Ryan Haines / Android Authority
The year is 2015. You plug your Android phone in to charge, and a helpful little timer tells you how long it should take. You pop on an episode of Narcos. Life is good. Your friend with an iPhone? Yeah, they plug in their phone too, waiting to fill their tiny, well-optimized cell. The difference? They have no idea how long it’ll take.
Fast-forward to early 2025. You plug in your Pixel 9a and limit its charging to 80% of capacity to preserve battery health. Your friend with an iPhone? They once again plug in, too, again waiting to fill their slightly smaller but still well-optimized battery. Nothing has changed.
Only now, in mid-2025, has Apple decided to catch up. It’s finally made the smallest but most convenient battery changes, and it has me reliving the year I graduated high school. So, congrats, Apple, it’s about time — literally.
It’s a miracle: I finally know when my iPhone will be charged
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
I have my iPhone 16 set up for automatic updates and, because it doesn’t carry my primary SIM, that includes beta updates. So, I didn’t think much of it when it picked up yet another version of iOS 26. Sure, it made my app icons change colors again (something that seems to happen when it transitions from light mode to dark mode), but I didn’t notice too many other changes.
Then, as I plugged my iPhone in for its regular recharge because iOS 26 is less than gentle on battery life, I finally noticed an improvement: Apple has added a charging timer that tells me how long it’ll take until my battery is full. Well, it actually defaults to the time left until an 80% charge, but it’s much better than plugging my phone in and waiting to find out.
Lest we forget, though, Apple is comically behind the times. As I said, Android phones have had this capability since the days of Android 5, meaning that the iPhone 16 is currently competing with the Galaxy S6, Nexus 6P, LG G4, and HTC One M9 — and the latter two companies don’t even make phones anymore.
Would you trust your phone to manage your battery life? 11 votes Yes, that's fine 73 % No, leave me in charge 27 %
Not all of iOS 26’s battery updates are so far behind the times
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Alright, so I think I’ve been more than snarky enough about how silly it is that it’s taken Apple a decade to add a feature that my Android phones have had since high school, but iOS 26 isn’t always too little, too late. It has another battery optimization that’s just as good and much more timely. Yes, I love that iOS 26 now lets you choose your Power Mode.
Essentially, Power Mode is now where Apple houses Low Power Mode, but it also features a second toggle, which lets you try Adaptive Power. In my experience, Adaptive Power is kind of like automatic low power mode in that it watches for higher-than-normal usage before making slight performance tweaks like lowering brightness or slowing down specific processes.
In Google terms, it’s like Battery Health Assistance, but it’s not mandatory. It… hasn’t been perfect on my iPhone 16, but I’m willing to chalk that up to the fact that it’s still in beta and isn’t quite optimized.
If Apple's Power Mode gets optimized, it'll be the best thing since iMessage.
The good news is that Power Mode will probably work much better on the upcoming iPhone 17 series. With a bit of luck, it’ll allow me to stretch what will probably be once again undersized batteries a little bit further, keeping them just a little bit closer to the 5,000mAh or larger cells that have become so common on Android phones.
Will that get me to put my primary phone number back in an iPhone? No, probably not, but I’ll be happy to recommend one to family and friends if I know that battery anxiety won’t be such a big deal.
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