charging does reduce life of a battery! I have a "Pro" battery charge 8 cell! And it has a fast and "soft" charging button! It's recommended to use soft charging ( slower trickle) to extend the life of the battery! Just saying!!! Telsa cars have the same but I don't know of what they say about continued use of fast charging?
Why does the iPad mini for example is just fine charging at the higher rate that is associated with the iPad charger and doesn't instead include a slower iPhone charger instead? Seems fairly similar logic can apply to iPhone 6 Plus then, for example.

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Is this news? I've charged by 4, 5 and 5s all with an iPad charger
The news is that the new phones can actually draw more power and actually charge faster when used with iPad chargers, while the old ones couldn't.
 
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I just spoke to Apple support, using the 12W charger will not adversely affect the iPhone battery in any way. The iPhone regulates the charge and takes the current it needs.

It is also compatible on there web page:
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD836B/B/apple-12w-usb-power-adapter?fnode=48

I'm sure if the charger affected the battery apple would warn you not to use it or a pop up would appear on the screen warning you to disconnect.
 
Presumably they didn't included the higher amp adapter so that families who share chargers wouldn't accidentally charge their 5 or 5s with it.
 
Hrmm who to believe... Apple engineers or a bunch of arm chair Internet engineers.

If they didn't intend the batteries to charge at the higher amperage it would have been trivial for them to prevent it. If it was at all dangerous they would have prevented it to stop warranty and support issues.

*Deleted*
 
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I have always used my iPad charger on my iphone 5 and 5s

My daughter only uses the iphone charger

And my phone charge waaaay faster and we have the same battery life. So no damage, just Way faster charging
 
Presumably they didn't included the higher amp adapter so that families who share chargers wouldn't accidentally charge their 5 or 5s with it.
Nothing would happen to those phones as they would only pull as much charge as needed from those chargers. They can be used with them just fine.

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I have always used my iPad charger on my iphone 5 and 5s

My daughter only uses the iphone charger

And my phone charge waaaay faster and we have the same battery life. So no damage, just Way faster charging
Not sure how the phone can charge faster when it pulls the same power from either one of those chargers.
 
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Not that this is really worth anything, but I chatted with an Apple rep online and asked the very same question.
 

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Well, Apple themselves shows it's compatible with all of the iPhones (and pretty much most other smaller devices): http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD836LL/A/apple-12w-usb-power-adapter#compatibility-info

True. I just tested it out using my 10w charger from my 2nd gen ipad and I went from 61% to 85% in 30 minutes. That's about 50% an hour. I can't honestly say i've noticed how slowly it chargers with the typical 5w charger. I charge it at night when I go to bed and it's at 100% when i get up the next morning.
 
Wall of text

Your reasoning is not valid really.
This is not a product that costs 100.000.000$.
But a high fauliure rate is just as damaging if not more if it turns out to be a problem.

And when shipping 10.000.000 units just the first weekend, including a charger that is smaller and probably cheaper to produce, you get savings.

The fact can also be that the "smaller" charger is just below the optimal and the "larger" just above the optimal working temperature. And its equaling out.
We dont really know without seeing that curve.

One thing is for sure, and there is NO denying it. There would have been absolutely no problem for Apple just to limit the power draw of the new phones when connected to the 12w charger.
Just like it have on the previous models.

If it was not safe for battery life, they would have!
Just like they do with other products.
They could also lock it when on the 12w charger, to another wattage then the maximum, to get the optimal charging rate if 12 was not safe. (for example 8 watt)
 
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I have done some further testing with my iPhone 5s and 6.

I can confirm that the 5s does not draw more than 6w maximum even from the 12w charger, even with the screen on. This means both chargers treat the 5s exactly the same.

Here is the 5s charging on the 1a charger:
IMAGE_46.jpg


and on the 2.1a (12w) charger:
IMAGE_45.jpg


and the 6 on the 1a charger:
IMAGE_49.jpg

IMAGE_50.jpg


and the 6 on the 2.1a charger:
IMAGE_47.jpg

IMAGE_48.jpg


the 6+ (from:https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1785460/)
attachment.php


To summarize, both the 6 and 6+ can make use of the 2.1a charger; the 6 seems to do so by using the additional headroom to power the screen and phone while still sending a full 6w into the battery, and the 6+ takes that further allowing up to ~13w total draw - although it's unclear what proportion of that is going into the battery and what to powering the device.

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As a Doctor of Engineering I will reply to that one. Apple has outlined conditions under which you should charge your phone. What they don't make publicly available (AFAIK) is under what conditions they test them. I'll come to this point later.

As I have said before, charging with a higher amperage will increase phone temperature. It doesn't matter what circuits you all claim the device has, the brick provides the power, the device decides what it is going to take - everything else is lost as heat.
(snip)

Earlier in this thread the calculations were done to show the differences between charging the 5s at 1a vs. the 6+ at 2.1a. It was calculated that this would only increase the C rate from .63C to .71C which is a rather miniscule change given what is currently known about lithium ion battery charging.

In other words, you can hypothesize grandly, but the numbers are pretty cut and dry. Go ahead and charge faster. It's not going to make any difference to battery lifespan.

Its clear no one here understands Li-Ion battery chemistry. I've been following this stuff for a while now for EVs (I drive a Volt).

A Li-Ion battery's usable life is determined by three variables - calendar life, cycle life, and charging rate (measured in "C" which is the ratio between charging rate and battery capacity in mAh - so "1C" is discharging or recharging the battery in 1 hour, 0.5 is two hours, and 2C is 30 minutes).

Recent research from Stanford Univ. has shown the effects of "slow charging" to be overstated, and the effects of fast-charging less harmful than originally thought.

Recharging an iPhone 5S at 1A is about .63C (1000mA / 1570mAh). Recharging an iPhone 6 Plus at 2.1A is .71C (2100mA / 2950mA). The difference there is not enough to dramatically effect the lifespan of the battery cell. The 6 has a higher charge rate of 1.16C, but I don't beleive that its very harmful to the battery and the higher charge rate will not shorten the overall lifespan of the battery. For reference, recharging an iPad Air at 2.1A is .24C ( 2100mA / 8820mAh).

Its not until you go over 2C that you start to see substantial impacts. Even Tesla owners who fast-charge frequently still have 99% original battery capacity after more than 100 cycles.
 
what i don't get here is people are looking at the wattage of the charger brick ac side instead of the dc side. different chargers (ac-dc power supplies) all have different efficiencies and manners of operation. to get an accurate indication you really need to be measuring the wattage actually going into the device on the dc (usb) side. even switching power supplies typically use some form of linear regulation which regulates voltage and bleeds off unused current as heat. something like this...

http://www.amazon.com/PortaPow-Moni...id=1411437925&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+power+meter

a charge rate under 2c is considered perfectly within the safe and normal charge range of well made LI battery packs. Usually the maximum charge rate is limited by a resistor setting on the power management / charger IC of the device itself and so it should be limited on the side of the iPhone to the maximum safe charge rate for the device. 1C is the typical recommendation for charging LI but up to 2C is also specified as long as the cell temperature is in a safe range. I would recommend against charging at 2C in an abnormally hot environment such as a car in the summer, etc. LI chemistry has a relatively low safe max operating temperature. having said that all LI charge circuits also contain a thermistor that backs off the charge rate as the temperature rises.

the power management / charger ic is also it's own regulator and as such also regulates and cycles the actual applied voltage and current into the cell itself burning off the unused current as heat. so even the dc wattage entering the iphone does not necessarily mean that all of it is being put into the battery. before taking any measurements also be sure the device is in the same screen/sleep/airplane/whatever mode so you aren't measuring current going into the modem or screen or something like that. most power management ic's not only provide battery charge current but also separate and additional power to actually run the system during charge so you can use the phone while charging.
 
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