How to See Your IPhone’s Battery Percentage Again and Again
When you look at the battery icon on your iPhone, you get a pretty good idea of how much battery life you have left. But if you want to know exactly where you are, you need to swipe down from the top right to Control Center, where Apple has been hiding the battery percentage for years.
This was not the case before. In the early days of the iPhone, Apple made it possible for all users to see the battery percentage in the menu bar. However, with the release of the iPhone X, Apple inexplicably changed the situation – all of a sudden, one feature was removed from your new iPhone.
Why can’t I see the battery percentage on my iPhone?
While the iPhone X and iPhones like it never had this battery percentage option, Apple offered a choice to all iPhones with a Home button: whether you have an iPhone 8 or an iPhone SE, you can choose whether to display battery percentage or not. . Apple has never explained its thinking here, but it probably has something to do with the iPhone’s “X-style” limited space, where the battery icon is located in the top right corner next to the notch. iPhones with a home button have a unified 16:9 display without a notch, so adding that extra number doesn’t clutter the screen.
However, Apple has changed its position: with iOS 16 , the company for the first time adds a battery percentage parameter to the iPhone with Face ID. But there are two caveats.
The first one is temporary: the feature is available as part of iOS 16 Developer Beta 5 and Public Beta 3, which means you need to run the latest beta on your iPhone to access it. If you are interested in the beta, you can follow our instructions here to install it on your iPhone.
If you don’t want to take the risks of installing beta software on your iPhone, you’ll be able to try out the battery percentage option on your iPhone when Apple releases iOS 16 to all compatible devices in the fall.
However, not all iPhones running iOS 16 will get this feature. For some reason, Apple decided to delist several iPhones, some old and some new. Here is the current lineup of devices compatible with battery percentage:
- iPhone 13 Pro Max
- iphone 13 pro
- iphone 13
- iPhone 12 Pro Max
- iphone 12 pro
- iphone 12
- iPhone 11 Pro Max
- iPhone 11 Pro
- iphone xs max
- iphone xs
- iphone x
- iPhone 8
- iphone 8 plus
- iPhone SE (2nd and 3rd generation)
This means iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 11, and iPhone XR still can’t show battery percentage all the time. It’s common for these phones, but it’s strange for Apple not to include this option. Perhaps Apple isn’t sure it can comfortably fit the battery percentage on the smaller mini displays or the lower resolution 11 and XR screens. But since iOS 16 is still in testing, Apple may eventually add the feature to these phones. We just won’t know until future betas or the official release of iOS 16.
How to show battery percentage on your iPhone
Assuming you don’t have one of the missing iPhones mentioned above, and if your iPhone is running iOS 16, you can turn on the battery percentage with a few taps: Go to Settings > Battery , then tap the toggle next to Percentage battery charge “. On an iPhone with Face ID, you’ll see the battery percentage in the center of the battery icon.
When you charge your iPhone with this setting enabled, the entire battery turns green; when you turn on low power mode, it turns yellow; when your iPhone drops to 20% battery or below, it turns red. However, these special features only apply to iPhones with Face ID. If your iPhone has a home button, you’ll still see the battery percentage to the left of the battery icon without the new color schemes or design.
This article was updated on Tuesday, August 9th when Apple released Public Beta 3 containing the Battery Percentage feature.