After facing the wrath and probably multiple lawsuits, Apple finally revealed that the company has been suppressing or throttling the device’s performance on older devices. Apple justified their act by saying that this was done to prevent unexpected shutdowns as the battery will inevitably weaken. Apple couldn’t ignore the backlash and launched a cut-price battery replacement scheme and promised a new management tool within the iOS to put the users back in control.
The second public beta version of iOS 11.3 is now available, and it brings in highly expected changes to the battery setting that lets you see your battery health and control throttling. Available on iPhone 6 and later, Battery Health (Beta) includes information about the maximum capacity of the battery and explains whether the battery has degraded to a point where it can no longer offer peak performance.
Every device upgrading to iOS 11.3 will have performance management disabled, and it will be enabled by the operating system when the device experiences an unexpected shutdown. However, you can disable it by going into ‘Battery Menu’ in Settings.
Tapping the Battery Health Menu will take you to a new page where you will find:
1) Apple explaining the current battery technology and how it unavoidably erodes over time
2) A percentage reading, showing the current Maximum Capacity of the battery
3) An explanation of your current Peak Performance Capability as follows:
- a) Performance is normal: The battery is fine and the performance is normal
- b) Performance management applied: The battery was unable to support the device at peak performance thus throttling has been applied to prevent an unexpected shutdown
- c) Battery health unknown: Get a new Battery
- d) Performance management turned off: The device has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to support the peak performance and you have disabled performance management protection
- e) Battery health degraded: You really need to get a new battery
You can disable the performance management by simply tapping the ‘Disable’ button. It will question your sanity by asking you whether you are certain, if this is what you want to do. A warning instantly pops up saying if you do disable this setting, then you won’t be able to manually enable it again.
Even though you have disabled the performance management, it is not completely gone. It will be turned on automatically if your iPhone shuts down because the battery is unable to supply adequate power to keep it running at peak performance. But you can disable it again. Remember that you have the power and you are in control of your iPhone’s battery life!
