Apple’s upcoming iPhone operating system, iOS 13, will come with a feature that helps to prolong battery life. This makes a lot of sense at a time when most people are no longer buying a new smartphone every two years.
Batteries remain the weak link because as they age, they lose the ability to hold a charge very long. Last year, Apple introduced a battery replacement programme after coming under criticism for reducing the performance of older iPhones to preserve battery life. Following that, it announced a feature that enables owners to check if the battery is running at full capacity – and if not, they can have it replaced by the company.
iOS 13 will come with a feature that helps the phone battery to last longer at first. Known as “optimised battery charging”, this feature will form part of the iOS 13 update to be released in the autumn, though a developer version is already available.
If you are lucky enough to run the developer version of iOS 13, you will find it under Battery Settings.
According to Apple’s battery website, this helps to fight battery ageing by cutting the time that the phone spends fully charged. Using machine learning, it studies your daily charging routine and only charges the battery more than 80% if you really need it.
The site goes on to explain that lithium ion phone batteries rapidly charge up to 80%, but then the system switches to “trickle charge” in order to ease the “electrical current to extend battery lifespan.”
When the phone remains plugged in all the time, this trickle charge continues running in an attempt to keep the battery charged to full capacity. That, Apple says, can wear out the battery much faster. The new system will, for example, not continue to trickle charge your iPhone battery while you sleep at night.