Following iOS 16's public release, Apple has confirmed that users of older generation iPhone models will miss out on the ability to show their iPhone's battery percentage directly in the status bar.
In an updated support document, Apple says that the new battery percentage display is not available on the iPhone XR, iPhone 11, the iPhone 12 mini, and the iPhone 13 mini. Apple provides no additional information about why these devices will miss out on the new feature.
Apple added the battery percentage display icon in an iOS 16 beta over the summer. The new toggle, which can be found within Settings and Battery, lets users always see their battery percentage directly in the status bar without having to swipe down into Control Center.
Ever since the iPhone X with the notch, users have asked Apple to make it easier to see their iPhone's battery level directly in the status bar. Still, Apple's recent implementation has proven to be controversial.
The new icon includes the battery percentage within the icon rather than to the left of it. The white battery icon remains completely filled in until the battery reaches 20% or lower, at which point a fifth of the icon turns red and the rest of the icon becomes translucent.
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Those models specifically have low DPI displays, so rendering something as small as that might make it look weird or illegible.
My iPhone 4 could display that. And I could read it without thinking: Hum, this looks weird?!
It’s a shame those small UI updates are now exclusively for newer models too. Feels like Apple is running out of ideas on how to motivate people to upgrade their phones. So they come up with the most ridiculous ways to cripple the OS/UI.
"users of older generation iPhone models will miss out on the ability" - my iPhone mini 13 was still the latest model until a week ago with a better 476 ppi screen than the normal size iphone 13. Hmmm
Suspect it's text legibility. The Xr / 11 screens don't have the pixel resolution to effectively display the numbers, and the mini's are probably either too tight on space, or the text would be too small.
