Apple iPhone finally receives battery percentage counter within the status bar in iOS 16 Beta 5
Apple has released iOS 16 Beta 5, which arrives just a few weeks before the expected release date of public iOS 16 builds and the iPhone 14 series. While Apple has not shared a changelog for its latest beta build, people have started noticing a return of a feature that the company removed a few years ago. Specifically, it has been impossible to show an iPhone's remaining battery percentage in the status bar since the launch of the iPhone X, which debuted in 2017.
Purportedly, the iPhone X's notch took up too much space to include a battery percentage next to the battery icon, which has remained true since including last year's iPhone 13 series. However, it has taken Apple five years to integrate the remaining battery percentage within the battery icon, a feature that you can activate in System Preferences. As MacRumors' various screenshots show, enabling this feature then puts the battery percentage within the battery icon on the status bar for almost all iPhones with a notch.
For reasons unknown, the iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini miss out on this feature. Potentially, these smartphones' lower display resolutions make the percentage text difficult to read, although Apple is unlikely ever to confirm that this is the case. Separately, Apple has added a new charging animation that pushes the battery percentage to the side and adds a lightning bolt. For reference, iOS 16 will be available on all iPhones from the iPhone 8 series and newer.
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