My girlfriend’s iPhone is probably a month old. She’s mind-blowingly predictable, with a very consistent wake time on weekdays, later on weekends. Frequently she’s getting up and seeing her phone at 80%.
Should the iPhone be learning the weekday/weekend routine? Or is she confusing it with different sleep/wake times?
And practically speaking, will disabling it cut her useful battery lifespan significantly? Or is this the sort of thing that provides a relatively small benefit in the grand scheme of things?
“Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles.”
If it’s not charging above 80%, from what I understand, it’s estimating that she doesn’t need a full charge to get through her day. IMO, that’s a good thing.
The longer it takes you to burn through a charge the longer your battery will last. If you need to find a charger by 2pm every day, your battery isn’t going to last as long as someone who charges every other day.
I definitely get the “the more you use it and have to recharge, the shorter your battery life will be” argument.
The problem here is there are days she can’t do what she needs to do because the battery is too dead - and she frequently can’t just “find a charger” with her work situation. So waking up with a battery that’s only 80% is a high stress factor for her.
She’d probably be fine with the delay getting to 100% if the phone will eventually learn when to get it to 100%, but if it’s actually saying “you don’t need a full battery today”, that feels like user-hostile design to me.
Sounds like Apple’s Optimized Battery routine doesn’t work for her. I’d flip the switch and reduce her stress. The last time I had to replace a battery it took 1 hour and cost me $60. That’s not worth living with a problem
I agree. The frustrating thing is that it doesn’t seem like it’s deliberately undercharging her for the day - just found on Apple’s site:
Your iPhone uses on-device machine learning to learn your daily charging routine so that Optimized Battery Charging activates only when your iPhone predicts it will be connected to a charger for an extended period of time. The algorithm aims to ensure that your iPhone is still fully charged when unplugged.
Is it possible to get her a Qi charger for work? I use one that hold my iPhone up so I can see the screen (like a dock, I guess) and it’s easy to pull it on/off so I don’t have to plug/unplug it all day, so it’s not a hassle.
If not, I’d turn the battery “smarts" off for a month or so. Set yourself a calendar reminder. Turn it back on and see if it learns after a week or so. If not, turn it off and leave it off.