There’s nothing more infuriating than those times you’re in a hurry and find your phone charging much more slowly than you’d like. Well, except maybe people driving slowly for no good reason, but that’s a whole other story.
Fortunately the battery thing may not be a problem with iOS 18, since it’ll show you if you’ve been using a slow charger.
As spotted on Reddit, the iOS 18 developer beta has started using more colors in the battery settings menu. And if you’ve been plugging into a slow charger, Apple will display this in orange instead of the usual green, with the label “Slow Charger”.
It was also claimed that the Slow Charger flag was trying to link to a support article that doesn’t exist. Suggesting that Apple may publish that page at some point in the future, possibly once the iOS 18 public beta launches.
What isn’t clear is what Apple considers “slow” in this case. The redditor in question was using a 5W charger at the time, which we can all agree is a pretty slow charging speed. But where’s the cut off point? 10W seems like a good place to start, but even that’s considerably slower than the fastest charging speeds iPhones can offer. The iPhone 15 peaks out at 20W charging speed while the iPhone 15 Pro Max can reach as high as 27W. MagSafe and Qi2 wireless charging go as high as 15W.
This feature could potentially be very useful, though. Especially if Apple can offer some information on why a phone might be charging slower than you’d like. It’s not always because you’re using a low-powered charger, after all. Things like temperature, battery level and charging optimization software can all play a part in the speeds you get.
It would also be better if iOS 18 can alert you about slow charging speeds without forcing you to dive into the battery settings menu. Though this is probably a good start, assuming it works as intended. This is beta software, after all, and nothing is guaranteed.
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