iPhone 12 Pro Max Battery Health Has Me Very Disappointed

[MauiPa]

I'm not saying it's easy to measure, and idgaf if the battery health number says its at 1%. But having to charge a phone for which you paid that amount of money for 3 times a day (which is when I discovered my battery health was going down) is an absolute ripoff. If you read my post to which you replied to, you'll see I was talking to apple for nearly 3-4 months regarding degrading battery. They refused to do anything before it hit 79% (including changing the battery even though I was willing to pay for it), thrice, even though there was clearly something wrong with it. Hence my calling them unethical. I contacted Apple first when it was at 92%, then 84% and finally 80%. Out of the three times of me contacting them, they kept the phone for testing for a good 10 days and found nothing wrong with it (when it was at 84%). Unfortunately for me, the battery health stayed at 80% for over a month (even though coconut battery showed it was at 78%).

The whole thing was a horrible customer service experience (and the worst I've personally had in over a decade). Someone above gave a stupid solution of not using Apple products, well, that's not exactly a solution. I expect better customer service for something that I paid so much of money for. I paid for a full battery replacement, and I'm happy with it ever since.

As I said, sounds like a bad battery. And yes, I think all would agree you were not treated right. The fact that your replacement battery is performing as expected also proves your point

 

[iStorm]

I never go by the battery health, but rather how the battery is actually behaving. The battery health is just an estimate and isn't always accurate.

A few years ago, the battery health on my mom's iPhone said it was 93%. (The phone was probably 2 or 3 years old at this point.) You'd think it was still good based on that number, right? Nope...far from it! The phone was always shutting down/crashing even if the battery level was 50%. Meanwhile, my phone that was at 85% battery health still lasted me all day without any issues.

 

[Zelda Chestnut]

More of a rant than a question I guess, but disappointing none the less. Just hit a year with my 12 Pro Max and battery health is at 90%. Every other iPhone I’ve ever had (and it’s been many) has lost a maximum of 2 or 3% in the year that I own them before I sell and/or trade them in to upgrade.

My usage patterns are pretty much the same as they always have been, I use a case just like I did with the prior phones, but I noticed this one gets excessively warm with minimal use. I did not upgrade this year because I thought there wasn’t enough reason with the 13 series, but I don’t know if I’m gonna wait until the 14 comes out.

And yes, I’ve done all troubleshooting, had Apple remote in, all that fun stuff, to no avail. Everything’s fine according to them. Just frustrating when you spend a lot of money on a something and you feel let down.

Sorry this is happening to you. I just got the 13 Pro about a month and a half ago, and I’m still at 100% battery health. Other than one time, I haven’t charged this phone overnight. I plan it out so that I can just fully charge it sometime in the day, and then I am averaging about two days of use from a cycle. I’ve wondered if, despite the optimized battery charging option, if charging it every night is bad for the phone. I could be completely wrong, but try charging it only when needed and not overnight, and see if that helps. I hope it does

 

[Andeddu]

Sorry this is happening to you. I just got the 13 Pro about a month and a half ago, and I’m still at 100% battery health. Other than one time, I haven’t charged this phone overnight. I plan it out so that I can just fully charge it sometime in the day, and then I am averaging about two days of use from a cycle. I’ve wondered if, despite the optimized battery charging option, if charging it every night is bad for the phone. I could be completely wrong, but try charging it only when needed and not overnight, and see if that helps. I hope it does

Charging it overnight doesn’t harm the battery. Harmful charging behaviour includes charging the battery to 100% and draining it below 10%. You can set you phone via settings to charge to 90% rather than 100% so you won’t be harming the battery overnight.

I have a Mini 12 so don’t have that luxury. A 90% battery for me wouldn’t last me until the late afternoon. I have now obtained a MagSafe battery pack which should allow me to use my phone throughout the day and not drain the battery below 10% by evening. It’s really bulky but I will have to just get used to it.

 

[reppans]

… You can set you phone via settings to charge to 90% rather than 100% so you won’t be harming the battery overnight…

Is this an 15.4 beta feature? Never seen an option to limit charge %… where is setting located? Samsung phones and some laptops seem to have this feature though.

 

[Taz Mangus]

You can set you phone via settings to charge to 90% rather than 100% so you won’t be harming the battery overnight.

The only Settings that can be set to affect how charging is done is enable/disable Optimized Charging option. That will charge to 80% and then wait a period time before continuing to charge to 100%.

The only other way to possibly control the charging is to buy a HomeKit smart plug and use a Shortcuts Automation script to shut the smart plug off when charging reaches a certain point. I use the smart plug and it works really well because no matter when I charge, my phone never sits on a powered charger when it completes charging.

 

[reppans]

… I was talking to apple for nearly 3-4 months regarding degrading battery. They refused to do anything before it hit 79% (including changing the battery even though I was willing to pay for it), thrice, even though there was clearly something wrong with it..

Curious who you were talking to - online customer service, an Apple store employee, or an AASP (Authorized Apple Service Provider, like Best Buy).

Reason I ask is that an AASP tech had mentioned on another forum that the AASPs were under much stricter batt swap guidelines and were not allowed to do PAID batt swaps @80% or higher, but said Apple stores had much more leeway to do so.

Really makes a case for shortcut/smartplug ‘custom optimizations.’

 

[Fred Zed]

What I’ve learned. The battery suppliers are building weaker batteries. I don’t think Apple makes the batteries from scratch so quit blaming Apple 😂 do I sound like a fanboy ?🤣🤣

 

[robertjoe]

I didn’t face any issue like this yet, I'm just here to learn ?

 

[Andeddu]

Is this an 15.4 beta feature? Never seen an option to limit charge %… where is setting located? Samsung phones and some laptops seem to have this feature though.

Sorry, I meant optimised charging which charges the phone to 80% until a specific time. I know little about it because I have always charged my Mini to 100%.

 

[Taz Mangus]

The battery suppliers are building weaker batteries.

Like anything else mass produced in the 100s of millions there is bound to be a small percentage that have some kind of issue. 1% would be on the order of 10,000. Given that, is that evidence of purposely producing a weaker battery?

 

[Andeddu]

The only Settings that can be set to affect how charging is done is enable/disable Optimized Charging option. That will charge to 80% and then wait a period time before continuing to charge to 100%.

The only other way to possibly control the charging is to buy a HomeKit smart plug and use a Shortcuts Automation script to shut the smart plug off when charging reaches a certain point. I use the smart plug and it works really well because no matter when I charge, my phone never sits on a powered charger when it completes charging.

There probably are ways to work around charging to 100%. I don’t care too much because I don’t use my phones for more than 2 years before upgrading so the battery never degrades to an unusable level. The Mini I have will have to do me 3-4 years because I see no reason to upgrade which is why I have the MagSafe Battery Pack now. I do intend to change the battery once the device is 2 years old though.

Batteries degrade no matter how much you baby them. 10% degradation per year is average in my experience.

 

[Pro_the_legend]

Curious who you were talking to - online customer service, an Apple store employee, or an AASP (Authorized Apple Service Provider, like Best Buy).

Reason I ask is that an AASP tech had mentioned on another forum that the AASPs were under much stricter batt swap guidelines and were not allowed to do PAID batt swaps @80% or higher, but said Apple stores had much more leeway to do so.

Really makes a case for shortcut/smartplug ‘custom optimizations.’

I had a chat with Apple support over the support app all 3 times and spoke to their reps twice over the phone. Unfortunately, the only way to get service in my country is through an AASP since there are no physical Apple stores here, besides the retailers. Of course, Apple reserved an appointment with the AASP.

You maybe right, however, back in the day, I had my 7+ battery changed just because they were quite cheap after a year or two (during the scandal with Apple slowing down phones), and that phone was at 89% battery, and they didn't have any objections to changing it. That is why I was even more taken aback with them refusing to change the battery on my 12PM. Perhaps it's a new rule. Whatever it maybe, I had a horrible time using this phone before the battery was changed.

 

[pi=e=3]

Wear item wears. Gasp

You can reduce wear by using a 5w charger and keeping your battery above 40%.

 

[Fred Zed]

Like anything else mass produced in the 100s of millions there is bound to be a small percentage that have some kind of issue. 1% would be on the order of 10,000. Given that, is that evidence of purposely producing a weaker battery?

I’d somewhat agree. However I have a feeling like anything else quality of products have declined. Including components like batteries.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I’d somewhat agree. However I have a feeling like anything else quality of products have declined. Including components like batteries.

As the COVID crisis has affected it.

 

[reppans]

Batteries degrade no matter how much you baby them. 10% degradation per year is average in my experience.

That’s not in my experience using an automated custom optimization. I commented above (post #7) - so here’s my brand new benchmarking 50% cycling bands, and this is 2.5yrs later with reported 96% health under very consistent ‘only device’ usage (apps, daily SOT, etc).

 

[Taz Mangus]

Batteries degrade no matter how much you baby them. 10% degradation per year is average in my experience.

I will see how this goes and what it looks in another 6 months.

 

[Fred Zed]

As the COVID crisis has affected it.

You’re sounding disappointingly corporate USA now.

 

[madrigal77]

My 11PM was still at 100% after a year. My 12PM is at 92%. I've actually used it less as I haven't been able to take my yearly trip to Japan where I normally take a TON of photos. The battery life is very noticeably worse. I work all day and don't use my phone. It just sits in my pocket. On my 11PM by the time I'm off work, it would have drained maybe 10%. 12PM it's down 25%. These batteries suck.

 

[Taz Mangus]

You’re sounding disappointingly corporate USA now.

This is a very small sample size if you consider Macrumors as any gauge. No way to know how many batteries have defects in battery health.

 

[exoticSpice]

I had a chat with Apple support over the support app all 3 times and spoke to their reps twice over the phone. Unfortunately, the only way to get service in my country is through an AASP since there are no physical Apple stores here, besides the retailers. Of course, Apple reserved an appointment with the AASP.

You maybe right, however, back in the day, I had my 7+ battery changed just because they were quite cheap after a year or two (during the scandal with Apple slowing down phones), and that phone was at 89% battery, and they didn't have any objections to changing it. That is why I was even more taken aback with them refusing to change the battery on my 12PM. Perhaps it's a new rule. Whatever it maybe, I had a horrible time using this phone before the battery was changed.

ahhh. There is your problem. AASP centres have bad customer service. Apple Store customer service is better than AASP.

Also batteries in general degrade. It would make sense Apple would wait till the iPhone's battery is below 80% as that would reduce e-waste and also stop people from abusing the battery replacement system too much.

 

[Pro_the_legend]

ahhh. There is your problem. AASP centres have bad customer service. Apple Store customer service is better than AASP.

Also batteries in general degrade. It would make sense Apple would wait till the iPhone's battery is below 80% as that would reduce e-waste and also stop people from abusing the battery replacement system too much.

while I understand that e-waste is a problem, that’s not my lookout as a customer who’s received a bad unit, which was clearly visible. The battery was at 80% health with 345 cycles, and it fell to 79% by 350, if I remember correctly. Which clearly is not living up to their performance standards. And if I could see this, of-course apple support could as well (and one of the reps confirmed the cycle count as well), but they insisted it was under tolerance, at which point I understood they were just behind making money, irrespective of whether or not it was their product which was underperforming.

There literally is no alternative to AASP in my country either. It’s not feasible to travel abroad and go to an apple store to replace a battery on a phone, for me at least. Anyway, in my opinion it’s not the AASP which is horrible, they generally do a decent job (although they scratched my point this time) and have a nice staff for the most part. Like I stated, this isn’t my first visit to them over the years. It’s apple’s policies with regard to customer service which have become garbage.

 

[MandiMac]

Meanwhile, I'm on a launch day iPhone SE 2020 (will be two years old shortly) and it sits at 93 %. Take that as you will.

 

[exoticSpice]

apple’s policies with regard to customer service.

Well last year Apple gave a free Apple TV 4k as my Mac was facing an issue while waiting and since has been resolved.

Depends which country you are in, what staff member you get. I bet customers also had a bad experience with Apple regards service 10-15 years ago as well.