Apple may be about to make it easier to check the battery health of your iPad, based on a new feature uncovered in the iPadOS 17.5 beta.
MacRumors’ Steve Moser and Aaron Perris have uncovered a bunch of references to a Battery Health Menu, and it doesn’t sound too dissimilar to the one found on iPhones.
Judging from the references, the new menu is likely to display the iPad’s maximum battery capacity and the current cycle count. Cycle count being the number of times your battery has fully charged and discharged. iPhone 15, which has similar battery health monitoring tools, is rated to retain 80% capacity for 1,000 charge cycles.
So by seeing both statistics in one place, you can immediately see if the battery is performing the way Apple promised it would. Knowing the capacity also means you can also diagnose battery life issues, and whether you’d be better off swapping out your existing battery for a new one.
Currently the iPadOS 17.5 beta is only available for developers, so we haven’t had a chance to look for the battery health menu ourselves. However MacRumors claims that the manu isn’t showing up on existing iPads, suggesting that it may be exclusive to the iPad Pro 2024 and iPad Air 2024 — both of which are expected to arrive at an undetermined point in the near future.
It doesn’t mean battery health definitely won’t be added to older models when they’re able to upgrade to iPadOS 17.5, but there’s no guarantee either. As shown with the iPhone 15, Apple isn’t above keeping certain battery health statistics locked away on the latest model.
Battery Health has been a feature on iPhones since the launch of iOS 11.3 in 2018, with further enhancements coming on the iPhone 11 the following year.
Personally, I’m still unsure why it’s taken Apple this long to add the feature to the iPad. Battery Health has been a feature on iPhones since the launch of iOS 11.3 in 2018, with further enhancements coming on the iPhone 11 the following year. iPads have zero battery health features for users to exploit, so this upgrade is seriously overdue.
iPadOS 17.5 will presumably be available to public beta testers in the coming days, ahead of a stable release at some point in the near future. The next wave of iPads is currently rumored to arrive sometime before the end of this month, and you can follow all the latest news and updates in our iPad Air 2024 and iPad Pro 2024 hubs.
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