The battery percentage is finally coming back to iOS 16 and it’s abominable

Apple released iOS 16 beta 5 today, and with it comes the long-awaited return of the battery percentage in the status bar. Unfortunately, it’s ugly as hell and unreadable to boot.

Previously, the battery percentage was displayed to the left of the battery icon. However, Apple removed it starting with the iPhone X because there wasn’t enough room to stuff it in thanks to the notch. Currently, to find out the battery percentage, you have to swipe down to the control center. In iOS 16, Apple “solved” this problem by showing the character inside the battery icon.

(If you’ve updated to the latest beta version and don’t see it, that’s because it’s not on by default. To turn it on, you need to go to the battery menu in settings and toggle the battery percentage option as well doesn’t seem to be available on the iPhone 11, iPhone 12 mini, and iPhone 13 mini. This might change with future betas, but those are the pauses for now.)

It looks like an eyesore – something you would see on a phone circa 2011. From afar it looks like the number on a sports jersey, and not in a good way. However, I acknowledge that this is my personal aesthetic taste. My biggest problem is that this new battery percentage also has functional issues.

Because the number appears within the battery icon, it must appear fully charged at all times to be legible. Even if you only have 10 percent battery left on your phone, the icon itself still looks full. In the few hours I had this feature turned on, it admittedly short-circuited my brain. A full battery icon that reads 55? That just bursts the visual cues we’ve all become accustomed to.

The whole purpose of the battery icon is to quickly understand at a glance how much juice you have left. Unfortunately, the “full” battery plus the tiny numbers are not very easy on the eyes. This is especially true if you already have poor vision. It doesn’t help that the status bar has always been difficult to read if you happen to be using a light background. Of course, not everyone will have this problem. If you have 20/20 vision, it probably won’t bother you very much. I happen to have severe astigmatism and myopia and some focus mode lock screens with a light background. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve misinterpreted the 50 percent battery count as 5G instead.

Compare all of this to the dead battery icon. While the countless icon doesn’t tell you exactly how much battery you have left, it’s so easy to get a rough guide. It’s an intuitive design that hardly needs any explanation. It’s a small consolation, but at least the battery icon still changes color when you put it on sleep mode or plug in your phone. The former turns the icon yellow, while the latter turns it green with a lightning bolt icon next to it. (Charging also makes the battery icon and numbers bigger, making it much easier to read! Why not for normal mode too?!)

It almost feels like Apple forced us to do it on purpose. The company is known for its meticulous control over product design – whether or not the changes it makes are what people want. (RIP headphone jack.) With the iPhone X, Apple decided that we didn’t need a battery percentage in the status bar. With Control Center, it has provided us with what it considers a satisfactory solution. But we’ve all been demanding that Apple restore the battery percentage in the top right corner of our phones, and that’s what we got.

I’ll probably go back to turning off the battery percentage. After all, the battery icon works in the vast majority of situations. And the next time my battery gets dangerously close to zero, I’ll let out a deep sigh as I swipe down to the control center and mourn what could have been.