iOS 16 reports the percentage of the battery on the iPhone, after “only” 5 years

With the launch of iPhone X occurred in 2017 (here our review of the time), Apple has radically changed the experience of using iOS on devices equipped with a notch and without a physical home button, changing various aspects of the operating system such as access to the Center Control and display of the remaining battery percentage.

Yes, because due to the presence of the notch it space available in the A part of the screen it was reduced to the point that Apple had to reconsider how much information might be visible in the orecchiette on the sides of the notch, going to remove those deemed superfluousjust like in the case of the battery percentage.

To date this is visible only after calling back the Control Center, which makes it impossible to accurately determine the remaining charge at a glance during normal use of the device. Fortunately, 5 years after the iPhone X, it seems that things are about to changesince the latest beta of iOS 16 has unexpectedly brought back the display of the percentage in the foreground: here’s how and where it works.

After installing the iOS 16 beta 5 on iPhones with notch, the menu dedicated to battery settings presents the entry again Battery Percentagewhich activates a new icon which includes the numerical value of the residual charge percentage.

This is a very similar solution to that adopted for years by other Android manufacturers or by the same community linked to the world of jailbreak, and Apple certainly took a cue from the latter to create its own solution. We are faced with something so simple that one would wonder why it hasn’t been done before, however this answer is not as obvious as one might think.

The return of the percentage, in fact, it is just the umpteenth step back from an ultra minimalist philosophy that the Cupertino house seems to have left behind, starting from the moment Jony Ive walked away from the company (now he has absolutely no connection with Apple anymore). The historic designer has had a very important impact on many of the software and hardware solutions adopted in Cupertino, and now that his influence is no longer so important, Apple has gone back on various choices made in the past.

Just think of the return of the Magsafe and of the ports / card readers on the MacBook Pro, the disappearance of the Touch Bar, the gradual increase in thickness of the iPhones in order to accommodate more capacious batteries and so on, all elements that go against the philosophy of minimalism. and of the triumph of form over substance, in favor of a more practical approach and closer to the needs of users.

Even the return of the battery percentage, as trivial as it may seem, goes in this direction, since the new icon definitely appears more disordered compared to the previous one, however, favoring the consultation of data that is certainly important for the user. The previous implementation (current, for those not in beta) instead aimed at maximize minimalism, hiding from view a fact that for some could also be a source of stress. Fortunately, the possibility remains choose which of the two modes to activateletting the user decide which one they prefer.

Like all the latest news radicals Apple – just think of Stage Manager, for example – even in this case there are gods small quibbles to consider before you can breathe a sigh of relief. The first concerns a real one conceptual problem of the new icon, which always shows the battery full if this goes from 20 to 100%.

The reason for this choice is clear and concerns the need to maintain a uniform background so that the numbers indicating the percentage stand out correctly (think for example of a half-charged battery, in which one number is depicted in black on a white background and the other in white on a transparent background; practically illegible ), however this causes a false perception before you have time to read the number correctly.

When the residual charge is less than 20%the central space of the icon is sufficiently free to be able to represent it graphically as well emergency situation (the icon becomes red and almost completely empty), while when the energy saving is active it becomes completely yellow.

However, there is a much more serious problemwhich is the fact that the new icon it is not present on all iPhones with a notch. At the moment, in fact, iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini are excluded, while it is present on all others from iPhone X onwards. It is not clear if this is something that will be fixed with the next beta versions, however in the case of the minis it is clear that Apple should think of an icon that does not compromise with the reduced visibility caused by the display being too small. As for iPhone Xr and 11, however, it seems that the problem is related to low definition screenswhich also in this case could lead to grainy and difficult to read texts.

We expect Apple to find a solution to not leave any iPhone uncovered, also because the current implementation is clearly still very basic. Just think about the fact that the Control Center keeps showing the old icon with the separate charge percentage, creating a lack of uniformity between the two screens. In short, there is still work to be done, so the hopes of seeing this option on all models have not yet completely died out.