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

[FineWoven]

I love this feature on my 15 Pro Max. I have no doubt that the only reason I've managed to maintain perfect 100% max capacity is because I've always had the 80% hard cap on charging enabled since I got it on launch day last September. Eight months and counting without losing even 1% of overall health is a testament to the power of this little feature. And being a Max model, I can easily sacrifice the 20% battery life and easily get well into the next day on a single charge, if not the entire next day.

 

[dumastudetto]

That’s great.

But then tell me how M2 iPads Pro don’t get these features while M2 iPads Air do?

M2 Air is tweaked

 

[FineWoven]

Regarding many of the other forum members' comments about why this isn't also coming to older iPhones and iPads, I am inclined to agree that it is an unnecessary move on Apple's part to seemingly software-lock this ability in what appears to be a rather petty move of forcing owners of older devices to upgrade to the latest and greatest model.

That being said, and just playing devil's advocate here, but is it possible this is actually not the usual Apple BS we think it is? I can't help but wonder if perhaps there is some legitimate reason they can't roll this out to older devices retroactively. Like maybe it has something to do with starting with a clean slate of this particular generation's battery assembly or something like that? We all know Apple wants control over as much of the supply chain and manufacturing process for all of their products and their individual components as possible, but could it be that they don't want to take the chance of getting it wrong with their battery partners so it was easier just to start with these latest generations where they can fully implement the health monitoring metrics exactly how they want to?

I'm certainly no chemical engineer or battery expert by any means but I know their inner workings and mastering quality control is nothing short of intricate, so that's why I'd be curious to hear from someone more knowledgeable than myself. Hell, even a short press release from Apple's PR department would be better than nothing.

 

[Shirasaki]

The entire OS is built on a foundation that has it, how hard can it be?

As hard as convincing shareholders To give up 10% of their ROI in the next 2 years so Apple can introduce This battery health feature to older iPads.

 

[jarman92]

Literally no reason for the older ones not to have it

There obviously is a reason, we just don’t know what it is; Apple has no incentive to artificially restrict this to newer devices.

 

[jarman92]

I am inclined to agree that it is an unnecessary move on Apple's part to seemingly software-lock this ability in what appears to be a rather petty move of forcing owners of older devices to upgrade to the latest and greatest model.

This makes no sense to me—you think there are actually people who would buy a new device just to check the battery health? Please.

 

[jarman92]

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?

Wait until WWDC, then you can complain about all the software features Apple still doesn’t add 😂

 

[neuropsychguy]

There obviously is a reason, we just don’t know what it is; Apple has no incentive to artificially restrict this to newer devices.

Apple does have incentive to restrict it artificially (sell more newer devices). I happen to think Apple isn’t restricting this feature with software (it’s a hardware issue), but others clearly think it’s just a money grab. All assumptions are based on incomplete knowledge, as you insightfully pointed out.

 

[jarman92]

Apple does have incentive to restrict it artificially (sell more newer devices). I happen to think Apple isn’t restricting this feature with software (it’s a hardware issue), but others clearly think it’s just a money grab. All assumptions are based on incomplete knowledge, as you insightfully pointed out.

But for that to be true you’d have to accept that this “feature” drives upgrades, which is frankly insane. I feel very confident saying there is not one solitary human who would buy a new iOS device to get cycle counts. Particularly considering that anyone sophisticated enough to even know what cycle counts are is also likely to know you can get effectively the same info with CoconutBattery.

 

[FineWoven]

This makes no sense to me—you think there are actually people who would buy a new device just to check the battery health? Please.

It irks me to no end when people completely disregard the rest of my comment and single out a specific part of it to chastise out of context in an attempt to look argumentatively superior.

In that same comment I went on to say that it might be entirely innocuous and may very well have nothing to do with what others have speculated is Apple trying to upsell customers with a simple but helpful feature. And if they are in fact artificially limiting that ability, which really does nothing more than offer a bit of quality-of-life improvement for the customer in the long term, then I'd be curious as to why they would opt to do that - is it for good reason or just because?

So chill out ✋🤚

 

[Sevendaymelee]

You know, if they just switched to LFP, they wouldn't have to worry about the whole 80% thing. Those types of batteries can be charged to 100% every single time.

 

[jimbobb24]

I wish the watches would switch to an 80% battery limit instead of the smart charging. The nice thing about the smart charging is that if you have a long workout planned you continue charging with one press. But the bad thing is that it still charges to 100% most the time.

 

[jimbobb24]

You know, if they just switched to LFP, they wouldn't have to worry about the whole 80% thing. Those types of batteries can be charged to 100% every single time.

For a thousand charge cycles= forever. But not sure they fit the form factor.

 

[jarman92]

It irks me to no end when people completely disregard the rest of my comment and single out a specific part of it to chastise out of context in an attempt to look argumentatively superior.

In that same comment I went on to say that it might be entirely innocuous and may very well have nothing to do with what others have speculated is Apple trying to upsell customers with a simple but helpful feature. And if they are in fact artificially limiting that ability, which really does nothing more than offer a bit of quality-of-life improvement for the customer in the long term, then I'd be curious as to why they would opt to do that - is it for good reason or just because?

So chill out ✋🤚

I think the only person not chill here is you. And if it irks you so much you should be more clear in your communication—when someone says they’re “playing devil’s advocate,” as you did, that means they don’t actually believe what follows. That is, you did say it might be entirely innocuous but made it very clear from the start that you are “inclined to believe” Apple is artificially restricting the feature.

Regardless, I’m entirely chill and was just disagreeing with your assessment.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

"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?!"

🤮

It's infuriating to see anyone defend such ****ed up decisions

 

[addamas]

Time to make fun out of it as it was done with battery % icon on LCD iPhones, notch on Mac at first time being all the time visible (God Bless all notch hiding apps creators!) and so on…

I am really tired of Software gatekeeping. What would they loose with switch? What extra chip it needs? All the info is already in governor FFS…

 

[dampfnudel]

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

It would be nice, but Apple needs to squeeze out as many exclusive features on new devices to entice users to upgrade as possible given the meh hardware upgrades. That’s the reason my more than capable 14 Pro doesn’t have the 24mp option when taking photos. Forget about the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, even a iPhone 15 with the same A16 Pro and 6GB of RAM as my 14 Pro can do that.

 

[jmonster]

Everyone saying there is no reason is ignoring the obvious reason of $$$$

believe it or not they make money off battery replacements and save money my avoiding iPad replacements (it's really difficult to buy an iPad battery replacement because they do it by giving you a replacement iPad)

So now they can say they offer this great feature while deferring its impact another 3-10y since it'll be that long until a sizable population has old phones with this feature

That said! My iPhone 15 Pro still reports 100% health and it was born Oct 2023. So I'm very pleased Apple is offering it at all

 

[Digitalguy]

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

Do what? Stop charging with apps? Absolutely not. No apps has the right to stop charging an iPad. Ony Apple can do that.

 

[JitteryJimmy]

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

Probably has to do with the capabilities of the charge management chip, but I haven't seen its spec sheet. Someone in the charge controller silicon biz would be able to tell us.

 

[mario-64]

Why not add Optimized Charging like all other Apple devices? Why does iPad only have limit to 80% charge?

 

[JForestZ34]

This charge cycle and 80% limit should be available on all iphones and not just starting with the 15 phones


James

 

[Isamilis]

Just amazed, why is this very basic feature, was made exclusively? Has Apple been SO POOR on innovation? 🙃🙃🙃

 

[AndrewWx]

I had my fingers crossed for this addition when I preordered my iPad. Happy they added it.

 

[BugeyeSTI]

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!

Only the latest iPad Air with the M2 chip has this feature. Nowhere in the article does it state last generation iPad Pro's with M2 get it..

"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"