The iPhone 16 Pro may have a larger battery than we expected

With Apple’s new iPhone 16 models expected to launch sometime this fall, we’re getting more clarity on the likely specs, including even more details about the battery capacity boost we’re likely to see on the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro.

The latest report comes from Weibo user Instant Digital, who corroborates an earlier leak from @MajinBuOfficial from February.  Instant Digital expects the iPhone 16 Pro to have a 3,577mAh capacity and the iPhone 16 Pro Max to have a 4,676mAh battery.

For those who missed it, the previous leak from Majin Bu mentioned specific battery sizes for three models: 3,561mAh for the iPhone 16, 4,006mAh for the iPhone 16 Plus, and 4,747mAh for the iPhone 16 Pro Max. This matches up nicely with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, confirming that it’ll have the largest capacity.

This partially corresponds to and partially contradicts reporting from noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said that Apple would be using battery cells with improved energy density, allowing them to fit higher-capacity cells into phones of the same size. According to Kuo, the iPhone 16 would have a 3,561mAh capacity (a 6.3% size increase), the iPhone 16 Plus 4,006mAh (8.6% decrease), the iPhone 16 Pro 3,355mAh (2.5% increase), and the iPhone 16 Pro Max 4,676mAh (5.7% increase).

The Weibo leak from Instant Digital seems to confirm that the iPhone 16 Pro will have a bigger battery capacity than the iPhone 16 rather than smaller, as was reported by Kuo. This makes sense since both phones should have the same footprint, so in theory, they should be able to have cells with similar capacity. With the iPhone 16 Pro Max, however, we’re looking at an 8.7% battery capacity increase compared to the iPhone 15 Pro (4,422mAh), making it the biggest and longest-lasting of the bunch.

While we’re on the topic of batteries, the new, more energy-dense cells seem like they’ll finally benefit from faster charging speeds, with rumors suggesting 40-watt wired fast charging and 20W MagSafe fast charging. This isn’t bad, though not quite as fast as the 45W the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra can hit, let alone the 67W of the OnePlus Open. Still, it’s good to see Apple increasing both battery capacity and charging speed, bringing it more in line with the rest of the phone market.

With only a few weeks left till the iPhone 16 is set to go official, we’re expecting to get even more details about specs and design in the coming weeks, especially after third-party cases and accessories start leaking.