AAPL Apple Inc

By David Pierce 

If you upgraded your iPhone to iOS 11.3, which rolled out over the past week or so, look at the Battery section of Settings, under a new menu called Battery Health. That's where you'll find crucial information about the health and longevity of your phone. It also gives you the ability to prevent your phone from being slowed down due to poor battery health.

The new feature, still in the potentially buggy beta stage, appears months after Apple Inc. came under fire for slowing down (aka throttling) older iPhones without disclosing the practice to users.

Battery Health begins with a measure of your phone battery's maximum capacity, its ability to hold a charge compared with its original state. Over time, lithium-ion batteries store less power each time they charge, and can degrade based on how often you charge the phone, the temperature at which you store it and other factors. The lower that percentage, the shorter your battery life.

Shorter battery life corresponds with a higher susceptibility to unexpected crashes, says Apple. This was the root of its rationale for throttling.

In my testing, on a nearly new iPhone X, the battery's maximum capacity was still 100%, while another I checked was already at 98%. A year-old iPhone 7 showed 99%, and a three-year-old iPhone 6S was down to 93%. Two iPhone SEs displayed 87% and 86%.

The second section of Battery Health is Peak Performance Capability, which informs users whether their device is being throttled. The best news you'll get here is, "Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance."

When you update to iOS 11.3, you're likely to see it. Apple says the throttling software, known as "performance management," will be initially disabled, but "it will be reenabled if the device subsequently experiences an unexpected shutdown."

If that happens, you'll see a message saying, "Performance management has been applied to help prevent this from happening again." Apple says the throttling applies to iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7 Plus and SE models. Apple says the newer iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X are designed to manage power better to avoid crashes.

You can disable performance management and go back to using your phone as normal -- though Apple says that increases the chances of another crash, at which point the throttling software will again automatically activate.

You can also leave the management to its business, and get used to your slightly slower iPhone. Or you can replace your battery. The Battery Health page begins recommending you do so once your maximum capacity dips below about 80%. You can get a new battery for an iPhone 6 or later at any Apple store for $29 through the end of 2018. Once you've replaced your battery, it will go back to working at full blast.

You won't need to look at Battery Health often. Still, you should check it at least once to make sure your battery is still pumping juice smoothly, or if you have the feeling that your phone has gotten slower lately. If something is wrong, you'll feel better knowing you aren't crazy -- and that there's a fix for it.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 09, 2018 12:16 ET (16:16 GMT)

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