The iPhone has had a Power Reserve function that holds back a small amount of battery life to allow features like Find My and NFC unlocking to work even when your device has died, and in iOS 18, Apple seems to be improving the feature further for the iPhone 15 models.
As demonstrated on Reddit, when the battery on an iPhone running iOS 18 is exhausted, the phone can continue to show the time in the upper left corner of the device, which is a small but useful upgrade. The battery icon still shows up, and you'll see "iPhone is Findable" while reserve battery is left.
It appears that this feature is limited to the iPhone 15 models. We tested on an iPhone 14 Pro Max and were not ale to get the time to show up, but it did work as expected with an iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Power Reserve has been a feature on iPhones dating back to the iPhone XR and iPhone XS, so it's not clear what the limiting factor is in terms of showing the time on display when the battery has drained on older devices.
Friday November 6, 2026 3:27 pm PST by Juli Clover
When the iPhone Duo launched, we shared a list of some of the fun apps developers created for the new form factor. Two weeks out, developers are continuing to come up with fresh ideas, so we thought we'd share some of our favorites.
Games
Marbles Unhinged ($2.99) - Marbles Unhinged is a marble maze designed for the Duo. When you fold it, the floor turns into a ramp. If you stand the top...
Thursday November 5, 2026 12:59 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is launching five new products on Friday, November 6, following pre-orders that opened last week, including its first touchscreen MacBook Pro models.
The following new products will be available from today:
iPad mini with OLED display and A20 Pro chip
iMac with M6 chip
14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 chip
14-inch MacBook Pro with OLED touchscreen
16-inch MacBook Pro with OLED...
Sunday November 8, 2026 7:42 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple has made a change to its development process for iOS 28, macOS 28, and corresponding software updates, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
In his Power On newsletter today, he said Apple separates development of each year's new operating systems into three major stages. Typically, he said each stage consists of four weeks of coding followed by a four-week "convergence" period where...
Because iPhone sales have been slowing down and people are keeping their iPhones longer and longer, Apple is becoming more and more aggressive in creating artificial restrictions to get users to upgrade - this is a classic example. The author even pointed this out in their article - "Power Reserve has been a feature on iPhones dating back to the iPhone XR and iPhone XS, so it's not clear what the limiting factor is in terms of showing the time on display when the battery has drained on older devices."
If you want further proof, look no further than these examples:
* Adaptive Charging limit ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/12/ios-18-charging-limit-recommendations/') * Additional charging limit options ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/ios-18-introduces-more-charging-limits/') * Apple Intelligence compatibility is restricted to iPhone 15 Pro and later (however, this also could be due to the increased RAM that are in these devices)
Maybe the reason none of the prior iPhone models have this exclusive to iPhone 15 series feature is because none of them have A16 chip6GB RAMDynamic Island USB-C port that's needed to enable the feature? 🤷♂️
Because iPhone sales have been slowing down and people are keeping their iPhones longer and longer, Apple is becoming more and more aggressive in creating artificial restrictions to get users to upgrade - this is a classic example. The author even pointed this out in their article - "Power Reserve has been a feature on iPhones dating back to the iPhone XR and iPhone XS, so it's not clear what the limiting factor is in terms of showing the time on display when the battery has drained on older devices."
If you want further proof, look no further than these examples:
* Adaptive Charging limit ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/12/ios-18-charging-limit-recommendations/') * Additional charging limit options ('https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/ios-18-introduces-more-charging-limits/') * Apple Intelligence compatibility is restricted to iPhone 15 Pro and later (however, this also could be due to the increased RAM that are in these devices)
