iOS 16, the new battery icon divides iPhone users. The new battery icon iOS 16 beta 5 introduced this time around risks creating an internal split.
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The reasons are different. First of all it must be remembered that for years, since Face ID arrived with iPhone X in 2017, the percentage of battery charge has disappeared on the lock screen and not only, this is because the available space has been reduced due to the clutter of the sensors of the face recognition.
Back then the news was met with deep sadness by control freaks for whom even the best graphical indicator for battery levels can never offer the same accuracy and control of the percentage number. Even those who were not sick with control shared this position but anyway, Apple had already decided and so it was for the next five years.
Until Monday 8 August when Apple, surprising everyone, reintroduced the percentage of battery charge by displaying it directly inside the icon in charge, this in the beta number five of iOS 16. It had never done so.
Virtually everyone has welcomed the news, but the split between fans for and fans against has broken out for a small but important detail. The new battery icon in iOS 16 always remains entirely colored and filled with white, this even while the actual charge decreases, and so the percentage shown in number inside it.
The graphical representation changes only when the charge reaches 20% or less: in this case the new battery icon of iOS 16 shows only a fifth of its length in red, while the rest of the icon becomes semi-transparent. Also in this case the number of the percentage of charge is shown in white color.
Of course, Apple’s choice is dictated by the priority of improving the legibility of figures and numbers as much as possible. A choice of design and user interface that, however, risks displacing many iPhone users who for five years have been accustomed to estimating the remaining battery charge by carefully observing the length of the white segment of the battery icon.
Unfortunately with iOS 16 this information, which the eye of some now catches on the fly automatically, will be completely busted because with the charge at 21% the battery icon is all beautiful white and colored, as if we always had a full tank. , instead we are one step away from the abyss.
It seems strange that Apple did not notice the anxiety and for some the phobia of the low battery in the internal tests of iOS 16, as MacRumors notes. But with the split between pro and con enthusiasts, there are also many suggestions from users on how it would be possible to solve the problem, with sophisticated graphic solutions, able to make both the percentage number and the graphical representation of the charge level always perfectly legible.