The average iPhone battery has been designed to last 500 charging cycles. However, by the end of these cycles, it will only be able to hold 80% of its full charge. If you don’t keep your battery protected, this percentage could even go lower.
Many unhealthy habits, such as overcharging, draining, or overusing your phone may cause damage to your iPhone’s battery. Thus, it’s important to take additional precautions to keep your phone battery healthy and safe. Below, we’ll discuss a few common ways people damage their iPhone batteries.
4 Ways You’re Damaging Your iPhone Battery
1. Overcharging
Most smartphones are built with lithium-ion batteries. Though powerful, they tend to chemically degrade over time, which limits their ability to hold a charge. As such, older phones tend to drain their batteries faster than newer phones.
Overcharging your phone can speed up the process of chemical degradation. When too much electricity travels through the battery, it creates unstable conditions, such as increased pressure and thermal runaway.
Fortunately, the iPhone comes with built-in features that can minimize the effects of overcharging. On iOS13, there’s a function under Battery Health settings called “Optimized Battery Charging.” Optimized Battery Charging uses machine learning to analyze your charging habits. When the software predicts that you might charge your phone for an extended period of time, it can delay charging your phone past 80%. This thus reduces the likelihood of chemical degradation.
2. Draining
Just like overcharging, draining your phone can also cause harmful chemical reactions in the lithium-ion battery, limiting its ability to hold a charge. The more often you drain your battery to low percentages, the weaker your battery will become. In other words, phones that die often will die faster.
Deeper discharges put more stress on the battery. That’s why your iPhone notifies you when your battery is at 20%. Draining your battery past that will inflict more damage. If you want to keep your battery protected, always recharge it before it reaches 20%.
3. Force Closing Apps
Many people are under the mistaken impression that having too many apps open in the background can drain your battery. However, officials at Apple have busted this myth. The iPhone’s internal components, more specially its circuit board, have enough power integrity to run complex features, such as multitasking. Under iOS, open apps that aren’t being used go into a frozen state. This ensures that unused apps don’t consume any resources, thus keeping the battery safe.
When you close your apps and relaunch them again immediately, that’s when you cause damage to your battery. This is because it takes more of the phone’s resources to fully restart an app. And this doesn’t just drain your battery; it also slows down your phone. Thus, to save battery, be intentional about when you open and close your apps. Don’t close an app if you know you’re going to end up using it again soon.
4. Charging with Poor Quality Cords
Official Apple iPhone chargers tend to be pricier than third-party accessories. Part of this is because they need to allocate money toward ensuring that their products are safe. When you use a poor-quality charger from an unauthorized seller, you don’t get that same guarantee. Oftentimes, third-party chargers deliver more juice than what your iPhone actually needs. And as previously established, that excess charge can cause harmful chemical reactions in the lithium-ion battery.
The same goes for damaged iPhone cords. If your iPhone charger has worn or frayed wires, it may send negative charges to your iPhone battery, effectively damaging it. To keep your battery safe, only use chargers that are approved by Apple and in good condition.
Smartphones have become an integral part of daily life. They allow people to communicate, access the web and use a multitude of apps to help them with day-to-day life. If you want your iPhone to stay functional for a long time, it’s best to avoid habits that damage its battery health.
