While I currently use an iPhone 8+, a still have the iPhone SE that I bought in March, 2016. With all of the attention to batteries on the iPhone, I decided to check this device’s battery. It hadn’t seemed particularly slow to me, but the battery hadn’t been lasting a full day for some months before I got the iPhone 8+ and stopped using the SE.
You cannot easily find the battery health and the number of charge cycles on the iPhone, but I found that iMazing can give me this information. If you connect an iOS device, then click the battery at the bottom of the window, iMazing displays the information shown here at the left. If you download a free demo of iMazing, you’ll be able to use it to view this information. (Full disclosure: I do some writing work for the company.)
It shows that the battery health is 73.9%, and that it has undergone 545 charge cycles. According to Apple’s Battery Service and Recycling page, the battery is guaranteed to 80% of capacity and 500 charge cycles. If you exceed either of these while under warranty – either the statutory one-year warranty, or two years if you have AppleCare+ – then they replace the battery.
So I called AppleCare, and after a few tests, the advisor confirmed that they would replace the battery. Since the nearest Apple Store is an hour’s drive – and it’s the Christmas season – I opted for a mail-in repair. I don’t currently use the phone, so if it’s out for service for a week or so, it’s not a problem.
For an interesting comparison, my partner is using an iPhone 5s that I gave her when I bought the iPhone SE. It shows battery health of 80%, and a whopping 1258 cycles! Naturally, the iPhone 5S is much older, but even at more than twice the number of charge cycles, it’s in better health than the battery on my iPhone SE. Naturally, it’s out of warranty, but since it works fine, it would be worth replacing the battery, if it needed replacement.
So it’s worth checking your iPhone’s battery health and the number of charge cycles, especially if it’s still under AppleCare+, and even more so if it’s near the end of the coverage period. You may find that you can get a free battery replacement which will make the device last longer, or increase its resale value if you want to sell it.