iPhone batteries don’t appear to fully charge: faulty indicators and faulty batteries

We previously reported on an issue where the iPhone’s battery appears to never fully charge, as the battery status indicator (located on the upper-right portion of the screen) never changes from the lightning bolt icon to a plug icon. At the time we noted that the issue may simply be a display bug, where the battery is actually fully charged, but the indicator simply does not register as such; this was speculation based on the fact that one of our in-house iPhones that appears to never fully charge has seemingly normal battery life and does not exhibit other power problems.

Several readers have since written in regarding this issue, and the following appears to be true: most iPhones that never display a plug icon appear to simply have inaccurate indicators: the batteries are not defective and are fully charging and, but never reveal it. However, some iPhones (it’s impossible to tell how widespread the issue is at this point) actually do have defective batteries that do not hold a full charge and hence deliver an abnormally short battery life-span. In the latter case, Apple will generally provide replacement.

What’s an abnormally short battery life-span? There’s no easy answer. Apple’s claims (8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback, 250 hours—more than 10 days—of standby time) seem somewhat inflated based on in-house experience with iPhones that have (what we believe to be) healthy batteries. If your iPhone is getting significantly less — say 3-4 hours of talk time when not performing other functions — you may want to speak with an Apple support representative.

It’s also worth noting that there’s another method for checking whether or not your iPhone at least has a faulty battery indicator: In the Settings application, tap Usage and look at the Time since last full charge. If no data is displayed, your iPhone has likely never had a full charge reading. In fact, this is apparently the method some Apple retail stores are using to determine whether or not iPhones might be eligible for replacement (see reader Joe Smith’s report under “Faulty Batteries” below).

Some reader reports:

Faulty battery indicators

“I bought my iPhone on day 2. I have charged it overnight. I have drained it to the point where it shut off and did a full overnight charge. No plug icon has ever appeared. Battery use seems to be good though” – Darryl

“When I get my iPhone in the morning from its nightly charge, it never has a full bar and still has the charging symbol… Oddly, if I remove the iPhone from the dock and place it back on the dock immediately, the rest of the bar fills up a few seconds later and the charged icon appears.  Strange, eh?” – Stephen Kemsley

“I’ve had my iPhone for a week and a half and it has never fully charged. I’ve let it completely drain and then charged from the wall adapter overnight, still nothing. I’m going to attempt to restore it this weekend, when I can afford to be without it. Battery life does seem reasonable, though.” – Dwayne McDuffie

“Battery life seems normal but the phone thinks it has never achieved a full charge. [...] otherwise everything seems to work great. I’m inclined to wait to see if there’s a firmware update on the way” –Chris Ashworth

Faulty batteries

“I returned my first iPhone after I noticed that around 30% the battery would essentially fail. It would go from 30% to 20% where I would get the warning in the span of about 2 minutes and thereafter would go from 15%-10%-Dead in the span of about 5 more minutes. Apple kindly replaced this faulty phone with a new one and I’m actually noticing the exact same issue. I have done all of the recommended charing techniques and followed apples recommendations to the letter. While I’ve read that many are having issues where it wont read a full charge that has not been an issue with these two phones.” — Jordan

“I exchanged my first iPhone because it never reached full charge. My replacement seems to suffer the same problem. I’m still trying to determine the effect on the batteries life and charge times on the new one. The first iPhone in my possesion definitely drained faster than advertised and took longer to charge” — Chris

“I had a problem charging my phone and battery life was horrendous. I went to an Apple Store yesterday in Northern VA and they replaced my phone, no questions asked. I guess it must be a known issue. The Genius Bar representative said they do not have the diagnostic capabilities at the store to figure out why this is happening so they are replacing the phone and sending the units to Apple to determine the problem. I was in and out of the store in 10 minutes, which leads me to believe this has happened to more than just little old me.” — John Repici

“I got an 8GB iPhone and indeed it never presented the ‘plug’ icon indicating it was full charged, even though the large battery indicated all ‘charged’ green. In my case however I was having to recharge every night, even after only occasionally use (less than 1 hour). I tried charging from the wall charger, shutting off, resetting, etc. and even charging for 48 hours to be safe. I took it to the Apple Store and the first thing the guy did was go to Settings, Usage, where it indicated that indeed the iPhone had never received a full charge (it only starts keeping data after a full charge). After a couple of quick checks, he promptly gave me a new iPhone, swapped the SIM card, and sent me on my way. The iPhone wasn’t usable until I got back home to my Mac, but the reactivate was very easy and quick. – Joe Smith

“I had an 8GB iPhone that would never charge past 80% on the large icon that appears on the screen. The small icon at top right never displayed an amount other than 80 or 90%. At times, the phone would shut down and indicate that it needed to be charged. A restore didn’t change anything. My Apple store replaced it with a new phone.” – Joe Rademan

In our previous report we also noted that restoring the iPhone can sometimes result in a full charge indication on the next charge. Other methods include try fully draining the iPhone battery and then recharging, or turning the iPhone off, then plugging it into a wall outlet.

Benjamin Liu had success with one of these procedures:

“I was actually able to charge it fully by placing it into the charging cradle, connecting it to wall power and then shutting the phone off completely.”

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.