The iPhone has had a Power Reserve function that holds back a small amount of battery life to allow features like Find My and NFC unlocking to work even when your device has died, and in iOS 18, Apple seems to be improving the feature further for the iPhone 15 models.
As demonstrated on Reddit, when the battery on an iPhone running iOS 18 is exhausted, the phone can continue to show the time in the upper left corner of the device, which is a small but useful upgrade. The battery icon still shows up, and you'll see "iPhone is Findable" while reserve battery is left.
It appears that this feature is limited to the iPhone 15 models. We tested on an iPhone 14 Pro Max and were not ale to get the time to show up, but it did work as expected with an iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Power Reserve has been a feature on iPhones dating back to the iPhone XR and iPhone XS, so it's not clear what the limiting factor is in terms of showing the time on display when the battery has drained on older devices.
Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year.
Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital."
In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by Juli Clover
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag.
Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
Tuesday December 17, 2024 6:25 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Monday seeded the first tvOS 18.3 beta to developers for testing. The update will likely be released in January. So far, there are only minor changes for the Apple TV, with one new feature and a few code changes discovered.
Below, we outline what is new in tvOS 18.3 so far.
Robot Vacuum Support in Home App
First, tvOS 18.3 will add robot vacuum support to the Home app on the...
Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by Juli Clover
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro.
The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie.
The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...
Because iPhone sales have been slowing down and people are keeping their iPhones longer and longer, Apple is becoming more and more aggressive in creating artificial restrictions to get users to upgrade - this is a classic example. The author even pointed this out in their article - "Power Reserve has been a feature on iPhones dating back to the iPhone XR and iPhone XS, so it's not clear what the limiting factor is in terms of showing the time on display when the battery has drained on older devices."
If you want further proof, look no further than these examples:
* Adaptive Charging limit ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/12/ios-18-charging-limit-recommendations/') * Additional charging limit options ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/ios-18-introduces-more-charging-limits/') * Apple Intelligence compatibility is restricted to iPhone 15 Pro and later (however, this also could be due to the increased RAM that are in these devices)
Because iPhone sales have been slowing down and people are keeping their iPhones longer and longer, Apple is becoming more and more aggressive in creating artificial restrictions to get users to upgrade - this is a classic example. The author even pointed this out in their article - "Power Reserve has been a feature on iPhones dating back to the iPhone XR and iPhone XS, so it's not clear what the limiting factor is in terms of showing the time on display when the battery has drained on older devices."
If you want further proof, look no further than these examples:
* Adaptive Charging limit ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/12/ios-18-charging-limit-recommendations/') * Additional charging limit options ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/ios-18-introduces-more-charging-limits/') * Apple Intelligence compatibility is restricted to iPhone 15 Pro and later (however, this also could be due to the increased RAM that are in these devices)
Maybe the reason none of the prior iPhone models have this exclusive to iPhone 15 series feature is because none of them have [s]A16 chip[/s] [s]6GB RAM[/s] [s]Dynamic Island[/s] USB-C port that's needed to enable the feature? ?♂️