The new battery percentage in iOS 16.
A new beta release has just brought back a feature that vanished from Face ID iPhones in 2017. That was when the option to show the battery percentage onscreen was withdrawn from the iPhone X, though it remained on the other phones released at the same time, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Now, it’s back, even for phones with a cut-out at the top of the screen.
August 10 update below. This post was first published on August 9, 2022.
Oh boy, this update makes me happy. Read on for the details, and which iPhones will get it (spoiler: it’s not all of them).
August 10 update. Although it’s only been announced for a matter of hours, the new battery percentage indicator on the iPhone home screen has been causing waves.
Many have been saying it’s not well-implemented, with Jose Adorno at 9to5Mac pointing out that until the charge drops to 20%, the white background to the battery icon does not change, only the figure inside it. This could lead to people glancing too quickly and seeing a full white cell thinking they have more charge than they do.
I get this, but I think a battery icon with white and black sections to match the charge level would look messy and be hard to read—would it mean the digits would have to be part-black, part-white, for instance?
As you’ll see below, not every Face ID iPhone gets this option. It’s pretty clear that the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini probably don’t have enough space to show the new battery icon.
But there have been interesting comments about the other two iPhones missing this capability, the iPhone XR and iPhone 11. They’re big enough, of course, so there must be another reason. What they have in common is that they are iPhones with LCD, not OLED, displays. The gifted 3D artist Ian Zelbo had an interesting take on this. First of all, he commented on the animation that changed from the new battery-containing-digits to the old battery and adjacent percentage that appears in the Control Center.
Then, he gave the reason there’s no option for the new design on the iPhone XR and iPhone 11. “Pixel density isn’t high enough, I assume.” I think he’s right. After all, those phones have resolution of 326 pixels per inch (ppi), while the OLED-screened iPhones have 458ppi or more.
There’s no way Apple would have introduced something like this if it felt the screen made it illegible.
Other commenters point out that the iPad hasn’t been offered a new battery icon to make the design match. That’s true, but then there’s plenty of screen real estate on the iPad, and no notch, so there’s never been a need to elide the percentage from the screen.
There’s still quite a lot of time before iOS 16 goes to general release, even if the next iPhones are coming sooner than expected. So, Apple may tweak things in the coming weeks.
Why the problem?
The issue arose because the True Depth Camera System which sits at the top of every iPhone with Face ID, and is commonly referred to as the notch, meant there just wasn’t room to display the battery icon and the percentage of battery charge in figures adjacent to it.
If you like to see this detail, and I do, with current software you have to swipe down from the top right corner of the screen to show it.
What did other manufacturers do?
As other phones adopted notches or peephole cut-outs, lots of companies had to address this issue. Many ignored it while some, such as Huawei, put the percentage figure inside the battery icon.
What’s Apple’s solution?
It’s gone for a similar look: instead of showing a white battery icon which depletes to black as the day goes on, in iOS 16 the battery icon stays white completely. It’s a noticeably different shape now, stubby and stout. This extra thickness gives the space for the percentage figure to appear on the battery background and to be clear and legible.
Battery percentage on iPhone 13 in iOS 16.
Is it better?
Oh yes, if you ask me, it’s leagues ahead. But I’d have to say it’s not quite perfect yet. The percentage figure is not black out of white, which would be supremely easy to read, but transparent. This means that on a home screen such as the delicious clownfish photo, the green background isn’t quite as clear.
This is down to Apple’s incredible subtlety of design, but I’d argue that it would be even better if it were less detailed and the percentage figure were black.
The color changes according to status, so it glows green when charging, for instance.
iPhone battery percentage in translucent lettering.
When can I get it?
If you have the right iPhone, it’ll come to the next iOS 16 public beta, it looks like. You go to Settings, Battery and then toggle on Battery Percentage.
Hold on, the right iPhone?
That’s right, Of course, it has to be a phone that’s compatible with iOS 16, but as that’s every Face ID iPhone, that’s not the issue. But it seems it is only available on certain iPhones. These seem to be space-dependent. So, it’s there on the iPhone X, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, but not the iPhone XR. The iPhone 11 has the same screen size as the XR so that may be why it’s not on that phone, or it could be down to the fact that XR and 11 have LCD instead of OLED screens.
It must be space that decides it on the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, however, as all the phones in these series have it apart from the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini.
Since there’s no mini option expected for iPhone 14, it seems certain it will be on all the new iPhones released this fall.
