What does "Battery Cycle Count - 3" mean on iPhone?

That’s a new feature in iOS 17.4 on the iPhone 15 series only. An iPhone battery is guaranteed to stay above 80% maximum capacity for at least 500 “full charge cycles”. That works out to about 1% loss of capacity for every 25 full charge cycles. So if your battery cycle count is 3 that means 3 full charge cycles.

A full charge cycle is 0-100%, or any combination that adds up to 100%, such as 50% to 100% twice, 25% to 50% four times, etc. 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.

Can you elaborate on your question?

You can check your iPhone battery cycles by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health. Keep in mind, this feature is only available to Phone 15 models with iOS 17.4 and later. You can also refer to other user's comments on this long forum.

Learn more about ⇢ About the battery and performance of iPhone 11 and later - Apple Support

-Zachyy ✌️

Every manufacturer adds features in newer devices, to encourage users to update to the latest and greatest. Although in this case it may be that the feature requires a hardware update that isn’t in older versions.

How have you managed to maintain 100% because am taking all required measures but still my battery capacity is dropping. It’s been 6months and my battery capacity dropped to 97%. I keep a track for charge cycle, pls let me know how better can i maintain?

please help. I bought an iPhone 15 Pro in November 2023 and until now the battery health is 89% and the cycle count is 320. Will Apple update the latest iOS for battery calibration like the iPhone 11Pro series? :(

Hussainvlr wrote:

We need this feature in iPhone SE 2 or at least in IPhone 13 & 14 models too.

Why? What actionable information does it give you?

Will Apple consider this in iOS 18 ?

Probably not but you can let them know what you'd like to see here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Any 8dea as to why this information is only available on 15 models. From the looks of it it's just software based.

No idea. Why is 80% limit option also only available on iPhone 15?

Apple being apple😂

dharittam wrote:

I have charged my iphone 15 from 35%to81% how the charging cycle count it as 1

Because it rounds to the nearest whole number.

do you have any tips so the cycle count won’t go up again? I have been using the phone for 3 days and my cycle count is already at 4 is that good?

We need this feature in iPhone SE 2 or at least in IPhone 13 & 14 models too.

Will Apple consider this in iOS 18 ?

Most likely not, due to hardware limitations.

You can let Apple know here: Product Feedback - Apple

My battery cycle ?

VinaySagineti wrote:

How have you managed to maintain 100% because am taking all required measures but still my battery capacity is dropping. It’s been 6months and my battery capacity dropped to 97%. I keep a track for charge cycle, pls let me know how better can i maintain?

You're not doing anything wrong and the user you questioned isn't doing anything unusual. Some batteries arrive with a higher mAh capacity out of the box. At some point in the future, the user you queried, will see their Battery Health decline and it may be more sudden at first since Battery Health decline is not linear.

If you have lost only 3% in Battery Health in 6 months, your battery is doing quite well.