Apple May Finally Allow You to Check Battery Health & Cycle Count on Upcoming iPads

Earlier this week, Apple pushed out its first iPadOS 17.5 Beta for developers. This new software update has several references that hint at Apple’s plans to expand the iPhone’s Battery Health menu to the upcoming iPad models.

MacRumors contributors Steve Moser and Aaron Perris have dug deep into the iPadOS 17.5 code and discovered several new references to a Battery Health menu on the iPad. This menu in the iPad’s Settings app is expected to show the battery capacity and cycle count.

Right now, these battery statistics are exclusive to iPhones. For years, you can easily check battery health on an iPad or Mac, but there’s no direct way to do it on an iPad. You have to follow a complex, lengthy workaround to get to those numbers or use a shortcut to check the battery health on an iPad.

Talking about the Cycle Count, it currently is exclusive to iPhone 15 models. It’s a useful feature that shows additional details about the battery’s health. Based on the references obtained from the iPadOS 17.5 codes, it seems Apple is gearing up to expand these useful features to future iPad models.

The first iPadOS 17.5 beta has some code strings that reference the new battery health menu:

• “iPad must be regularly used while not connected to power to show maximum capacity.”
• “This is the number of times the iPad has used your battery’s capacity.”
• “The iPad battery is performing as expected.”
• “iPad batteries, like all rechargeable batteries, have a limited lifespan and may eventually need to be serviced or replaced.”
• “The original battery was designed to retain X capacity at X cycles under ideal conditions. Actual battery performance depends on a number of variables, including how iPad is used and charged regularly. The one-year warranty includes service for defective batteries in addition to rights provided under local consumer laws.”

The existing iPad models running the first iPadOS 17.5 beta do not have a dedicated Battery Health menu. Therefore, it’s speculated that this menu is exclusive to the long-awaited iPad Pro and iPad Air models, which are now expected to arrive in May. Also, other iPads released in the future will have these updates.

The public version of iPadOS 17.5 is likely to roll out in May. Since the reference codes are found in beta, it’s uncertain if we’ll see the Battery Health menu on the iPad. The good news is that Apple is working on expanding these features, so we can expect to see them, sooner or later.