On Battery Life

I’m one of those people (psychopaths?) who applies software updates as soon as they’re available. I load developer betas for iOS on my daily driver iPhone the day they come out. I love experiencing that new thing. I love the ability to unlock a different capability. I love seeing if the previous problem I was having to work around has been solved. I love seeing what is coming next.

Usually it’s fine but sometimes it really comes back to bite me and boy am I feeling that as I look at my iPhone 17 Pro and it’s 32% battery left at 1:18pm in the afternoon.

I used to have incredible batter life on this phone, going all day and getting into bed with 20-30% still left on it, even without any charging during the day. But then I loaded up the iOS 27 dev beta on it the day it came out (upgrading at each new release) and ever since I’m lucky to get halfway through the day before the battery range anxiety kicks in. Normally its not that big a deal since I’m at my desk, or driving, or some other thing that naturally charges it, but today I’m out and about on foot all day and so no ongoing charging.

Part of me thinks this is a message from the universe that I should be more patient and wait for software to fully bake before I load it up, but honestly I get so much more satisfaction from testing out the new things than the number of times it’s bitten me that it doesn’t seem worth it to give that up.

More than that though, it makes me think about new collective experiences that society shares that didn’t exist 20 years ago. Everyone seems to suffer from battery life anxiety now, an idea that wasn’t just foreign but straight up non-existent a couple decades back.

And so, here I am, sitting in the corner of an event, doing my writing for the day, charging my phone, and thinking about the many ways in which these devices tether us. For better and worse. Who knew a battery could lead to such introspection.

PS: One thing I will recommend, this Anker battery has changed my life when traveling, no more worrying about airplane outlets working or anything else - it can charge a phone 5x or a laptop 1x and the retractable cables make it ridiculously easy to access without looking. I love it.