iOS 11.3 has entered its second developer beta and it appears that the new version of the operating system will add battery health information and management feature to iOS 11.3 in response to customer complaints about the way the company fixed an issue where iPhones with degrading batteries were experiencing unexpected device crashes. The crashes were caused by the processor trying to draw more power than the battery could provide, so Apple spread those intensive tasks over multiple processor cycles. The end result was slower iPhones, which many people interpreted as Apple intentionally hobbling performance to force new phone purchases.
To see the new battery information in iOS 11.3 go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health. This is where you’ll see your iPhone battery’s maximum capacity (100% when your battery is new). As your battery ages and loses the ability to hold the same charge it did when new you’ll see the percentage drop. That’s showing how much your current full charge capacity is in relation to when the battery was new.
If your battery is wearing out and can’t provide that power level any more you’ll see the following message:
“This iPhone has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to deliver the necessary peak power. Performance management has been applied to prevent this from happening again.”
As noted in the beta, iPhone battery performance management is off by default, but will activate automatically if your iPhone crashes due to a degrading battery. The feature can be disabled at any time as you see fit if you’re willing to sacrifice device crashes for faster performance.
You can disable battery performance management on your iPhone by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health. Now look for the message under Peak Performance Capability letting you know performance management is active. Tap Disable to turn performance management off.
The performance management feature will remain disabled until you reactivate it again.
iOS 11.3 is expected to be released as a free update this spring.
If you’d like to experiment with the developer or public beta versions, you can sign up for free at developer.apple.com or beta.apple.com, respectively.
Via The Mac Observer