Along with the release of the fifth developer beta of iOS 16, Apple has also brought back a battery percentage indicator in the status bar. That’s pretty big news in itself! But of course, the “reveal”also brought with it some feedback from people who may not have liked how Apple restored the feature.
Just recreating the battery indicator pic.twitter.com/cK8PZDe9Y5
— Brian Michel (@brianmichel) August 9, 2022
So, the battery percentage indicator is back in the status bar. If you have a supported iPhone, that is. If you do this, you will be able to turn the feature on and off depending on how you feel about it. If you enable it, you will see the numbers present in the battery indicator at the top right corner of the screen. Which seems pretty straightforward, even if, interestingly enough, Apple doesn’t actually include the percent symbol.
Which is probably good. But things get weird when it’s discovered that the battery indicator doesn’t actually change on its own. So it looks full even if the battery percentage is 99%, 50% or 10%. So for people who are used to the fact that their battery indicator is actually “losing charge”as the percentage goes down, this will no longer be the case when the battery percentage indicator is on.
Some feel that this will make it harder to analyze how much battery is left in your iPhone at a glance. And, if so, some people may not be fans of it.
In the footsteps of Brian Michel (via The Verge), a managerial engineer at The Browser Company. He shared a new idea for the battery percentage indicator in the status bar, showing that Apple could easily make the battery indicator itself still change its full status even when the percentages change.
Check it out in the tweet above.
There’s a lot of attention to detail in this creation, and to be honest, it’s certainly a pleasure to look at. It won’t be a surprise if some people think this is the best implementation. Interestingly, Apple would not use such smooth animation. They love their animations.
But what do you think? Are you going to include a battery percentage in the status bar when iOS 16 comes out later this year?