Massive battery upgrade coming soon for millions of iPhone users but there's a catch

While all the bells and whistles of a new iPhone can get fans hyped beyond expectations, most would argue that fundamentally the most important part of the daily experience is the battery life - and Apple could be introducing a major upgrade to its devices later this year.

Alarming global screen time numbers show quite how much we're all using our phones these days, and there's nothing worse than seeing your battery percentage dwindle while you're out and about.

Although Apple and other major smartphone manufacturers have increased the size of their batteries over the years, the growing performance demands have made this somewhat negligible, leaving many still with the same issues every day.

There are plenty of tips and tricks you can employ to stretch your gadget's battery life as far as possible - including one recommended by Apple itself - but things could change dramatically with a new battery upgrade coming later this year for iPhones.

What is the new iPhone battery upgrade?

As reported by Mashable, one of the most under appreciated features announced alongside iOS 26 at the recent Apple WWDC event was what the tech giant is calling 'Adaptive Power', and it takes advantage of artificial intelligence to give your phone more power throughout the day.

In contrast to the existing Low Power Mode you might be familiar with on your iPhone - which implements a blanket restriction for a number of power intensive features either manually or once you reach below 20% - Adaptive Power uses AI to intelligently preserve power when you need it.

Adaptive Power could help you avoid moments when your iPhone's battery runs low or dies (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Information pulled by MacRumors from the current iOS 26 beta reveals that Adaptive Power kicks in "when your battery usage is higher than usual," and implements "small performance adjustments to extend your battery life."

These can include lowering the display's brightness level and "allowing some activities to take a little longer," which would lower the processing load on your phone and require less power for it to run.

While this might not be as immediately impressive or eye catching as the new Liquid Glass visual overhaul or many of the other fresh changes coming with the operating system update when it drops later this year, it could be one of the most impactful additions for millions of iPhone users.

Which iPhones can use Adaptive Power?

The major catch with this feature though is the limited number of iPhones that can actually take advantage of it, as it's fewer than those that can currently install iOS 26 at launch.

This is due to the reliance on Apple Intelligence technology, which is only available to a select few devices released in the last couple of years, so there's a good chance that you'll be left out if you've not upgraded recently.

Only a handful of the most recent iPhones can take advantage of the game-changing new feature (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

Here are all of the iPhones that will be able to enable Adaptive Power when it launches:

• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16 Pro
• iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 16e
• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Pro Max

So, you'll either need to have any of the latest generation of iPhones - which were built with Apple Intelligence in mind - or the 'Pro' versions from the previous lineup, which have enough power within them to sustain the required performance.