With the recent release of iOS 11.3, Apple has added a new feature to the Battery settings called “Battery Health”. Tapping it will give a numerical value of your batteries condition. It also tells you if the battery is supporting peak performance capability or is actually operating in reduced performance mode.
This feature came about after some backlash last year about Apple deliberately slowing down iPhones as they got older. People, assuming the worse, figured they were doing this to make people buy new phones. Apple released an official statement which basically says that yes, they do slow down phones when the battery starts getting old and losing charge (like all batteries do). This is to make iOS runs reliably so it doesn’t start crashing unexpectedly and give an overall bad user experience.
So now you have a way of checking the status of your battery and seeing whether it is operating in the reduced performance mode. Along with that though, Apple are currently offering heavily discounted battery replacements. If you follow the steps below and find out that your battery is operating at reduced levels and your phone has switched to reduced performance mode I’d highly recommend getting into contact with Apple and getting the battery replaced while it is cheap.
Even if you are thinking of replacing the phone soon, get the battery fixed and try to sell the phone. I’ve always found the second hand iPhone market to be really good.
Enough chatter, heres how you find the new battery status!
Settings -> Battery -> Battery Health (Beta)
You’ll see a screen like below showing the Maximum Capacity of your battery and also an indication of what performance mode it is operating in. My iPhone 7+ is still fine.
Any questions just let me know. Always happy to help!