Re: If you own an iPhone X or older - you should throw it over the next bridge

badgolferman wrote on Sun, 28 Jul 2024 11:55:12 -0000 (UTC) :

I have an iPhone 14 and the battery health is already down to 87%.  How
many times would someone have to change a battery in an iPhone X to
keep it running this long?

Hi badgolferman,

I understand what you're implying; however I use an iPhone 6 even today and
while it doesn't last long on a battery charge, that's normal for iPhones.

However, to look at your question using a bit of basic arithmetic,
the iPhone 14 was released on September 16, 2022 while the iPhone X was
released in November 3, 2017, which we'll just call a five year difference.

Note there is an important inflection point for batteries according to
Apple, between the iPhone 14 that you have, and the newer iPhone 15 (which
meets new EU battery-lifetime service requirements for 800 cycles/80%).
 <https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575>
 "Batteries of iPhone 14 models and earlier are designed to retain 80
  percent of their original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles
  under ideal conditions. Batteries of iPhone 15 models are designed
  to retain 80 percent of their original capacity at 1000 complete
  charge cycles under ideal conditions."

I tried to look up how many recharge cycles per year an iPhone experiences,
but most articles just tell us what a discharge cycle is - which we know.
 <https://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-tip-find-out-how-many-times-has-your-iphone-battery-been-recharged/>
 "if you start the day with a full battery, and you take it down
  to 50 percent, recharge it, and then take it to 50 percent
  before charging it again, that's one cycle."

 <https://medium.com/tyro-maniac/iphone-battery-cycle-count-in-five-questions-366ed684961d>
 "if you charge a phone to 80% and then take it off the charger and
  use it until it goes down to 79%, a hundred times, that's one cycle.
  So is when you charge your phone to 100% and use it continuously
  until it goes to 0% without charging."

Given all iPhones are designed with laughably puny bargain-basement
batteries compared to most Android devices, the 2% battery efficiency will
never make up for the 100% capacity deficiency (on average), so, due to the
cheap batteries Apple installs, the cheap iPhone battery will *always* fail
sooner than Android (all else being equal) due to iPhone discharge/recharge
cycles always being an order of magnitude (or so) greater than most Android
phones will be (simply due to the laughably puny iPhone battery capacity).

Bear in mind that battery health is more complicated where temperature
plays a role as does how full you charge to, and how empty you discharge
to, and even how quickly you charge (and what type of charging you employ).
 <https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/668885>

However, while the Apple zealots claim Apple isn't subject to physics,
it's almost impossible to overcome a 100% deficiency in battery capacity.
 <https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575>
 "A battery will have lower capacity as the battery chemically ages,
  which might result in fewer hours of usage between charges."

You can't ignore the laws of Physics. A 2% efficiency increase does not
negate a 100% capacity deficiency no matter how many times the uneducated
zealots scream out that the iPhone's laughably puny batteries aren't tiny.
 <https://www.ipitaka.com/blogs/news/the-real-truth-behind-the-life-of-your-smartphone-battery>