Apple's iOS 26 is already bracing us for the ridiculously thin iPhone 17 Air

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Jun 11, 2025 - 23:10

Apple released iOS 26 as a developer beta earlier this week at WWDC 2025. And we’ve all been digging through the OS to see what’s new this year. Of course, the big thing is the new Liquid Glass redesign. But there are a few other features that are not getting the attention they deserve.

One of those is the new estimated time to charge feature for the battery. Obviously, Android has had this for years and years. But interestingly, OPPO, OnePlus, and realme have started to remove this feature on their devices this year, for some reason. I’m pretty sure that will be re-added with Oxygen OS/Color OS 16 later this year.

But there’s an iOS 26 feature in the battery section preparing us for the iPhone 17 Air. And that’s Adaptive Power. Here’s how Apple explains it on the settings page:

“When your battery usage is higher than usual, iPhone can make small performance adjustments to extend your battery life, including slightly lowering the display brightness or allowing some activities to take a little longer. Low Power Mode may turn on at 20%.”

This sounds a lot like what Google has on Android, with the “Adaptive Battery” feature. Essentially, it’ll make performance adjustments when you’re using your phone more than usual, so that the battery lasts longer. To me, this screams “iPhone 17 Air” feature. To prepare us for the thin phones that are coming. Currently, the iPhone 17 Air is rumored to sport a pretty small 2,800mAh capacity battery. That’s far smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which is 3,900mAh.

iOS 26 Developer Beta 1 Adaptive Power Feature — iOS 26 Developer Beta 1

It’s unclear how aggressive this feature will be

Currently, it’s unclear how aggressive Adaptive Power will be when it comes to limiting performance. Since the feature has only been out for less than 48 hours. Apple does say “small performance adjustments”, so it’s possible that the adjustments could be so small that you wouldn’t notice them.

Keep in mind that Apple’s chips are already pretty powerful. Even on the iOS 26 beta, the A18 Pro is able to hit over 3,500 in the single-core Geekbench 6 score, which is still quite a bit higher than the Snapdragon 8 Elite devices (even the overclocked Snapdragon 8 Elite in Galaxy S25 Ultra).

The iOS 26 release date isn’t until September, and we’re expecting to see a good 6-7 more betas before then. This will give everyone more time to test out how Adaptive Power works and give Apple time to change it, if needed.

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