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iPhone batteries don't appear to fully charge: faulty indicators and faulty batteries

Some iPhones have faulty battery indicators, some have faulty batteries.

CNET staff

We previously reported on an issue where the iPhone's battery appears to never fully charge, as the battery status indicator (located on the upper-right portion of the screen) never changes from the lightning bolt icon to a plug icon. At the time we noted that the issue may simply be a display bug, where the battery is actually fully charged, but the indicator simply does not register as such; this was speculation based on the fact that one of our in-house iPhones that appears to never fully charge has seemingly normal battery life and does not exhibit other power problems.

Several readers have since written in regarding this issue, and the following appears to be true: most iPhones that never display a plug icon appear to simply have inaccurate indicators: the batteries are not defective and are fully charging and, but never reveal it. However, some iPhones (it's impossible to tell how widespread the issue is at this point) actually do have defective batteries that do not hold a full charge and hence deliver an abnormally short battery life-span. In the latter case, Apple will generally provide replacement.

Read more at iPhone Atlas

Resources

  • Read more at iPhone Atlas