Home Forums Peripherals & Multimedia iTunes, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV Terminology

Life in a Computer Engineering environment is all too often complicated by the use of terminology that has different meanings in different disciplines. For example. BATTERY LIFE: has always had at least two meanings...

1. For Apple's marketing department and the average consumer, it most often means how many hours of YouTube videos can I stream on a single battery charge, which is easily discernible by the average consumer.
2. For Apple's engineering department and the power user it more often refers to how many charge/discharge cycles before I have to replace the battery, which is almost always incomprehensible to the lay user.

But Apple's engineering department is sneaky and persistent. IOS 16.0x added a charging optimization feature that monitors the pattern of use and conserves battery longevity by timing the charging so that it reaches full charge shortly before the normal "wakeup" time. Now, Watch OS 10 carries that one step further and limits charging to 80% of capacity (the magic charging level used by EVs for maximizing battery longevity). This can be overridden on a day-by-day basis, but it is otherwise the default. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so look for this to appear in future versions of iOS and macOS.

My guess is Apple will eventually implement the feature across the board as the default option and not say anything about it, thereby making both the marketing and engineering departments happy and the average consumer remains blithely ignorant of the difference.

That sounds at least in part like Optimized Battery Charging which has been a macOS feature for quite a while.

Our iPads and iPhones are all 16.6 and, for quite a while, I have noticed optimized charging on the iPhones but not the iPads. I assumed that was because the iPhones capacities are much more reduced than the iPads, and they do always charge to 100%.

Agreed! IMHO, it is a subtle, but significant, change in Apple's Optimized Battery Charging philosophy. The previous Optimized Battery Charging still charges to a 100% level, but minimizes the time spent at that charge level. The Watch 10 version, will rarely, if ever, reach 100% charge. As an EV owner, I am probably more cognizant of the difference than the typical Apple user. As far as I know, my EV (a VW ID.4 Pro S) has never been charged 100% and unless I am on a really long trip in an area with few or no recharging stations it probably never will be. (EV battery packs are NOT cheap!) The difference is, I will upgrade my Apple devices far more often than my EV.


This also raises whether to leave a MacBook plugged in all the time. Logically, it would appear plugging it in only long enough to charge would be the best strategy for maximizing battery longevity. Alternatively (prefereably?), this would seem to be a good feature to include in macOS for laptops, and iPadOS. (NOTE: it may be included in Sonoma, but I cannot see it because I am not on a laptop? If it is in iPadOS 17, I haven't found it It would seem logical that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.)

A "bonus" to the optimized charging feature is that some wireless charging pads that can charge the appropriate iPhones will not work with those iPhones. The manufacturer of one such charging pad told me I would need to turn off optimized charging to allow the pad to work properly, or at all.

My MBP is plugged in 100% of the time, and although both Apple and Battery University addressed the situation once upon a time, both have made believe it isn't there for quite a few years now. (I've asked a few AppleCare techs about it, and they've all told me what they do/would do, but have gone silent when asked what Apple says to do.)

Over the years, I went through all sorts of contortions, knowing that none of them was the correct one, until AlDente came along, at which point I decided that Apple's guidance for long term storage, i.e., keeping my battery at 50% seemed like the most logical solution to the problem. I'm using the free version of an old version of AD - 1.19.2 - because I had a problem with a couple of updates, so I can't vouch for the current version, but I imagine it does its basic job, i.e., keeping my battery close to 50%, perfectly, as does mine.

That assumes an equivalence that's lost on some people.

I am curious. I have encountered MagSafe© charging Pads that lacked sufficient magnetic strength to hold the iPhone in correct position to achieve the higher charging rate, but never one that did not work at all. By any chance, was the charging pad in question one that automatically switches between normal and fast charging modes but is not magnetic?

This was a flat charging mat by Mophie. The description does not say anything about switching between normal and fast modes.

Interesting I use a Morphie MagSafe© charging stand, purchased from Apple, and it works perfectly with Optimized charging enabled. But MagSafe© is an Apple developed variant on the Qi standard, so that may be the difference. I would not have expected there to be any difference.

Good observation. The charging mat says it can be used regardless of phone brand as long as it is Qi compatible. The other Mophie products say MagSafe©, so therein lies the difference and I guess optimized charging is affected on the former.