If the iPhone 15 gets this big battery upgrade it'll be the phone to beat

(Image credit: Future)

published 5 July 2023

The iPhone 15 range could get a really big upgrade when it ships later this year. It is said to be receiving much bigger batteries than the ones in the iPhone 14 and its Pro and Pro Max variants. That’s according to a new report based on information from inside Apple’s manufacturing partner, Foxconn.

A source, who spoke to tech site ITHome, claims that the standard iPhone 15 battery will be 18% larger. The iPhone 15 Plus and Pro, which have larger bodies, will get 14% larger batteries. And, the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is the same size as the Pro but also expected to have more camera hardware, will get 12%.

We do need to take this one with a large pinch of salt for now, because the source isn’t one of the usual Apple suspects. However, we hope they’re right, because battery life remains one of the improvements on most iPhone users’ wish lists.

How big are the iPhone 15 batteries exactly?

According to the source, the iPhone 15 battery will be 3,877mAh – up from the current 3,279mAh and almost identical to the battery in the Samsung Galaxy S23.

The iPhone 15 Plus will go up from 4,325mAh to 4,912mAh, and the iPhone 15 Pro will increase from the current 3,200mAh to 3,650mAh.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max will increase from 4,323mAh to 4,852mAh.

We're in two minds about this particular leak though, because while the increased capacity fits with other rumours that suggest slightly thicker cases and lighter titanium frames in this year’s iPhones, the source is unproven. They claim to be a Foxconn worker but don’t have a track record on which we can judge this particular rumour.

But, as the UFO poster puts it: I want to believe.

Bigger batteries plus the improvements we’re expecting from this year’s more efficient Apple Silicon could give the iPhone 15 range a serious battery boost and firmly ensconce the handsets among the best phones of 2023. And, as someone who never leaves home without a MagSafe extra battery, it’d be nice to lose some of that range anxiety.

So, for now let’s file this under “wishful thinking” and hope this particular wish comes true.

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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).