After 2 years of charging my iPhone the ‘Apple way,’ the results shocked me

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The battery in my 15 Professional Max was terrible after 18 months of use.
• I did all the pieces Apple recommended to maintain it in tip-top situation.
• I am going again to 100% charging with the iPhone 17 Professional Max.

After I bought my iPhone 15 Pro Max in September 2023, I made a decision that I might do all the pieces I may to make the battery final. Effectively, an accident destroyed that handset, so I restarted the experiment in March 2024. 

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I wished to see simply how a lot lifespan I may get out of the battery.

Battery life obsession

In my expertise, no subject generates extra articles, weblog posts, and YouTube movies than how you can get the absolute best battery life out of your iPhone, each each day runtime and general lifespan. It is also the subject on which I get probably the most questions and feedback.

Folks have been obsessive about their iPhone’s battery life since day one, and the extra metrics and tweaks Apple provides to iOS to delve into what the battery is doing, the more serious it has turn out to be. As soon as Apple even added a characteristic that allowed customers to cap battery cost ranges to delay the lifespan of their battery.

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But when each minute of runtime, each share level of battery life issues, does it make sense to sacrifice 20% — or, to place that one other method, one-fifth — of your battery’s capability?

It appears the temptation of the iPhone lasting longer makes the tradeoff price it. In any case, Apple claims that iPhone 15 fashions and later can “retain 80% of their unique capability at 1,000 full cost cycles beneath ideally suited circumstances.” I used to be curious as to what “beneath ideally suited circumstances” meant, however I used to be decided to present my battery one of the best likelihood attainable.

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So I set my battery cost restrict to 80%, placing a major however manageable dent in my each day runtime (manageable initially, at the least), and bought on with my life.

Initially, issues had been good

Nice, the truth is. After the primary few days of battery-induced nervousness, I now not thought of or seen the lowered battery degree, and I’d not often finish the day with lower than 35% cost.

A little over a year and 355 recharge cycles — about one a day — into the experiment, the battery’s most capability had dropped to 91%.

By this level, I used to be already beginning to really feel the pinch from the mix of solely charging to 80% and the battery put on. These days when my iPhone would cost all the best way to 100% for calibration functions — it does this sometimes regardless of the restrict — had been like a breath of contemporary air.

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Battery nervousness returned.

I’m a heavy iPhone consumer, and it is by no means greater than an arm’s attain away. And I do know that heavy utilization not solely accelerates battery degradation due to the elevated recharge cycles, but in addition intensifies it, lowering the general lifespan of the battery cells.

I persevered

Quick ahead to the beginning of September.

The iPhone was 17 months outdated, and the battery had 501 recharge cycles beneath its belt, nearly precisely midway by means of these 1,000 recharge cycles, with most capability at 89%. Battery life was horrendous. I might begin the day at 80% cost, and by mid to late afternoon, it was hovering near — if not dipped beneath — the 20% zone. By this level, power banks had turn out to be a vital a part of my on a regular basis carry.

Additionally: I tested the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and this feature alone justifies an upgrade from the 16

I even quickly raised the cost restrict to 100%, and whereas that helped, battery life was nonetheless horrible.

And at this degree, I could not even pay Apple to interchange the battery, as a result of exterior of remarkable circumstances, it’s important to look forward to the utmost capability to drop beneath 80%.

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So, for me at the least, the efficient lifespan of a top-of-the-line iPhone Professional Max is lower than two years.

So I gave up and acquired an iPhone 17 Pro Max, and as soon as once more I could make it by means of a day without having a cost. It is a night-and-day distinction.

A pattern of 1

Perhaps my battery was notably puny, or possibly it is me. However I am not the one one to really feel that sacrificing 20% of my battery capability in trade for the promise of higher battery life is not price it. And I am not the one one.

Additionally: iPhone battery worse after updating to iOS 26? Here’s why, and how I fixed it

Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors, has been finishing up the same experiment and got here to this conclusion:

“I now have two years of information with my iPhone restricted to an 80 p.c cost, and I do not suppose it has been price it.”

I agree, which is why I am going again to 100% charging and as a substitute utilizing optimized battery charging, a characteristic that delays the cost from 80 to 100% so it occurs in time so that you can begin the day (this characteristic takes some time to activate as a result of it wants time for the handset to study your patterns). This appeared to do extra to scale back battery put on, at the least on earlier iPhones I had. So, possibly this, together with the vapor chamber cooling, will preserve my new battery going robust for longer.

I can hope.

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