Apple has recently made bold claims about respecting the environment across business decisions. ♻️ And it seems to be making strides in many areas, like using recycled materials in products and clean energy in many aspects of its operations. 🎉
That’s why a deviation from this posture at last month’s event stood out: Only iPhone 15 models benefit from a new feature that is designed to protect batteries, despite the feature likely being possible on earlier models. The new feature is: iPhone 15 (and 15 Pro) owners can limit their phones to not charge past 80%.1 That may not appeal to everyone, but doing so, according to Apple, reduces “the wear on your battery and improve[s] its lifespan by reducing the time your iPhone spends fully charged”. 🌎 👍
Wait, how can we assume that the feature is possible on earlier models? -> Well, iPhones dating back at least to the iPhone 8 era already support a very similar “charge to 80%” option called Optimized Charging.2 The difference is that Optimized Charging works by limiting your phone’s charging to 80% when your iPhone is normally idle (typically in the middle of the night).3 The new 80% charging feature (that’s limited to iPhone 15 models) doesn’t try to be as smart, and simply applies the limit all day long. (I asked Apple to comment on why this feature is not also available in previous models 4 an