iOS 18 gives your iPhone a super-handy charging feature. Here’s how it works

By Patrick Hearn Published September 17, 2024

The display on the iPhone 16 Pro. — Joe Maring / Digital Trends

Now that iOS 18 is rolling out, we’re finding new features that are even more exciting than some of the larger-scale changes — like a new setting that alerts you if you’re using a slow charger on your iPhone.

If you’re anything like me, you probably have a lot of old charging cables and bricks around the house. You might not realize that some of those are dated and aren’t capable of supporting fast charging, especially if you tend to power your phone up in the evenings while you sleep.

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If you go into the Settings app on iOS 18 and then select Battery, it will alert you when you use a slow charger. It will also be displayed in the battery graph with an orange color rather than the normal green color. It’s not clear how slow a charger has to be before it gets the “slow charger” message, though.

The iPhone 16 supports 25W MagSafe charging, and although Apple didn’t make a big deal about it, the phone was later discovered to support 45W wired charging, too.

You can find another small change in the charging limits, too. Previously, Apple set an 80% charge limit, but more granular options have made an appearance at 85%, 90%, and 95%. Why does it matter? Keeping a battery topped off all the time will reduce its maximum capacity a lot faster than if you set a limit that it doesn’t charge past. Generally, 80% is the suggested limit, but you now have the flexibility to go beyond that without going all the way to 100%.

This might not be the most groundbreaking feature, but it’s a welcome change that will help you charge your phone at its top speed rather than dejectedly waiting for the power to slowly creep up from the charger.

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Patrick has written about tech for more than 15 years and isn't slowing down anytime soon. With previous clients ranging from…

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