iPhone 14 Pro Max iPhone 14 Pro Max Battery Health (After a Year)

[SmugMaverick]

First, Apple releases the iPhone 14 Pro with a battery that degrades by 1% per month for most people, while older phones decrease by 1% every 4-8 months. Then, they increase the cost of battery change on March 1, 2023, by $20 to $50... Don't you see what is going on here?

Apple’s battery replacement prices are going up by $20 to $50

iPhone, iPad, and Mac service is getting more expensive.

www.theverge.com

First, Apple was caught with Planned Obsolescence in their iPhones via iOS to push you to buy newer phones. Now they make batteries so poorly to force you into two options: buy a new phone or an overpriced battery that you may not change by yourself. When is enough, enough?

Yep, this is all planned.

More media needs to talk about this, if it was Samsung or google, they would be ripped apart by "tech journalists".

 

[BigMcGuire]

My wife's launch day iPhone 14 Pro Max:

Desay Corporation.

I checked it late last year once and was surprised to see under 100%.

Apple guarantees these things for 500 cycles at around 80% capacity. So ... seems like my wife's phone is well on its way to beating that. She uses her phone a lot heavier than I do.

 

[inthequantum]

My wife's launch day iPhone 14 Pro Max:

View attachment 2245450

Desay Corporation.

View attachment 2245451

I checked it late last year once and was surprised to see under 100%.

Apple guarantees these things for 500 cycles at around 80% capacity. So ... seems like my wife's phone is well on its way to beating that. She uses her phone a lot heavier than I do.

I am thinking if my battery is at 260 cycles and I am at 91% capacity right now, I would be in line to just be over 80% in two years of use (if the degradation occurs at the same rate). If I don't buy AppleCare, which I didn't for this years phone, then after a year my battery will not be covered. If I did drop below 80% within two years with less than 500 cycles I would figure Apple would cover that? I am not so sure.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I am thinking if my battery is at 260 cycles and I am at 91% capacity right now, I would be in line to just be over 80% in two years of use (if the degradation occurs at the same rate). If I don't buy AppleCare, which I didn't for this years phone, then after a year my battery will not be covered. If I did drop below 80% within two years with less than 500 cycles I would figure Apple would cover that? I am not so sure.

I think Apple only warranties iPhones for 1 year. AppleCare adds a year or indefinitely if paid for yearly. So within 2 years would need AppleCare I believe. I may be wrong.

 

[NT1440]

I’ll ask into the ether yet again.

Given the (literally) thousands of battery degradation threads here over the years, can we with put a big banner on the forum homepage that says “Lithium battery degradation is NOT a linear process!” or train up some AI to find these discussions and give them an FAQ to read?

Been here almost 15 years, there’s always this same thread somewhere on the first few pages 🥲

 

[akash.nu]

I think Apple only warranties iPhones for 1 year. AppleCare adds a year or indefinitely if paid for yearly. So within 2 years would need AppleCare I believe. I may be wrong.

If the battery drops below 80% before 2 years then by statutory rights apple will replace it.

 

[Adithya007]

December bought. Mostly been MagSafe charging. Health at 100%.

 

[esh314]

Based on their history, how likely is Apple to offer free or reduced price battery replacements for iPhone 14 Pro users? A few days before everyone suddenly started talking about this I ordered a new battery and made an Apple Store appointment for this week to swap my battery for $99. Should I cancel and wait to see if Apple offers free swaps now that it's getting so much press?

 

[Fat_Guy]

Based on their history, how likely is Apple to offer free or reduced price battery replacements for iPhone 14 Pro users? A few days before everyone suddenly started talking about this I ordered a new battery and made an Apple Store appointment for this week to swap my battery for $99. Should I cancel and wait to see if Apple offers free swaps now that it's getting so much press?

You can hope. But me thinks you should just do it now and get it over with. I did it to my 12PM yesterday. Say you don’t do it now, and in two months you spend 1200 bucks on an iPhone 15 because your battery sucks and the new shiny thing is in front of you. Then the iPhone 16 comes up a year later with actual changes in size and all that. Another 1200 bucks and more, all because you held out for something that would never happen….


Get back your 100% battery health and save 1200 bucks. After all you are now replacing it because you don’t want to buy a iPhone 15 - right…

 

[mav2012]

Based on their history, how likely is Apple to offer free or reduced price battery replacements for iPhone 14 Pro users? A few days before everyone suddenly started talking about this I ordered a new battery and made an Apple Store appointment for this week to swap my battery for $99. Should I cancel and wait to see if Apple offers free swaps now that it's getting so much press?

Tbh I wouldn't hold my breath on Apple offering a free swap if your battery capacity is over 80% as they'll say it's within spec What is your current battery capacity btw and how many charge cycles has your phone completed?

 

[BigMcGuire]

If the battery drops below 80% before 2 years then by statutory rights apple will replace it.

I wonder if that's a USA vs Europe thing?

"A normal battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles when operating under normal conditions. The one-year warranty includes service coverage for a defective battery. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers battery service for a charge. Learn more about charge cycles."

iPhone Battery and Performance - Apple Support

Understand iPhone performance and its relation to your battery.

support.apple.com

Here in USA I think we're limited to a 1 year warranty. Interesting because even if one were to charge every single day, you'd only hit 365 cycles in a year lol.

 

[TechnoMonk]

My coconut battery results show my iPhone 14 pro max at 102 percent health. I purchased it at the end of December. I have around 180 charge cycles on it. This happened because I started using the 40 80 charging rule after getting this phone.

Coconut battery is not reliable. Couple weeks of use on my 13 PM it had it drop to 89. After year and half, today it’s 90 on apple battery health.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Coconut battery is not reliable. Couple weeks of use on my 13 PM it had it drop to 89. After year and half, today it’s 90 on apple battery health.

CoconutBattery just pulls from Apple's own stats.

Apple Terminal battery readings (type the below in a terminal):

ioreg -l -w0 | grep AppleRawMaxCapacity

ioreg -l -w0 | grep DesignCapacity | tail -1

But yes, you've noticed that Apple definitely has something else going for the health % reader vs what actually gets reported by the system.

 

[TechnoMonk]

CoconutBattery just pulls from Apple's own stats.

Apple Terminal battery readings (type the below in a terminal):

ioreg -l -w0 | grep AppleRawMaxCapacity

ioreg -l -w0 | grep DesignCapacity | tail -1

But yes, you've noticed that Apple definitely has something else going for the health % reader vs what actually gets reported by the system.

I know they have to try pulling from Apples own stats. But the numbers don’t match with Apples own metrics consistently.

 

[Chidoro]

Don’t have nor ever used a Mac before so I don’t have Coconut, but I use the battery stats shortcut to pull the info from my daily analytics.

14 PM purchased and received on launch day:
Maximum capacity was 4559 mAh
Nominal charge capacity 4444 mAh
137 charge cycles
Still over 100% and should stay that way until it gets below 4323 mAh. At this rate that probably won’t happen until this time next year.

 

[mav2012]

Don’t have nor ever used a Mac before so I don’t have Coconut, but I use the battery stats shortcut to pull the info from my daily analytics.

14 PM purchased and received on launch day:
Maximum capacity was 4559 mAh
Nominal charge capacity 4444 mAh
137 charge cycles
Still over 100% and should stay that way until it gets below 4323 mAh. At this rate that probably won’t happen until this time next year.

That's really good and hopefully things stay that way for you.

Out of curiosity, what's your last_value_averagetemperature from your latest Analytics file? Here are my stats from the 10th of August:

iPhone 14 Plus
Maximum FCC 4504 mAh
Nominal Charge Capacity 4046 mAh
AppleRawMaxCapacity 4034 mAh
MaximumCapacityPercent 99 (no idea how Apple calculate this as it's no where near the nominal charge capacity listed above)
Cycle Count 27
Average Temperature 18 C

 

[AlixSPQR]

I have never understood iOS's own GUI-percentage numbers. CoconutBattery uses internal measurements, so why doesn't iOS? 🤔

If you want your iPhone to stay battery healthy: Charge only to 80 percent with a 5 W charger via cable. Don't ever let the battery go below 20 percent. Use Shortcuts to enter low power mode over night.

 

[Alex Cai]

All App Store Apps are scanned for viruses and fraud and such. All apps are safe.

If you only use apps from the App Store on a Mac, then you have basically nothing.
All the good stuff is out there

 

[Alex Cai]

Charge only to 80 percent with a 5 W charger via cable.

20W is reasonable as long as it does not get hot

 

[AlixSPQR]

20W is reasonable as long as it does not get hot

I stated the optimum, not the reasonable. The latter is decided by each and one of us, and will vary.

 

[The Game 161]

91% now

mine has certainly never been this bad at this stage

 

[Jason J. Schneider]

Got my iPhone 13 Pro on 14th of January, 2022.
CoconutBattery says is at 97% battery life. I use the 20-80% rule, never charge it overnight, never charged it with fast charging. Always with a 5W Apple brick from my previous iPhones. I've only charged it to 100% when I used it at full power during the day (usually during vacations, on Maps & navigation stuff).

But, and this is a big but! Remember that the software and the way you use your device is more at fault than the hardware here.

- I don't own social apps (like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc.). So I don't spend time on my phone for entertainment. Resulting in less screen time, less battery stress overtime. From my wife iPhone, I find the Facebook app to be a battery killer, literally.
- I use my phone only for phone calls, video calls, messages (iMessage or Signal), photos & videos, calendar, reminders, notes & fitness (reviewing Health & Fitness data). Btw, with iPadOS 17, I can review my Health data from the iPad also, so I'll offload that to the iPad more, and not use the iPhone if not necessary.
- I have a rule: always offload usage to a bigger battery device if available. So, iPad, not iPhone. Macbook, not iPad. iMac, not Macbook. Usually, I use my iPhone when I'm outside. At home, I have the iPad around. And while at office, I use the Macbook or iMac. So this drastically reduce the iPhone usage and the battery stress overtime.

And you have to realize that even on a vanilla iOS installation, the software already does a lot in the background. Think of Photos app, the Memories process, if you have a huge photo library that needs to be scanned. Now, it searches for duplicates, all the machine learning alghoritms applied on top to categories & detect individuals on each photo. And this is only one stock app. Not to mention Health and Fitness and all the data crunching done in the background to display statistics, highlights and recommendations.

Notifications are also a big thing. I have notifications turned on only for the phone & messages apps.

Overall, the software grows in capabilites, the batteries in these devices remain the same. Software will win, every time.

 

[HouseLannister]

and a 30w charger in my Tesla

So you're getting a new iPhone this fall anyway, right? Right?

 

[JCCL]

So you're getting a new iPhone this fall anyway, right? Right?

So your point is that such an extreme battery degradation is acceptable because the devices are replaced after a year? Only a very tiny percentage of users do this, and most of us even if we replace our iPhone we will hand it down to friends or family members.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Coconut battery is not reliable. Couple weeks of use on my 13 PM it had it drop to 89. After year and half, today it’s 90 on apple battery health.

CoconutBattery just pulls from Apple's own stats.

Apple Terminal battery readings (type the below in a terminal):

ioreg -l -w0 | grep AppleRawMaxCapacity

ioreg -l -w0 | grep DesignCapacity | tail -1

But yes, you've noticed that Apple definitely has something else going for the health % reader vs what actually gets reported by the system.

I know they have to try pulling from Apples own stats. But the numbers don’t match with Apples own metrics consistently.

Yes, coconutBattery reports legitimate values. However, there are two problems:

1) It’s raw values from that moment. Whereas the Battery Health value shown in the Settings app is some calculated average/guesstimate.

2) Even the battery controller/power management system can’t always keep up with the small volatility of battery technology.

The fundamental problem is that there’s no reliable way to know exactly how much energy a battery holds at any given moment. (It’s an electrochemical storage system that is always changing and decaying, and never behaves exactly the same way from one charge to the next.) About the only reliable way to gauge it is to fully charge the battery, then fully discharge it and measure the difference (a.k.a. coulomb counting). Obviously, we can't do that every time we want to check the battery level, so we have to use indirect methods—storing all kinds of usage data and using that to calculate an estimated % state of charge from moment to moment. Over time, that calculation tends to drift and become less accurate. And on a brand-new battery, there’s not really any good data to work with, so the model will be way off. Calibration helps keep estimates accurate by setting new “full charge” and “full discharge” anchors in the battery management system so it doesn’t have to guess. We're still playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, but calibration tells the battery management system, "Hey—the donkey is over that way."

Example: charge your device to near 100% and monitor via coconutBattery. Watch the charge percentage reach 100% (if it even does). Current charge should (eventually) match Full Charge Capacity. Continue to watch as long as Charging with reports a rate (e.g., 0.24 watts). Chances are you’ll see Full Charge Capacity slowly climb beyond what was reported/identified when you launched the app.

Battery Calibration

All newly-installed smart batteries should be calibrated as soon as possible. This helps your phone or laptop get an accurate reading on the battery’s state of charge.

www.ifixit.com

So, don’t fall victim to the misinformers (who have no basis other than, from what I’ve seen, Apple no longer recommending it (but also not discouraging it)), battery calibration is useless or harmful.

P.S. As some have noticed, even the current charge shown in iOS (i.e., status bar and Battery section of Settings) is tweaked/rounded somewhat for the aforementioned reason as well as other reasons, such as a trickle charge and discharge cycle ranging ~95 to 100% while connected to a charger to prevent overcharge.

P.P.S. Additionally, 0% and 100% aren’t true charge levels. There is padding/margin to (again) help prevent overcharging, help prevent deep discharge, and allow additional capabilities (e.g., Find My functionality for a period beyond power off in a low battery state).