New Leak Confirms Major Design Upgrade

Updated July 5 with more details and commentary on the expected battery size increase for the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

A new leak suggests that this fall’s Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max (expected in September, read this for exactly when) will have a bigger-capacity battery than any iPhone has ever seen. More details have now emerged as to what this will mean.

A new post has appeared from a Weibo user called Instant Digitalwhose track record isn’t perfect but has leaked some accurate information in the past, so is worth listening to.

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According to the leak, the iPhone 17 Pro Max battery could be as big as around 5,000mAh, which is bigger than the current biggest iPhone battery, in the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which measures 4,676mAh.

It’s long been rumored that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will be thicker than beforeand it’s been hoped that some of this extra space would be used to increase the battery size, and this new post corroborates that.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is 8.25mm thick, and it’s thought its successor will be 8.725mm thick. That’s less than half a millimeter more, so let’s hope it stays comfortable in the hand, but even such a slender increase could have a noticeable effect on the iPhone’s battery life.

Of course, each new iPhone has new features, all of which could affect battery life. On the other hand, the expected new processor for the Pro Max could combine with greater efficiencies in software which could expand battery life.

But the surest way to make a device last longer is a bigger battery, and it seems that could be on the way.

Even though users love new features, battery life stubbornly remains as about the top request. After all, even if your phone can do extraordinary new things, it’s not much use if it’s collapsed by lunchtime each day.

According to 9to5Mac“Depending on how close to 5,000 the final number ends up being, we could be looking at almost a 10% increase in capacity. It’s important to note, however, that a battery’s capacity doesn’t have a 1:1 correlation with battery life improvements,” it says.

Meanwhile, Macrumors suggests what it might mean. “The battery life of the iPhone 16 Pro Max is 33 hours, according to Apple. This is up from 29 hours on the iPhone 14 Pro Max, and 28 hours on the iPhone 13 Pro Max. The iPhone 12 Pro Max had a battery life of just 20 hours. With an extra 300mAh of battery capacity, the iPhone 17 Pro Max could be on course to offer around 35 hours of battery life, or perhaps even more,” it reports.

William Gallagher at Apple Insider has a different take on the battery change. The brand estimates that the new battery will have about 324mAh more than the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

“However, even if the new figure and the earlier physical size rumors are correct, it does not follow that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will have longer battery life. That’s because it depends on the rest of the iPhone 17 Pro Max design. The new model is expected to add new technology that will not impact the battery — such as vapor chamber cooling — but there may be other new features that do,” the report says.

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