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
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.
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:
| iPhone model | Battery capacity | Increase versus previous generation |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone 16 | 3,561mAh | 6.34% |
| iPhone 16 Plus | 4,674mAh | 6.64% |
| iPhone 16 Pro | 3,582mAh | 9.40% |
| iPhone 16 Pro Max | 4,685mAh | 5.95% |
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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