From www.techradar.com

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iOS 18 delivers an extra hour of battery life to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, bringing last year’s flagship closer to the iPhone 16 Pro Max in terms of power consumption.

Tests conducted by Chinese blogger Geekerwan show that the iPhone 15 Pro Max lasted for 7 hours 56 minutes while running iOS 17 during mixed use, with that figure jumping to 9 hours 2 minutes once the test was repeated on iOS 18

Geekerwan’s testing included using Douyin – the Chinese iteration of TikTok – making video and voice calls, sending texts on WeChat, and playing Genshin Impact, which is a particularly demanding mobile game.

The results place the iPhone 15 Pro Max ahead of the iPhone 16, which scored 8 hours 14 minutes in Geekerwan’s tests, as well as the iPhone 16 Pro, which scored 8 hours 28 minutes. The iPhone 16 Plus and iPhone 16 Pro Max, however, both pulled ahead, lasting 10 hours 1 minute and 10 hours 23 minutes respectively.

As 9to5Mac notes, Geekerwan suggests that iOS 18’s job scheduler makes more effective use of the A18 Pro‘s performance and efficiency cores, and is less prone to increasing the frequency of these cores. This ultimately uses less power.

The results – while not entirely representative of real-world usage – are a welcome boost to last year’s flagship, as the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max hit store shelves today. 

Potential iPhone 16 battery capacities

iPhone 16 Pro Max

The iPhone 16 Pro Max lineup (Image credit: Apple)

While we saw similar battery life results between the iPhone 16 Plus and iPhone 16 Pro Max in our reviews, Geekerwan’s tests could indicate that the Plus has been dethroned as the lineup’s battery champion.

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Thanks to an investigation by BlogdoiPhone, we can now say that these findings align with the iPhone 16 series’ reported battery capacities.

BlogdoiPhone uncovered regulatory filings submitted by Apple to Brazilian regulator Anatel, including exact battery capacity measurements for the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

The investigation confirmed the following battery capacities for the iPhone 16 lineup: 

Swipe to scroll horizontally

iPhone modelBattery capacityIncrease versus previous generation
iPhone 163,561mAh6.34%
iPhone 16 Plus4,674mAh6.64%
iPhone 16 Pro3,582mAh9.40%
iPhone 16 Pro Max4,685mAh5.95%

Apple has likely been able to fit a larger battery into the iPhone 16 Pro Max due to its new dimensions, which have been slightly enlarged to accommodate the largest-ever iPhone screen.

Our iPhone 16 Pro Max review found that this year’s most premium iPhone might be a tough sell for current users of the iPhone 15 Pro Max – and these latest battery tests, while subjective, may make the decision to upgrade (or not) even tougher.

Our reviews for the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, and iPhone 16 Pro are now live, too, so be sure to check them out for our in-depth analysis of Apple’s latest smartphones.

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Jamie is a Mobile Computing Staff Writer for TechRadar, responsible for covering phones and tablets. He’s been tech-obsessed from a young age and has written for various news and culture publications. Jamie graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Since starting out as a music blogger in 2020, he’s worked on local news stories, finance trade magazines, and multimedia political features. He brings a love for digital journalism and consumer technology to TechRadar. Outside of the TechRadar office, Jamie can be found binge-watching tech reviews, DJing in local venues around London, or challenging friends to a game of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

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The post iOS 18 gives the iPhone 15 Pro Max an extra hour of battery life – but two iPhone 16 models still have it beat first appeared on www.techradar.com

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