Battery dropping to 98 after charging to 100

I got my new iPhone 5s last week and restored it with my iPhone 4 backup. I normally leave my battery charging overnight which is what I do with my new iPhone but it is never at 100% in the morning, always hovers around 97-98%.


I have allowed the phone battery to run out so that it shuts down itself and recharged it fully leaving it overnight, but still comes back at 97-98%, I am not sure if my battery has a problem or is it the old iPhone backup that I used.


I also installed Battery Pro and the % displayed there is different from iPhone's status bar, so I am very confused.


Has anyone experienced this with their phone? Any solution is really appreciated.


Thank you,

John

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.2

Posted on Oct 2, 2013 2:45 PM

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15 replies

Oct 2, 2013 2:55 PM in response to jonn.en

Here's how the iPhone charge cycle works. First, the "charger" is not a charger; it's a power source. The actual charger is a circuit in the phone. It charges the battery at a fast rate to about 65%, then tapers slowly, and at 90% it slows to a crawl, until it reaches 100%. Then the charge circuit turns of completely. So it will reach 80% in 2 hours, 100% in 3-4 hours. Once it shuts off it monitors the battery drain. When the drain reaches about 4% (96% charge) the charger comes back on and tops up the battery. So if you leave it plugged in all the time it will always be between 96% and 100%. This is normal.


You can "fine tune" the battery gauge by draining the battery all the way down to 1%, then continue using it until it shuts off. Then charge for 4 hours with the wall unit. It's a good idea to do this once a month or so, according to Apple's battery tips.

Oct 2, 2013 3:31 PM in response to Kappy

Kappy wrote:


Larry,


I think you meant to say "draining the battery all the way down to 10%." 1% would seem dangerously low, I think.

Kappy, actually, no, I meant all the way down until the phone shuts off and does not restart. This is Apple's advice in their battery tips. The secret is that 1% is not 1% of the battery life; it's 1% before the reserve built into the battery protection circuit. The phone shuts off with a fairly substantial charge left in the battery.

Oct 3, 2013 4:40 AM in response to jonn.en

I though my problem is solved when I picked up my phone today morning but it wasn't, the Lock screen said 100% but after I unlocked it, the home screen was stuck at 98%, which was really heart breaking 😟


Then I rebooted the phone and the 98% turned to 100%, dont know what's with my phone.


The other problem I reported of the battery % icon & no stats of battery usage, I sorted that by resetting the phone settings.


As a last resort, I will try restoring the phone, and if that does not solve the problem, then I am returning it

Dec 29, 2013 6:39 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

@Lawrence, i disagree with you about this being a normal behavior. Sometimes my iphone 5s is charged to 100%, even after i unplug it, other times it shows 100%, and drops to 98% as soon as i unplug it. But it goes to 100% if i reboot the phone or i let it go to 97% and plug it back and in 20min it goes up to 100% as it should be. I always charge it for about 10h so why on the earth the charge isn't the same? Why showing 100% if it's 98%?

Dec 9, 2016 7:59 AM in response to jonn.en

I bought an iPhone 7 and it does the same thing. It will also continuesly charge with no protection like apple says it has. So to back up all the lies that it's a software issue or my fault. I took my old 5s and updated it. Guess what it's the new software that's casing this because my old phone doesn't do it with the old os. Went to apple 2 times no one understands

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Battery dropping to 98 after charging to 100

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