What makes the iPhone battery maximum capacity drops to 98% ?

I used my phone to play some games but mostly WhatsApp and work stuff like calls and what could possibly drops the level of my battery to 98% after such kind of use? What to do to prevent it from dropping down and keep the battery health in a good condition always ?!

iPhone 12 Pro Max, iOS 14

Posted on Aug 19, 2021 1:13 PM

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Posted on Aug 19, 2021 1:22 PM

98% after 8 months is truly outstanding battery performance. Most phones would be around 92% after 8 months. Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles” ( some will be a little more, others a little less). As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.


The absolute best way to slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 19, 2021 1:22 PM in response to QKhaled

98% after 8 months is truly outstanding battery performance. Most phones would be around 92% after 8 months. Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles” ( some will be a little more, others a little less). As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.


The absolute best way to slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates.

Aug 19, 2021 1:19 PM in response to QKhaled

You cannot do anything. As batteries do age overtime, the overall health will drop overtime.


Tl;dr If the battery health is more than 80% then you have nothing to worry about it.


Maximum battery capacity measures the device battery capacity relative to when it was new. A battery will have lower capacity as the battery chemically ages which may result in fewer hours of usage between charges. Depending upon the length of time between when the iPhone was made and when it is activated, your battery capacity may show as slightly less than 100%.

A normal battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles when operating under normal conditions. The one-year warranty includes service coverage for a defective battery. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers battery service for a charge. Learn more about charge cycles.


Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387 (iPhone Battery and Performance)

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What makes the iPhone battery maximum capacity drops to 98% ?

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