iOS 18 gives the iPhone 15 Pro Max an extra hour of battery life – but two iPhone 16 models still have it beat

We’ve also seen potential iPhone 16 battery capacities

News By Jamie Richards published 20 September 2024

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.

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