Your iPhone 15 Can Show the Time When It's Out of Battery in iOS 18

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.

Generic iOS 18 Feature Real Mock
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.

ios 18 iphone time off
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.

Related Roundups: iOS 18, iPadOS 18
Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

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Top Rated Comments

augustrushrox Avatar
10 months ago
The "limiting factor" is very clearly Apple's arrogance...
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
10 months ago
But can it show the battery when it's out of time?
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GrayFlannel Avatar
10 months ago

You should never let your iPhone completely run out of battery.
Nor should you let your car run out of gas or checking account reach a zero balance or forget to pick up your smoking jacket from the cleaners.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
10 months ago

Why is time still so small. Make this info...time, date, %battery,...BIG...BIGGER...BIGGER
I agree, iOS is really lacking big time.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
anshuvorty Avatar
10 months ago
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)
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sw1tcher Avatar
10 months ago

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? ?‍♂️
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)