New iPad Air and iPad Pro Feature Battery Health Menu Including Cycle Count and 80% Charging Limit Option

[MacRumors]

Apple's latest iPad Air and iPad Pro models feature a new Battery Health menu in the Settings app that is not available on older iPads, and which includes options that were once limited to iPhone 15 models.

As confirmed by iCulture, visiting Settings ➝ Battery on the new iPads shows a new Battery Health menu that lists Battery Health (with a readout such as "Normal"), Maximum Capacity, Cycle Count, and a 80% Limit charging optimization option. Users can also see details about when the battery was produced and when it was first used.

Code previously found in iPadOS 17.5 beta software referenced the Battery Health menu, and it was indeed suggested that it may be limited to Apple's new iPads. Notably, the Cycle Count readout and the option to more strictly prevent charging beyond 80% were up until now exclusive features of the iPhone 15 series, and cannot be found on older iPhones either.

Image credit: iCulture​

The 80% Limit is separate from the Optimized Battery Charging feature on earlier iPhones, which intelligently delays charging past 80% until a more appropriate time by learning the device's daily charging routine. When the 80% hard limit is enabled, the iPad will never charge beyond that percentage, except on rare occasions to "maintain accurate battery state-of-charge estimates." Apple says reducing the time that a battery is fully charged can reduce the wear on the battery and improve its lifespan.

Article Link: New iPad Air and iPad Pro Feature Battery Health Menu Including Cycle Count and 80% Charging Limit Option

 

[Paddle1]

It would be nice if iOS/iPadOS 18 allowed some of these features on older devices as well.

 

[F23]

biggest iPad software update of all time

 

[MathersMahmood]

Why not on older devices? Seems pretty simple to install over an update.

 

[Account25476]

They clearly needed the powerful M4 and M2 chips to compute that.

Shame

 

[aevan]

Great, was hoping for that. Don't know why this is a thing only on latest iPhones and iPads, though.

 

[MTShipp]

Why not on older devices? Seems pretty simple to install over an update.

I expect that a lot of people may be disheartened or pleasantly surprised at the values shown on their older iPad. Perhaps leading to less or more orders. It may be a gamble Apple was not willing to make right now because it could generate a lot of new orders or fewer.

Imagine your “vintage” 2017 5th Gen iPad showing the battery life still in the low 80’s? You may not want to replace for the new M4.

Or on the flip side, you see your 9th Gen 2021 already in the 70’s or worse.

 

[Apple_Robert]

About time.

 

[syklee26]

Apple getting desperate to make people replace older model…. Not availing this in older devices is just inexcusable

 

[goobot]

Literally no reason for the older ones not to have it

 

[raritymlp]

Software locked
You can still check it the old fashioned way on older iPads through Coconutbattery on Mac.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Literally no reason for the older ones not to have it

You mean there’s no hardware difference that could explain why this is limited to the newest iPads?

Edit: Anyone downvoting should reply and provide evidence that this is a software-only limitation and not hardware in any way. I’m not saying there definitely is a hardware difference, just that there might be. People saying it's only software have as much evidence as I have saying it might be a hardware limitation.

 

[Populus]

Great, now you need either an M4 or an M2 in order to know your battery health.

Oh, wait! My M2 iPad Pro… HAS AN M2!

 

[kwokaaron]

Mac next?

 

[dumastudetto]

Great, was hoping for that. Don't know why this is a thing only on latest iPhones and iPads, though.

There is on-SoC compute involved that older gen iPads don’t support.

 

[goobot]

You mean there’s no hardware difference that could explain why this is limited to the newest iPads?

You can already do this for many years with third party apps

 

[antiprotest]

Why not on older devices? Seems pretty simple to install over an update.

"At Apple, user experience is our top priority...etc etc"

Or, some MacRumors users would tell you, "You are not Tim Cook! You are not an Apple engineer! Do you know better than they do?!"

🤮

 

[MiBook84]

And still no multi user login screen as on a mac. A keyboard that cost more than a cheap tablet, and makes it thicker than a Mac - so you want both. I am getting a bit tired of this one device per human concept - and yes I know you can use an MDM solution for schools etc that will pull user profiles and delete them after use, but come on. Should that be necessary? A company priding themselves for security is also the reason everyone is giving everyone their security code so the iPad can be used by other people. Just give us a guest account and multi user possibility. The entire OS is built on a foundation that has it, how hard can it be?

 

[Skyscraperfan]

Give us an interchangeable battery instead!

 

[neuropsychguy]

You can already do this for many years with third party apps

Those apps are doing a software-controlled limit. This appears there might be a new hardware controller built into the SoC (unless someone has evidence that it's software only?).

Edit: I’m not saying it is definitely a hardware difference, just that it appears it might be.

This is similar to the iPhone 15 80% setting: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108055

That reads like there’s a specific hardware part involved in the charging of the newest devices instead of the standard machine learning optimized charging.

 

[henry72]

Hopefully this means the new MacBook Air/Pro M4 will get the "80% Charging Limit Option" feature
This shouldn't be exclusive to new hardware tho...

 

[BorisDG]

Literally no reason for the older ones not to have it

Just like iPhone 15 Pro vs previous generations.

 

[darngooddesign]

I expect that a lot of people may be disheartened or pleasantly surprised at the values shown on their older iPad. Perhaps leading to less or more orders. It may be a gamble Apple was not willing to make right now because it could generate a lot of new orders or fewer.

Imagine your “vintage” 2017 5th Gen iPad showing the battery life still in the low 80’s? You may not want to replace for the new M4.

Or on the flip side, you see your 9th Gen 2021 already in the 70’s or worse.

Other reasons aside, people aren’t going to upgrade just because they see the number. People will upgrade when the actual battery life doesn't meet their needs.

 

[alongdingdong]

Iphone 13 mini user here and i cannot see the cycles. I feel this is typical apple, i am pretty sure the cycles are somewhere buried in the analytic logs on my phone regardless...

I dont think having a visibility on the cycles is arbitrary because i honestly feel they play too much with the margins in the battery health percentage to make it look more positive, and if i had cycles i could better gauge the actual health of my battery and trajectory based on whitepapers on battery cycles and lifespan.

Especially because it is a iPhone Mini, you have to keep the battery more optimal to maintain a certain level of quality of the phone during the day. I dont mind doing a battery replacement but if apple pushes me to 80% health and in practice it has a deteriated experience after 1/2 years, it is to me very worth while to upgrade the battery to maintain that level of iphone experience you had when you purchased it.

 

[shadowboi]

Apple gatekeeping older devices AGAIN. It is a simple software switch.
It costs them literally nothing to introduce to all iPads that can have iOS 17