iOS 16 beta 5 resurrects the battery percentage display in the iPhone status bar, five years after it disappeared. A setting requested for years, which has always annoyed Apple.
So no one saw that coming. Five years after removing the battery percentage display from the status bar of its iPhones (it was still visible from the control center), Apple quietly resurrected it in a beta version of iOS 16, without the ‘we really know if his plans are good to make him come back definitively this fall.
An anecdotal novelty in appearance, which even makes owners of Android devices laugh, who love to make fun of Apple. Above all, we see a nice illustration of the difficulty that the Californian brand has always had in compromises. The battery percentage has always been one of its Achilles heels, as ridiculous as that sounds.
In 2009, an exclusive iPhone 3GS
In 2007, when the first iPhone was released (we recently re-tested it for its 15th anniversary on Numerama), there was no possibility of knowing its remaining battery percentage, while all competing terminals offered this option . The iPhone 3G, launched in 2008, continues this strange tradition and still does not display its remaining battery percentage.
It was in 2009 that Apple finally woke up, but in a very strange way. An update to iPhone OS (the predecessor of iOS) adds a setting to display the percentage of its battery… but only for the iPhone 3GS, which Apple announces the same year. Never the iPhone v1 and the iPhone 3G were entitled to the percentage of the battery, the option did not appear on them. It was all the more strange that, thanks to the jailbreak, we could make the option appear on all iPhones. Apple deliberately restricted its old devices to make the battery percentage a novelty, with a line of code responsible for preventing the display of the option in the settings of its oldest iPhones.
In 2017, Apple withdraws the option
From 2009 to 2017, the remaining battery percentage has become essential on iPhones, even to the point of becoming an active option by default (we saw it on promotional images, which was not the case at the beginning. Apple does not didn’t like the presence of a number in the status bar). But with the iPhone X and its new notch design, Apple had to make choices. The battery percentage was sacrificed, which had made many users of the brand grumble. Since then, all recent iPhones (XS, XR, 11, 12, 13) have done without this option.
However, with the iPhone 13s, Apple reduced the size of the notch. However, the brand did not decide to use the additional space to bring back the battery display, which was inevitably disappointing. But over time, everyone got used to it. Before August 8, 2022, the release date of iOS 16 beta 5, no one imagined this option returning to the iPhone one day.
2022, the year of return?
In beta 5 of iOS 16, we therefore find this lost setting, with a new interface that is disconcerting to say the least. Forget the battery percentage to the left of the logo, it’s in there now. A detail ? Not really. Since Apple hates imperfect designs, the battery logo is now filled in all the time, even if you only have 30% left. We tend to hate this choice, which gives the impression that we are 100% permanently.
Another very surprising choice, which we hope to see corrected in a future beta, not all iPhones are entitled to it (the remake of the iPhone 3GS gate?). The iPhone X, XS, XS Max, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max, 12, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max, 13, 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max are served, the iPhone XR, 11, 12 mini and 13 mini are deprived of it . An oversight? It seems unlikely to us. The first two have an LCD screen, the last two have a small 5.4-inch OLED screen. It seems to us enough for Apple to discriminate against them, as anecdotal as this setting is.
How to explain that a brand like Apple, as powerful as it is, waited 5 years for such a small function? We can imagine that the future iPhone 14 Pro, which is rumored to say goodbye to the notch, will have enough room at the top for the battery percentage. This novelty may be a sign of anticipation from Apple, which has decided not to make it exclusive to its most expensive smartphone (it would be ridiculous in 2022). Either way, the battery percentage still seems like an issue for Apple. We also remember a bug on macOS with bad estimates, which led Apple to simply remove everything.