I ignored Apple’s battery recommendation for months – here is how my iPhone 17 Professional Max performs now

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• It is regular for iPhone battery well being to remain at 100% for the primary few months.
• Anticipate battery well being to drop by 1 share level each 50 recharge cycles.
• Fashionable batteries are very resilient and might take a number of abuse.

My iPhone 17 Professional Max was one of many first to roll off the manufacturing line and into individuals’s palms on launch day. Since I would spent the earlier two years completely babying the battery in my iPhone 15 Professional Max, I made a decision to take a distinct method this time round.

Additionally: After charging my iPhone the ‘Apple manner’ for two years, here is the state of its battery now

I do not suppose it has made any distinction.

What I’ve achieved thus far

As of at this time — Feb. 7, 2026 — my new iPhone has been by 122 recharge cycles over the previous 140 days. I’ve had the cost restrict disabled so each cost goes to 100%, and I’ve had Optimized Battery Charging disabled. My iPhone cannot appear to determine my schedule, as I am considerably erratic and do not want an alarm more often than not about 6 a.m., however I stand up earlier just a few days per week to get some extra strolling miles underneath my belt, so this function would not work properly for me.

I additionally cost my iPhone each wired and wirelessly, utilizing an enormous number of chargers and energy banks, and over the previous few months it has seen freezing temperatures and baking solar, generally not on the identical day.

Some days it has been run flat, and different days it has been connected to a charger or energy financial institution all day.

Oh, and the entire time, it has been inside a thick case that does nothing to maintain the handset cool.

Additionally: I modified 10+ settings on my iPhone to considerably lengthen its battery life (iOS 26 and older)

Doubtless, I’ve used and abused this iPhone tougher than some other I’ve owned, and that claims quite a bit, but my battery continues to be at 100% capability. 

So, what is going on on? 

Am I fortunate? Do I’ve some tremendous particular battery in my iPhone that leaked from Apple’s secret orbiting lab? No.

The reality is that trendy batteries are extremely strong and tolerant of a substantial amount of misuse. Sure, issues can often go flawed, however when you think about the billions — sure, billions — of {dollars} of rechargeable batteries which can be on the market from big-name and no-name producers, it is fairly unimaginable that they don’t seem to be bursting into flames throughout us. In actual fact, your automotive, whether or not it is gasoline or an EV, is way extra prone to burst into flames than your smartphone or pill is, with gasoline-powered automobiles making up the majority of fires.

Additionally: iPhone battery worse after updating to iOS 26? This is why, and the way I mounted it

Virtually all rechargeable units make use of a cost controller or battery administration chips such because the TP5100 or TP4056. These chips management issues like charging pace, cost and voltage cutoffs, in addition to placing thermal limitations in place so the battery would not get forcibly charged or discharged when it is too sizzling or too chilly. I’ve initiatives that I put collectively a number of years in the past that make use of those cost controllers, and the units have been in steady use with none handholding.

The options that corporations like Apple have constructed into units, issues like Optimized Battery Charging and cost limits, construct on high of what the cost controllers carry to the desk. Does it hurt to not cost the battery to full till the final minute or to restrict cost capability to one thing lower than 100%? No, and in keeping with the info I’ve come throughout, there’s a profit. Nonetheless, for those who restrict your examine to shopper electronics and exclude electrical autos, the impact is just not all that large.

In response to Apple, the battery in my iPhone is “designed to retain 80 percent of its original capacity at 1,000 complete charge cycles under ideal conditions.” Word that whereas Apple makes this declare, the corporate solely presents a one-year guarantee for faulty batteries, besides in Turkey, the place shoppers get a two-year battery guarantee due to stronger shopper safety legal guidelines, so the corporate is just not ready to again up these claims.

Additionally: Tips on how to clear your iPhone cache (and why it makes such an enormous distinction)

Primarily based on these figures, I count on the capability to drop about one share level for each 50 recharge cycles. This equates to about two to a few years of regular use. Making use of the battery settings may achieve you just a few weeks, however that is about it.

So why is my battery nonetheless at 100% after greater than 100 recharge cycles? Is it not carrying? How lengthy till it begins to say no?

Rechargeable batteries have two completely different capacities. There is a rated capability, which is the capability of the battery that the gadget producer orders from the battery maker and places on the spec sheet, and an precise capability of the person battery. The precise capability is greater than the rated capability to permit for manufacturing variations. Nobody desires to fireplace up a brand-new iPhone and discover that the battery is already saying it’s worn. Each time my iPhone is charged to full, the working system retains observe of how a lot energy it took.

The underside line

My iPhone’s battery is carrying, however it has not but gone beneath the rated capability, so the working system has not but begun to report the damage. Virtually each new iPhone has this honeymoon interval in the beginning the place the battery appears to stay at 100% well being endlessly… till it would not.

Additionally: My iPhone 15 Professional Max battery life went from nice to terrible in lower than two years – what occurred?

As quickly because the precise capability drops beneath the rated capability, that most capability meter will start to tick down at round one share level per 50 recharge cycles.

I am very a lot a battery nerd, and I tracked — obsessively, some may say — the well being of the battery in my earlier iPhone. So far as the battery was involved, I did the whole lot proper with that gadget, and by the two-year mark, the handset could not make it by a day with no recharge. I had the battery cost restrict set to 80 p.c, and I really feel like I sacrificed a fifth of my battery’s capability for nothing.

So I’ll keep on charging my present iPhone in all of the flawed methods. Want me luck!