Problems with Apple’s iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro have been racking up in the 11 months they have been on sale, and now there’s growing concern about their batteries.
First spotted by Creative Bloq, an increasing number of users are reporting that the battery health of the iPhone 14 range is degrading faster than previous generations. This is perhaps best illustrated in a post by tech creator Andrew Clare, who shows that the battery health of his iPhone 14 Pro lost 10% in a year, compared to 15% for his two-year-old iPhone 14 Pro (85%).
The hundreds of replies to his post tell a similar story, not just of iPhone 14 models rapidly losing battery health but older iPhones showing far more longevity.
These include 3-year-old iPhone 12 models with 85%, 86% and 83%, two-year-old iPhone 13 models with 90%, 87%, 91% and much more. In contrast, iPhone 14 models are regularly reported as in the 80-90% bracket less than a year after launch.
Popular iUpdate founder Sam Kohl also flagged the battery health for his iPhone 14 Pro, calling it “unacceptable” in a post that went viral. Again, hundreds of comments followed, showing the same pattern as Clare’s.
Apple has yet to comment on the matter, but its iPhone and Battery Performance page does warn users that: “A normal battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles when operating under normal conditions.”
Apple goes on to define a charge cycle as “one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge.”
How each person uses their iPhone will be different, and it is possible on the circa 1.5-day battery life iPhones can deliver will complete circa 250 charge cycles in the 11-month time frame since the iPhone 14 series launch date. In that sense, Apple has likely defended itself against these claims and can call the situation normal, but the real issue is how much better battery health seems to be aging in older models.
Cynics will also point to Apple’s decision in January to increase the price of iPhone battery replacements at the start of the year. This raised the price of a new iPhone 13 battery from $69 to $89, and Apple flagged that new iPhone 14 batteries will cost $99 outside their one-year warranty, an increase of over 40% on initial iPhone 13 battery prices.
Longevity, particularly in software, has been a selling point of iPhones for years. Whether the same can be said of their batteries is perhaps now open to debate.
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