The iPhone 15 has two battery-preserving tricks to prevent iPhone 14-style woes

Apple goes bigger on battery health

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As you can tell if you read through our shiny newiPhone 15 review,Apple’s latest flagship phones are an appealing mix of hardware and software prowess – and it’s emerged that the handsets come with a couple of useful features for preserving battery health.

First up, viaMacRumors, all the iPhone 15 models come with a new setting that prevents them from being charged above 80%. This adds to the existing Optimized Battery Charging feature, where iOS is selective about when the battery gets charged beyond 80%, based on the device charging history.

Reducing the amount of time that a phone battery is fully charged for can help it to stay healthier for longer: basically, it reduces the wear and tear that comes with chemical aging. You can read more about it on Apple’ssupport page on Optimized Charging.

You can find the new option by opening up Settings oniOS 17, then tappingBattery,Battery Health & Charging, and thenCharging Optimization: You’re able to pick fromNone, the previousOptimized Battery Chargingoption, and the new80% Limit. It’s worth noting that there’s still some debate about exactly how it works.

See the cycles

That’s not all, iPhone 15 owners: your new handset can also give you some extra information about battery health, which you can find by going into iOS Settings and choosingBatteryand thenBattery Health & Charging.

Alongside the information that was here previously, you’ve got new entries for how many charge cycles the phone has been through, when the battery was manufactured, and when it was first used – which should help in keeping tabs on the state of your battery’s health.

These new features may well be a response togrumbles aboutbattery health on theiPhone 14. Reports from users suggest that battery performance on the 2022 flagships has been deteriorating faster than it did on the iPhone 13, so we’ll have to wait and see how the iPhone 15 handsets hold up over time.

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Sadly, there’s no sign yet of these new features appearing on older iPhones, even running the same iOS 17 software. Apple hasn’t officially commented on them yet, so it’s possible we’ll eventually get an explanation of why they’re exclusive to the newest models.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

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