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Your statement suggests that you believe that fast charging “damages the unit” - that is incorrect but you are entitled to your opinion, and of course to “slow” charging

That's not how I read that comment, at all.

The alarmist-looking orange iPhone uses to present "slow charging" along with the "i" icon could lead someone to believe that the message was critical, indicating damage.
 
I always use apples 5w charger and never see the slow charge message.

People who aren't a techie shouldn't be forced to use a faster charger just to get rid of this message thinking its not charging probably
 
Yep, got " shamed " too that my charger and usb cable are only providing a slow charge to my iPM15. I am perfectly happy with a partial slow charge every day or every other day. Battery depletion and repeated fast charging with the extra heat it creates does not help battery longevity.

And speaking of iOS18 and battery life. With a delayed install of a few weeks, my phone's first week on iOS18 was absolute hell for battery life. My phone would deplete itself in linear fashion from the moment it was off the charger, till I put it back on it. Literally from 80% charge to the twenties and teens with 1 to 2 hours of use, even at home, on wifi ... with 1 hour of use. Most of it was home and Lock Screen. Just the bare minimum use, really ... compared to the 12-18 hours of advertised life. Removed every widget, turned off pretty much everything that was not turned off yet ... even if it wasn't even listed. Even on 18.1 it was the same thing. Anyhow, after over a week ... finally the phone settled down ... I can only guess that there was some unlisted background process, perhaps chewing through text, photos and videos for some new features / AI type stuff ?
 
Does this show on all iPhones? I have a 14 Pro and haven’t seen the orange bars or the “slow charging” notice (and I’m on IOS 18). I always charge overnight and I’m using a lightning to USB-A cord plugged into a USB-A port on the side of my travel trailer, which is wired to the 12V house batteries. I have a hard time believing that this would be considered anything but slow charging.
 
In iOS 18, Apple has introduced a clever new way to identify if your iPhone charging setup is running at less than optimal speeds. The new feature appears directly in Settings, making it easy to spot when you're not getting the fastest possible charge.
Not falling for it, Apple. No way you're going to trick me into fast charging (which generates more heat than slow charging) and shorten its lifespan and then go to you for a battery replacement or worse, buy a new iPhone.


How charging affects your battery

A battery warms up as it charges, which can reduce its lifespan. To reduce the effect of heat and prevent overheating, iPhone gradually reduces the charging current as the battery approaches full charge.
 
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I have the original MagSafe puck mounted in my car. I believe it charges at 15 watts.

My iPhone 15 Pro Max charges at 1% per minute! That's fast enough for me!

:p
 
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It would be nice if this would also show the actual charging power in watts.

Very true... like the way you can go into System Information on a Mac and see the charging wattage.

I recently bought one of these USB-C power meters. It's been fun testing all my various cables and wall chargers to see how much power is actually going into my devices!


2024-11-122.jpg
 
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The original 5W charger is the best charging method you can use if you want your battery to keep in the best condition. If you care for it. I care for it and I buy new phone every year. I speak from the experience. The best you can do for the battery is if yo don’t use fast chargers and don’t use wireless chargers. Also, don’t charge it above 80%. This is it. If anyone tell you differently it’s a lie or the person don’t know a thing about it.
 
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I prefer slow charging, the phone heats up less and longevity will almost certainly be improved.

I have both fast and slow setups. I use them appropriately, if I am in a hurry I go fast if not, I always use slow.
Agreed. i overnight charge my phones, the old 12W iPad chargers do a great job. and it's still labelled as a slow charger.
 
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I plugged mine into a car charger USB-A but it does not indicate slow charging orange bar…
 
I guess I’m in the minority because I always have a pretty good sense of this. Comes from only using my own kit to charge my devices. And I weeded out USB-A a while ago. Why not just offer to let the user know how long to complete charge on the Lock Screen? No need to dig into the settings for the user then.
 
You can create a Shortcut to achieve exactly that.

I created a Shortcut to switch to low-power mode any time I'm at 50% or less. Works great.
My shortcut is set to 35% and to turn it off after I charge to 70%.

But what does it have to do with overnight asking the phone to only charge at 5W? Are you saying I can set a slow charging shortcut?
 
This article and feature is surprising to me. There used to be a belief that slow (or "trickle") charging is better for the battery. Isn't that still the case? Why is Apple shaming slow charging if it's actually better?
They aren’t shaming slow charging. They are merely surfacing more info to the user to make a better informed decision.
 
It would be nice if iOS displayed the current charging speed (in watts) in the battery section of Settings. It would be a lot easier to make sure 3rd party chargers (and the cables) aren’t lying about their wattage.
 
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I personally don't feel a need to have a graph of the charging speed history, but would only want to know this at the moment I put the phone on the charger. Once I see it's charging as expected, then I just leave it alone.

Is putting this inside Settings really the most effective way to give this information? My Android phones put this status directly on the bottom of the lock screen: "Charging rapidly", "Charging wirelessly", "Charging"
 
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This article and feature is surprising to me. There used to be a belief that slow (or "trickle") charging is better for the battery. Isn't that still the case? Why is Apple shaming slow charging if it's actually better?
Perhaps because they do charge us to replace the battery?
 
I have an old iPhone 13 since launch and have always used MagSafe charging, the 20 watt charger, or even my MBP's charger when I'm in a pinch. My battery health is at 87% and still lasts me all day...after three years without worrying about how I'm charging it. Based on some of the comments here (fast charging = bad; wireless charging = bad), I feel like it should be much worse. Is my experience not the norm?

Now, I don't disagree that slow charging is better for the battery, but just exactly how "bad" is fast/wireless charging? Are people needing to get their battery replaced after a year? Two years? Three years? At that point, it starts becoming a non-issue if you're going to be upgrading your phone within a few years anyway.
 
I wish we could choose between slow and fast charging at a software level.

I mean my charger fills my phone up pretty quick and I have it capped to 80% but I don’t always need it to be charged ASAP.

When I’m driving I know it’s on slow charge but if I’m driving for hours it will still fully charge. Maybe the OS could look at how long my drive is and then adjust the charging so it’s at 80-100% when I reach my destination.

Having a widget or control centre shortcut to select Watts would be nice.
 
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Been currently using a Samsung block charger from a few years ago. I believe it’s around 15W but since it’s connected via USB A I believe it’s being detected and utilized with a slow charge of well below 15w? Or is 15W considered slow ?
 

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