iphone 12 pro max battery health degrading

I had my iPhone 12 Pro battery replaced (paid for it) because it was 10 months old and already at 88%. I wasn't the number that made me do it. It was the fact that the phone would be at 44% charge by 1PM if I start my day ate 6AM. That is unacceptable for me with a phone this young. Also, I'm going on a trip soon and want a phone that I don't have to find an outlet for midday.

The Apple Store Genius, who was helpful, even copped to the fact that the 12 series was having poor battery performance and tried to suggest ways for me to use less battery to minimize the effects. He also tried to suggest I wait until new phones come out and get one of them. That I'm not doing since the 12 Pro is full paid for. I'll wait until next year when the battery will be sucking again to upgrade. But, nice try Apple guy.

You can't directly compare Battery Health results between two different models of iPhone, as newer phones have more advanced battery health reporting mechanisms.

I've mentioned this before but if you have a car with a sticky fuel gauge where the fuel drops from full to 3/4 full instantly, that doesn't mean it's using less gas than one with a more accurate gauge that shows fuel level dropping linearly from full to 3/4.

I have an iPhone 11 Pro, my work phone, which I got near launch date in 2019 and its battery health is 100%. I got an iPhone 12 Pro in early December 2020 and its battery health is 96%. My spouse's iPhone 12 Pro, received a week after mine, is at 99%. A couple of months ago, mine was at 99% and hers was at 100% She plugs hers into her car on her commutes to work--I do not. She uses her phone to watch videos, etc. far more than I do.

Having said all of that, I've noticed a couple of times on my phone, that it runs warmer than it should and despite killing all of the apps, rebooting it is the only way to fully stop it. My spouse and I have the same cases on our phones and use the same type of chargers and cables. My phone is blue and hers is gold. My work phone uses the same type of cables and an Apple charger and was recently plugged in and had a very old Apple charger start frying up on it--battery health is still at 100%.

I am well aware that batteries lose their capacity over time. But this is ridiculous. The iPhone 8 that I had prior to the iPhone 12 still had 100% battery health after a year with the exact same type of usage, case, chargers, and cables.

There is obviously an issue.

You know so much that you can tell me about my own personal experience with the phone over the last 10 months. Amazing!

Or, that the Apple Genius that I engaged copped to the fact that more than a few people have come into the store complaining about battery life problems with the 12 series. But, they won’t replace until Max is 80% even though the customer is dissatisfied. Astounding!

It was corrected in iOS 14.5 and there are incidents where people's battery health *increased* after the recalibration. That still does NOT explain why my iPhone 11, which is coming up on 2 years old, is still sitting at 100%, NEVER dropped below 100% and was recalibrated versus 9 month old iPhone 12 sitting at 96%. Every iPhone I've had has never dropped below 100% before the first year and I've had 2 iPhones--1 for work, 1 for personal since the iPhone 4s.

Because older batteries had different health reporting mechanisms.

Odds are you will instead see a larger drop with your iPhone 11 than the single percentage drops you may see on the 12.

It also depends how you use your iPhone 11.

In either case it literally does not make any difference whatsoever until your health reaches 80%.

These are not isolated events. It's happening to a lot of us.

I've been an Apple user since September of 1987, developer since Summer of 1988. I've owned A LOT of Apple Products. Most good (loved my Mac IIci and iMac DV). Some bad (Powerbook 5300 being one of the worst). I applaud Apple for the good and speak out about the bad when needed.

I've owned many iPhones since the 3G was released in 2008. I am an iOS App Developer. Have been for 12 years now. Usually upgrade to a new phone every year or so. And, I can honestly say that the iPhone 12 series has the WORST battery performance / life expectancy of any iPhone model I have owned. By month 9, I've had to charge to phone by mid-day (lunch) in order to make it through the evening. Not even a year old and the phone wouldn't last all day on an overnight charge. Not acceptable for a $1000+ device.

Don't believe the 3 or so people in these forums that keep chanting their "it's normal" mantra. Does this "feel" normal to you? It certainly didn't to me. That's why I wound up here in the forums in the first place. I only come here when I have a real problem (hence my low user post points). But, trust me, all you will be confronted with here is denial of the problem.

Evidently, iPhone 12 Pro Max battery indicator is just as inaccurate as previous generations. My friend’s Pro Max stuck at 100% battery heathy for first 6 months then rapidly dropped to 90% in just 1 month. While my own iPhone dropped to 89% in first 3 months but stuck at 89% for next 5 months then started to fell rapidly to 85% at which point Apple replaced my phone.

The battery on the iPhone 12 series is really poor.

I’ve carried out 33 cycles on on iPhone 12 and I’m down to 98% and yet Apple suggest that you should get 500 cycles by the time you reach 80%, which equates to 25 cycles per 1% drop in capacity and yet mine is 16.5 cycles per 1%.

this is exceptionally disappointing from a very expensive product - I would expect far, far better from Apple!

There is nothing anyone other user in this user-to-user forum can do to help you. It isn’t even certain you need help. If it has been more than 10 months since the phone was new then 90% is where it is expected to be. The average user’s iPhone will lose about 1% of capacity a month.

Yeah, exactly. I don't have a 12 pro max, but I have a 12 and I had to make a whole schedule for the battery to be able to last all day. My capacity is at 93% now, and I talked to Apple Support and they said it's fine, but I don't think it is. It stayed at 100 for 4 and a half months, then 99 for like 3 and a half, and after that, it went down to 93% really quickly, only in like 2 and a half months. I know it's not linear, but that's not normal considering the fact that I never let it go below 50% before recharging it. The average for losing 1% is 10 days, and that's definitely NOT 25 charge cycles if I only charge my phone up 40-45% a day (that makes 1 cycle in about 3 days). My old iPhone 7 was 88% after a year of usage, and it stayed 88% for more than a year! I drained it sooo much more and used it sooo much more than my iPhone 12. So for those saying that this is normal, NO, it is NOT.

rainypip wrote:

I’m having a similar issue.

Everybody has a battery that is degrading. That’s the nature of all batteries. They get old, and they fail.

Links to battery care instructions that can help slow the inevitable and inexorable decline have been linked here previously.

Otherwise, use your iPhone for what you bought it for and not as an expensive and somewhat problematic battery gage.

If your iPhone drops below 80% and you find yourself needing an additional charge during your normal usage, then battery replacement can be an option.

And once the battery is replaced, the new battery will commence its own march toward its eventual recycling.

For what it's worth, my 12 Pro Max 256's battery is at 100% after a year of use. Never charged it wirelessly, because of heat degrading the battery, and rarely to 100%. Daily battery drain is some 40-50%, on average.

crystal_star wrote:

Yes, will do. Does the capacity show anything related to that? And also, one strange thing that happened today, and I’m really worried about it because it’s the second bad sign with my phone that’s happened this week.

so why did it drop from 60 to 59 in FIVE SECONDS?!

Because it wasn’t at 60%, it was at 59.5%, which rounds to 60%, and it dropped 0.1% to 59.4%, which rounds to 59%. And when you plugged it in the phone first had to negotiate the correct charging voltage and current with the power source, which both uses energy and takes a couple of seconds.

But why are you charging at 60%? That makes no logical or technical sense. You should be ignoring the battery and just enjoy using the phone unless it drops to 20%, which the phone will warn you about; that’s when you should consider charging it soon (not even immediately). And stop obsessing over the battery. You have a smartphone, not a $1,000 battery monitor.

Stop guessing, and stop obsessing about the battery and just enjoy using the phone. You are really overthinking this. In the first few hours after an update there is sometimes some “housekeeping” that needs to be done to reindex the databases on the phone. So you really can’t get a meaningful reading on battery performance until that completes. Leaving the phone plugged in overnight usually lets it finish, and is a good thing to do anyway.

On your watch, unless you are using it for sleep monitoring, leave it on its charger overnight also. And if you do sleep wearing it charge it fully in the morning, which should only take an hour.