Apple’s latest iPhones have just gone on sale and already there’s been a teardown which reveals new battery design inside, and also confirms great news: that the iPhone 16 Pro battery is bigger, and by how much.
Apple had already confirmed that batteries in some models can now be removed more easily, by loosening with a low electrical current and now we have images to show the cell’s new look.
The iPhone 16 Pro has a metallic covering, which chimes with previous reports, according to the teardown on the YouTube channel REWA Technology, as spotted by Joe Rossignol at MacRumors.
The metal enclosure is important because, as you may remember, almost exactly a year ago, I exclusively reported that some iPhones were overheating, and this issue was later solved by a software update.
Apple said the issue at the time was down to an iOS 17 bug, but it may have focused minds on ways to ensure the thermal issue didn’t reappear this year.
The teardown reveals more, though, and that’s the detail of the bigger battery. Apple had already directly confirmed to me that all four of the new iPhones had bigger batteries than their predecessors, and also stated more widely that battery life would be longer in the 2024 models—including the longest-ever battery life for an iPhone in the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
And now we have a figure. The video declares the battery capacity is 3,582mAh, a significant increase over the iPhone 15 Pro. That phone’s battery measured 3,274mAh, which means the iPhone 16 Pro battery is up more than 9% over last year’s model.
Apple’s official statistics measure battery life in modes such as video playback, which has seen an increase of four hours, from 23 hours on the iPhone 15 Pro to 27 hours now. If you only used your iPhone for audio playback (and I’m not sure that anyone does that), this year’s model has a 10-hour increase.
The point is that battery life is better this time, a result that will likely prove highly popular.
