All iPads 2024 iPads and onwards - share your battery health, cycles, and first use screenshots!

[FeliApple]

Since this thread exists for the iPhone 15 (and onwards), I reckon we could have one for all iPads that support this feature going forward. This is intended to be a cycle count and health thread for all iPads that support this feature, so please clarify model and size. As an example: “6th-generation 11-inch iPad Air:”, so that we can have better data. To make it more interesting, include which iOS version is installed.

Mine is woefully uninteresting (for now) on the only iPad with this feature that I have, but I’ll start anyway:

My 7-days-old 11th-gen (A16) iPad, running iPadOS 18.3:

 

[Abazigal]

2024 M4 11” iPad Pro.

 

[It’s always something]

2024 iPad mini 7 (A17 Pro); arrived with iPadOS 18; now on 18.3.2

 

[FeliApple]

2024 M4 11” iPad Pro.

Looks relatively decent! Interestingly, there is a possibility of the decrease stalling after it drops from around 90%.

Even though this is my first iPad with this feature (which works differently when compared to Coconut) my 9.7-inch iPad Pro had 85% after about 400 cycles and three years. About 5.5 years later and almost doubling its cycles to 800 (I got a new iPad in the middle and it was forcibly updated so I didn’t use it as much), battery health (according to Coconut, again) remains at 85%.

With this feature, I will need a few years to reach any conclusions. Hopefully these posts can help me get an idea of how this works on iPads sooner.

 

[Sensamic]

M2 iPad Air after almost a year of use. Still 100%. I use the 80% limit function.

 

[muzzy996]

M2 iPad Air after almost a year of use. Still 100%. I use the 80% limit function.

That's a relatively low cycle count for one year of use compared to the 232 count in the same time period in post 2.

I'm at 100% capacity with 47 cycle counts in 4 months on my mini 7, also with the 80% option enabled.

 

[FeliApple]

That's a relatively low cycle count for one year of use compared to the 232 count in the same time period in post 2.

I'm at 100% capacity with 47 cycle counts in 4 months on my mini 7, also with the 80% option enabled.

Yeah, when my 9.7-inch iPad Pro was on iOS 9 I was cycling it at about 11 cycles/month. The total average dropped after it was forced into iOS 12 and I wasn’t using it as much, but with light use today iPads are a lot better.


I was getting 14 hours of SOT on the 9.7-inch, and the 11th-gen with the same usage seems to extrapolate to 30 (haven’t truly tested it yet).

People have complained about heavy usage battery life on the Air 4 and onwards, but for light use they’re incredible. Web browsing, Netflix, you’ll get a LOT of hours if brightness isn’t at 100%.

Cycling newer iPads with that use is far tougher. That said, 3.5 cycles a month is very low.

I’m not expecting a massive cycle count on the 11th-gen, even if I use it more than the 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

 

[Stonefly]

13 inch M4 iPad Pro

 

[Ungibbed]

11” M4 iPP

 

[NastyMatt]

M4 13” IPP

 

[SYCAMOREGRAD]

 

[SYCAMOREGRAD]

View attachment 2496548

iPad M4, 256gb space black. 13”

 

[Abazigal]

Looks relatively decent! Interestingly, there is a possibility of the decrease stalling after it drops from around 90%.

Even though this is my first iPad with this feature (which works differently when compared to Coconut) my 9.7-inch iPad Pro had 85% after about 400 cycles and three years. About 5.5 years later and almost doubling its cycles to 800 (I got a new iPad in the middle and it was forcibly updated so I didn’t use it as much), battery health (according to Coconut, again) remains at 85%.

With this feature, I will need a few years to reach any conclusions. Hopefully these posts can help me get an idea of how this works on iPads sooner.

Thanks. My first impression is that charging my iPad to 80% does not seem to be doing anything to help preserve the battery health, compared to my previous 2018 11" iPad Pro where I just charged it to 100% every night.

I notice that the iPad seems to drain pretty quickly overall between 80% to 20%. For context, I use my iPad to teach in the classroom. Between using it in class, playing YouTube / stream content while working at my desk and some other light tasks, it's usually around 30% when I get back to my desk at ~1 pm. I then charge it back to 80%, and it ends the day at around 20-40% (depending on how much I use it in the afternoon and at home). A lot of reading, web-browsing and slay the spire.

The overall battery healthy never does dip low enough for Apple to replace it though.

 

[StoneJack]

Since this thread exists for the iPhone 15 (and onwards), I reckon we could have one for all iPads that support this feature going forward. This is intended to be a cycle count and health thread for all iPads that support this feature, so please clarify model and size. As an example: “6th-generation 11-inch iPad Air:”, so that we can have better data. To make it more interesting, include which iOS version is installed.

Mine is woefully uninteresting (for now) on the only iPad with this feature that I have, but I’ll start anyway:

My 7-days-old 11th-gen (A16) iPad, running iPadOS 18.3: View attachment 2495522

Hi i can”t find battery health section in preferences where u get this screenshot?

 

[rui no onna]

Hi i can”t find battery health section in preferences where u get this screenshot?

Only available on 2024 iPads and newer.

 

[ManuCH]

11" M4 iPad Pro

 

[ManuCH]

Thanks. My first impression is that charging my iPad to 80% does not seem to be doing anything to help preserve the battery health, compared to my previous 2018 11" iPad Pro where I just charged it to 100% every night.

I notice that the iPad seems to drain pretty quickly overall between 80% to 20%. For context, I use my iPad to teach in the classroom. Between using it in class, playing YouTube / stream content while working at my desk and some other light tasks, it's usually around 30% when I get back to my desk at ~1 pm. I then charge it back to 80%, and it ends the day at around 20-40% (depending on how much I use it in the afternoon and at home). A lot of reading, web-browsing and slay the spire.

The overall battery healthy never does dip low enough for Apple to replace it though.

If you use it as intensely as you do, and go down to 20% every day, then charge again in between, you're best off letting it go to 100%. It only makes sense to limit it to 80% if you leave it charged without using it for a few days in a row regularly.

 

[FeliApple]

Thanks. My first impression is that charging my iPad to 80% does not seem to be doing anything to help preserve the battery health, compared to my previous 2018 11" iPad Pro where I just charged it to 100% every night.

I notice that the iPad seems to drain pretty quickly overall between 80% to 20%. For context, I use my iPad to teach in the classroom. Between using it in class, playing YouTube / stream content while working at my desk and some other light tasks, it's usually around 30% when I get back to my desk at ~1 pm. I then charge it back to 80%, and it ends the day at around 20-40% (depending on how much I use it in the afternoon and at home). A lot of reading, web-browsing and slay the spire.

The overall battery healthy never does dip low enough for Apple to replace it though.

I think losing 20% of the battery capacity immediately is infinitely worse than any and all health improvements this may bring, honestly.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro I mentioned earlier? I used it plugged in to play games occasionally. It stayed at 100%, plugged in, while gaming, for hours. Throughout 9 years? Many hours. And like I said, it has 800 cycles with 85% capacity. Apple claims 93%.

iPad battery life will be obliterated by iOS updates if you update before battery health ever matters, imo. I would just ignore everything and charge to 100%. Perhaps if you play games whilst plugged in and the iPad gets hot I’d unplug it (I’ve always done that with all iOS devices, avoid heat), but otherwise I just wouldn’t care at all.

After all, you’re trying to preserve battery capacity whilst simultaneously losing 20% capacity immediately. And it isn’t even guaranteed. You have a pretty new M4 iPad Pro, I reckon you could do pretty much anything and battery life would be fine for years, barring heat. If you see the iPad get hot, unplug it. I wouldn’t take any other precautions, really.

I’ve seen people put in 2000 cycles and battery life was fine. I track this and I created the thread because I’m curious and I like these statistics, but battery health is something I won’t care about. I know that if I stay behind and avoid heat I’ll have no issues.

 

[Digitalguy]

If you use it as intensely as you do, and go down to 20% every day, then charge again in between, you're best off letting it go to 100%. It only makes sense to limit it to 80% if you leave it charged without using it for a few days in a row regularly.

I wouldn't go as far as a few days. I think if you use it irregularly, one day a few hours, one day nothing, one day few minutes, etc. and leave it plugged it whenever you don't use it, it's useful to know you always have 80% charge left, especially if that 80% is always enough for the day, which is for me (the only situation where it would not be would be so special that I would know in advance and would just disable the feature temporarily in advance).
I guess an argument for some would be I don't want to plug it every time I don't use (maybe they don't use a Magic Keyboard, but those who use a Magic Keyboard, this is a non issue if you iPad sits on the MK when you don't use it)

 

[Digitalguy]

I think losing 20% of the battery capacity immediately is infinitely worse than any and all health improvements this may bring, honestly.

Infinitely worse if you need 100% in a day or if you find it annoying to plug it in when you don't use it.
In my case neither of those are true, I never need more than 80% in a day and when not in use the iPad sits in a keyboard so it's not like I need to look for a cable to plug it in, it's always there ready and the keyboard rarely moves from my desk, the iPad instead does, I use it mainly without the keyboard, but when not in use it's back there and charging. And if i knew that for instance on a trip etc I would need more than 80% I would disable the feature temporarily. That's what I do with my Thinkpad, but the M4 has so much battery life I never need to do that....
Anyway here are my stats (as a reminder I have several iPads, this is the 13", but I also use the 11" and the mini:

 

[FeliApple]

Infinitely worse if you need 100% in a day or if you find it annoying to plug it in when you don't use it.
In my case neither of those are true, I never need more than 80% in a day and when not in use the iPad sits in a keyboard so it's not like I need to look for a cable to plug it in, it's always there ready and the keyboard rarely moves from my desk, the iPad instead does, I use it mainly without the keyboard, but when not in use it's back there and charging. And if i knew that for instance on a trip etc I would need more than 80% I would disable the feature temporarily. That's what I do with my Thinkpad, but the M4 has so much battery life I never need to do that....
Anyway here are my stats (as a reminder I have several iPads, this is the 13", but I also use the 11" and the mini:
View attachment 2497419

Yeah, I think your use case is different because you use many iPads simultaneously, so battery is less of a concern. That said, I don’t think you ever need to worry about health with those numbers, honestly. 25 cycles in 7 months for a monthly average of 3.57 cycles/month means that battery health will not be an issue for decades, probably.

Since you don’t require the battery life as you have several iPads, any battery concerns practically disappear.

Heavier users than me who update iOS would perhaps feel the difference in terms of battery life (which, if updated, would be impacted by health), but as somebody who updates nothing and has a low cycle count because I am a light user (so battery life is very good), I haven’t seen a single device that has been used by me throughout that would have ever struggled with health. Even my almost 9-year-old 9.7-inch iPad Pro has 800 cycles and 85% health. Barring Apple’s pathetic forced update to iOS 12 which brought about a 25% reduction in battery life, it is like-new. The same thing happens with iPhones: I upgraded my Xʀ on iOS 12, but its final tally as my main iPhone was 359 cycles in 5.5 years and 89% health, like-new battery life.

It does depend on usage patterns, but if you tend to upgrade with relative frequency (I don’t), I don’t think any of this matters. Or if you have a sufficient amount of devices. I have three iPads (but I am practically using the A16 now, as it is the only one updated and I want to take advantage of the limited timeframe I have as an updated iPad), so if you add those together (amazing battery life due to light user + more than one iPad + original iOS version), I literally cannot cycle my iPads enough so as to “inflict” a capacity loss that matters. Frankly, if you distribute your usage among several current or near-current iPads like that, I don’t think you can, either. Do correct me, am I wrong here? Do you have an iPad with a significant amount of cycles so as to see health drop low enough? (Say, 1000 cycles or more?)

 

[Digitalguy]

Yeah, I think your use case is different because you use many iPads simultaneously, so battery is less of a concern. That said, I don’t think you ever need to worry about health with those numbers, honestly. 25 cycles in 7 months for a monthly average of 3.57 cycles/month means that battery health will not be an issue for decades, probably.

Since you don’t require the battery life as you have several iPads, any battery concerns practically disappear.

Heavier users than me who update iOS would perhaps feel the difference in terms of battery life (which, if updated, would be impacted by health), but as somebody who updates nothing and has a low cycle count because I am a light user (so battery life is very good), I haven’t seen a single device that has been used by me throughout that would have ever struggled with health. Even my almost 9-year-old 9.7-inch iPad Pro has 800 cycles and 85% health. Barring Apple’s pathetic forced update to iOS 12 which brought about a 25% reduction in battery life, it is like-new. The same thing happens with iPhones: I upgraded my Xʀ on iOS 12, but its final tally as my main iPhone was 359 cycles in 5.5 years and 89% health, like-new battery life.

It does depend on usage patterns, but if you tend to upgrade with relative frequency (I don’t), I don’t think any of this matters. Or if you have a sufficient amount of devices. I have three iPads (but I am practically using the A16 now, as it is the only one updated and I want to take advantage of the limited timeframe I have as an updated iPad), so if you add those together (amazing battery life due to light user + more than one iPad + original iOS version), I literally cannot cycle my iPads enough so as to “inflict” a capacity loss that matters. Frankly, if you distribute your usage among several current or near-current iPads like that, I don’t think you can, either. Do correct me, am I wrong here? Do you have an iPad with a significant amount of cycles so as to see health drop low enough? (Say, 1000 cycles or more?)

My 11" pro 2018 has 573 cycles. A couple of hundreds of them are just by draining in standby... If I had that feature I would have probably have half the cycles. Health is still 91% beacuse I have babied the battery over the last 4.5 years... I don't need to do that with the M4.... Withou that features I would probably be at 80 cycles now...
I will not update it past iPadOS 17. Not so much because of battery life but because some have mentioned slowdowns of A12X/Z with iPadOS 18.
My M4 is still on 17 but I'll probably updated at some point this year.

My M1 11" 2TB will stay on 15 for many more years, because that's the only way I can keep Windows 11 on that thing. This way I can see if staying on the original OS has benefits. My 12.9" M1 is on 17 but at some point I might update that too.

 

[FeliApple]

My 11" pro 2018 has 573 cycles. A couple of hundreds of them are just by draining in standby... If I had that feature I would have probably have half the cycles. Health is still 91% beacuse I have babied the battery over the last 4.5 years... I don't need to do that with the M4.... Withou that features I would probably be at 80 cycles now...
I will not update it past iPadOS 17. Not so much because of battery life but because some have mentioned slowdowns of A12X/Z with iPadOS 18.
My M4 is still on 17 but I'll probably updated at some point this year.

My M1 11" 2TB will stay on 15 for many more years, because that's the only way I can keep Windows 11 on that thing. This way I can see if staying on the original OS has benefits. My 12.9" M1 is on 17 but at some point I might update that too.

That’s a pretty great stat, honestly! 573 cycles with 91% health in 6.5 years is quite amazing. Sadly, older iPads with a high cycle count were killed by updates (so as to see their impact). And it’s the good-old contradiction: you either update so as to maintain compatibility and battery life plummets as a result (making these stats useless), or you don’t and you have to upgrade (like me) because the device doesn’t do what you want it to do. The solution perhaps is your own! Have enough iPads so as to be able to leave one behind and update others. The drawback is, however, that perhaps a user with those iPads won’t use that older, original iOS version iPad once enough time elapses.

I have seen either one or the other so far. People with interesting cycle counts but with iPads too destroyed by updates for them to be interesting, or iPads that are too new (like your M4 and my 11th-gen) so as to have a relevant cycle count. So if you ask me “how does an iPad unaffected by iOS updates handle a high cycle count?”, I’d have to say “I have no idea” even after being an iPad user for 13 years.

The highest I’ve seen on a good iPad is 800 on a 6th-gen iPad that is still on iOS 12 (it’s a family member’s iPad, and remains on iOS 12 by my recommendation). Health is about 90%, however, and remains unaffected. I tested it twice with a full cycle. Once at the beginning, once relatively recently. The same like-new 14-hour SOT both times. But health is too high and cycle count too low for iOS 12’s efficiency on that model.

Interestingly, had Apple allowed me to keep the 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 9… it would be irrelevant. You and I both know that iOS 9 isn’t really usable today. So cycle count wouldn’t be high enough. That said… I have tested iPhones. A 2000-cycle iPhone 8 on iOS 12 gave like-new battery life. So I believe that for iPads and their massive batteries… there’s no limit if not updated. They’re even unlikely to shut down because the load of the original version is insufficient so as to cause a voltage spike.

What’s the cycle count of your iPadOS 15 M1? Health? Perhaps that one can be interesting eventually if you keep it there! The highest I’ve seen here has been about 2200 cycles on a 10.5-inch iPad Pro, but it was fully updated and battery life was so gone it was completely irrelevant.

 

[Digitalguy]

That’s a pretty great stat, honestly! 573 cycles with 91% health in 6.5 years is quite amazing. Sadly, older iPads with a high cycle count were killed by updates (so as to see their impact). And it’s the good-old contradiction: you either update so as to maintain compatibility and battery life plummets as a result (making these stats useless), or you don’t and you have to upgrade (like me) because the device doesn’t do what you want it to do. The solution perhaps is your own! Have enough iPads so as to be able to leave one behind and update others. The drawback is, however, that perhaps a user with those iPads won’t use that older, original iOS version iPad once enough time elapses.

I have seen either one or the other so far. People with interesting cycle counts but with iPads too destroyed by updates for them to be interesting, or iPads that are too new (like your M4 and my 11th-gen) so as to have a relevant cycle count. So if you ask me “how does an iPad unaffected by iOS updates handle a high cycle count?”, I’d have to say “I have no idea” even after being an iPad user for 13 years.

The highest I’ve seen on a good iPad is 800 on a 6th-gen iPad that is still on iOS 12 (it’s a family member’s iPad, and remains on iOS 12 by my recommendation). Health is about 90%, however, and remains unaffected. I tested it twice with a full cycle. Once at the beginning, once relatively recently. The same like-new 14-hour SOT both times. But health is too high and cycle count too low for iOS 12’s efficiency on that model.

Interestingly, had Apple allowed me to keep the 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 9… it would be irrelevant. You and I both know that iOS 9 isn’t really usable today. So cycle count wouldn’t be high enough. That said… I have tested iPhones. A 2000-cycle iPhone 8 on iOS 12 gave like-new battery life. So I believe that for iPads and their massive batteries… there’s no limit if not updated. They’re even unlikely to shut down because the load of the original version is insufficient so as to cause a voltage spike.

What’s the cycle count of your iPadOS 15 M1? Health? Perhaps that one can be interesting eventually if you keep it there! The highest I’ve seen here has been about 2200 cycles on a 10.5-inch iPad Pro, but it was fully updated and battery life was so gone it was completely irrelevant.

I have an iPad 2 on iOS 9 with 800 cycles and 93% battery health. I have a theory that differs from yours.
Mine is that older versions of iOS (pre-iPadOS) did not impact battery life much, so for instance updating from iOS 6 to iOS 10 made little difference, especially in terms of standby drain. However back then iPads were extremely limited RAM-wise, so those updates destroyed performance.

iPadOS had a sizeable impact on battery life and standby drain. Not all at once but progressively, the more you updated. Today's iPads are much worse than Android tablets in terms of standby, while it used to be the opposite, and I know what I am talking about with 10 iPads and 7 Android tablets of different generations.

Performance is no longer an issue, even with 3-4GB RAM but reloads are. With 6-8GB even reloads are not an issue for now. And performance will never be an issue with M-series.
As for battery life, it's hard to predict.

Having said that, and that's where we differ, the degradation with updates was not linear and the OS of launch theory is not valid in my opinion. The difference between pre-iPadOS and post-iPadOS is massive, but over the past few OS versions, it's not big. It's there, but not massive. Could things change? For the worse? Sure. For the better? Possible but unlikely.

My strategy is staying always at least 1 OS generation behind to get feedback. And to avoid some updates completely, especially at the end of the life cycle if they are known to impact performance. I am not too worried about updates impacting battery life (read, essentially standby time, I don't care about screen on time since I don't drain my iPads completely and regularly charge them and have many), it's already bad enough like it is, so there is little to lose.

As for my 2TB M1, it's mainly sits in a drawer off. Why? Because my 1TB 2018 does everything I need. I only use it when I need windows too. And sure, at some point in the future it may replace my 2018, but for now it stays off at 50%, losing hardly any battery heath, still at around 103-104%.

So why did I buy it? Because I found 1 new for $800, and that's the only way to run Windows on iPad today (having a non updated M1, ideally with 16GB RAM, because Apple removed hypervisor from iPadOS 16.3).

 

[FeliApple]

I have an iPad 2 on iOS 9 with 800 cycles and 93% battery health. I have a theory that differs from yours.
Mine is that older versions of iOS (pre-iPadOS) did not impact battery life much, so for instance updating from iOS 6 to iOS 10 made little difference, especially in terms of standby drain. However back then iPads were extremely limited RAM-wise, so those updates destroyed performance.

iPadOS had a sizeable impact on battery life and standby drain. Not all at once but progressively, the more you updated. Today's iPads are much worse than Android tablets in terms of standby, while it used to be the opposite, and I know what I am talking about with 10 iPads and 7 Android tablets of different generations.

Performance is no longer an issue, even with 3-4GB RAM but reloads are. With 6-8GB even reloads are not an issue for now. And performance will never be an issue with M-series.
As for battery life, it's hard to predict.

Having said that, and that's where we differ, the degradation with updates was not linear and the OS of launch theory is not valid in my opinion. The difference between pre-iPadOS and post-iPadOS is massive, but over the past few OS versions, it's not big. It's there, but not massive. Could things change? For the worse? Sure. For the better? Possible but unlikely.

My strategy is staying always at least 1 OS generation behind to get feedback. And to avoid some updates completely, especially at the end of the life cycle if they are known to impact performance. I am not too worried about updates impacting battery life (read, essentially standby time, I don't care about screen on time since I don't drain my iPads completely and regularly charge them and have many), it's already bad enough like it is, so there is little to lose.

As for my 2TB M1, it's mainly sits in a drawer off. Why? Because my 1TB 2018 does everything I need. I only use it when I need windows too. And sure, at some point in the future it may replace my 2018, but for now it stays off at 50%, losing hardly any battery heath, still at around 103-104%.

So why did I buy it? Because I found 1 new for $800, and that's the only way to run Windows on iPad today (having a non updated M1, ideally with 16GB RAM, because Apple removed hypervisor from iPadOS 16.3).

No, I agree: 32-bit iPads maintained practically (not completely, but almost) like-new battery life through all iOS updates, but like you said, they obliterated performance to the point of uselessness. Future iOS updates, up to a point, reverted it: performance is significantly better than it was back then, but they killed battery life (see early 64-bit iPads significantly or fully updated).

The interesting aspect about standby… is that it sucks on original iOS versions, too! This started on iOS 12 (or 11, not sure because I never used it on iPhones) and iPadOS 13 on iPads. My iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12? Poor standby battery life. My Air 5 on iPadOS 15? Poor, too! This is updates-agnostic, sadly. It was iPadOS on iPads, though, because my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 has great standby battery life.

Agreed in terms of performance with newer iPads. The issue today is battery life. And perhaps for some newer models it’s not an issue yet, but it will be in the future… which goes back to the thread itself: cycling an iPad so as to make it interesting is hard. You need to have an iOS version that doesn’t kill battery life (not necessarily the original, you can push a little), you need to be a heavy enough user so as to put in more than 1000 cycles, and you either need multiple iPads or you need to do it fast enough before compatibility is gone. Tough, especially with a good iOS version.

My highest monthly average on an original version iPad is 11 cycles/month, which is nowhere near enough. And that average plummeted afterwards. Because even if (and I agree for some models) battery life isn’t an issue now, it will likely be in the future (keep in mind that support has skyrocketed, iPads were supported through fewer major versions), which kills any interesting health-to-cycles-to-SOT number. Tracking a device that has been killed by iOS updates is not interesting to me. For me, they have no value. My 9.7-inch iPad Pro has no longevity value (or very little). Non-updated iPads lose usability (and therefore, relevance) once they get too old so as to use them on their original iOS version. What can you do with an Air 2 on iOS 8? Well… not much.

Only the heaviest users can make that number interesting in five years. I’m talking gaming at high brightness and things like that, throughout the whole lifecycle. Otherwise they end up with 700-800 cycles, and I know that’s not enough to cause any impact on original iOS versions.

With so many iPads I think that for you battery in general is irrelevant. Like you said, you don’t need SOT and standby battery life is already poor on original iOS versions (I can confirm that, like I said).

If you’re not using the iPadOS 15 iPad, then it’ll never get to that point. And in my humble opinion, it’s the most relevant iPad, as it will remain on its original iOS version, but it will never be used enough so as to get to a high number.