Other Lowest iPhone Battery Capacity?

[The_Auryn]

I'm curious what's the lowest iPhone battery capacity you've experienced? Apple says you should replace the battery once it gets below 80%. Is this legit or akin to how auto dealers tell you to replace your engine oil every 3K miles while modern synthetics can go for 5-7K miles. The maximum battery capacity on my iPhone 12 Pro Max is currently 68%, yet I haven't noticed any major problems with the phone. Sometimes, while using Apple Maps, I may have to charge it directly from the car or do a recharge later in the day. But besides that, I use it all day long, spend hours reading news apps on it, and it still reads about 35-40% charge strength when I retire at night. I want to get the maximum amount of life out of it before paying for a replacement. At the same time, I don't want to redline it and have it die completely. Is there a point where bad things start happening if you don't get the battery replaced? Also, on a different point, does anyone know if the price of replacing iPhone batteries will go up if Trump's tariffs finally hit? Are iPhone batteries made in China? Thanks for any insight.

 

[Paddle1]

All phones/batteries behave differently. My old SE would simply start shutting off at 50% battery health.

 

[sunapple]

Using Coconutbattery on a Mac you could find out the age and cycle count of the battery. They are designed to last 1,000 cycles. Battery health is another indicator, if you reached 80% within the warranty period Apple will replace the battery for free, for example. Doesn't mean it's useless below 80%.

At the end of the day, as you say, why replace it at all if you don't experience serious issues?

The 12 Pro was last sold in 2021, which means it will get official support from Apple until 2028 when it reaches Vintage status. I'd say that if you don't experience issues, you can continue to use this battery regardless of battery health percentage.

iPhone battery and performance

iPhone battery and performance - Apple Support

Understand iPhone performance and its relation to your battery.

support.apple.com

 

[FeliApple]

Depends on the iOS version. Newer major iOS versions have bigger power requirements and will eventually overpower a degraded battery.

If you don’t update iOS, battery health is irrelevant.

I have seen one battery fail from my family’s iOS devices: an iPhone 6s which has been running iOS 10 for its entire lifetime.

The battery failed pretty catastrophically, dropping below 80% after about a year and 300 cycles (the user was a heavy one and the 6s didn’t have the battery life of current iPhones). Nobody cares anyway, so the iPhone remained in-use as a main iPhone until 2021. I still don’t know why it failed, it’s been the only one.


In 2022, five years (!!!) after it failed and dropped below 80% I picked it up myself. Coconut Battery’s report varied wildly (a common occurrence with heavily degraded batteries), but it hovered around the 60% mark. Sometimes it would show 63%. Other times, 50 or 50-something. Cycle count wasn’t too high, at around the 1300-cycle mark. Still running iOS 10, battery life was like-new with light use. I could get the same 7-8 hours of SOT I got on my other 6s when it was new and on iOS 9.
Conversely, I’ve tested an iPhone 6s on iOS 13 with 90% battery health and battery life was utter garbage, getting half the battery life this 6s on iOS 10 got with 50-60% health.

That was the device with the lowest health on its original iOS version I’ve ever tried.

Just use it until it isn’t enough for you. I’ve never replaced a battery and hopefully I never will.

Do keep in mind that if you update it there will be a point in which the device won’t be able to cope. You’ll pretty much have to replace it if you want to continue using it, otherwise you won’t have a good experience.