Try This Setting to Improve Your Battery Life in iOS 26

Adaptive Power may help your iPhone's battery last a bit longer.

Credit: Primakov/Shutterstock

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I'd be willing to bet the one thing most of us want from our iPhones is quite simple: more battery life. Apple can keep adding new features and designs with each new smartphone iteration, but if the company just announced a new iPhone with record-breaking battery life, customers would be thrilled.

While we may have to wait for a time when the iPhone can go a couple days in between charges, Apple has added a new option to iOS 26 in an effort to help extend your iPhone's battery life. The feature, Adaptive Power, uses on-device AI to analyze your iPhone usage and guess the times you'll need additional battery life. This is exactly how I want to see AI being used—not for generating hyper-realistic videos or musical slop.

How Adaptive Power tries to boost your battery

Adaptive Power is enabled by default on Apple's newest iPhones, including the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air—the latter of which could most likely benefit from such a feature. For all other compatible iPhones, which includes iPhone 15 Pro and newer, the feature is turned off by default. That means, unless you have an iPhone 17 device, you'll need to turn this on yourself.

How to turn Adaptive Power on or off

Whether you have an iPhone 15 Pro or an iPhone 17, you'll find the controls for Adaptive Power in the same place. Open Settings, then head to Battery > Power Mode. Here, you can tap the toggle next to "Adaptive Power" to turn the setting on or off.

Since Adaptive Power turns on and off throughout the day, Apple also offers you the option to receive alerts whenever the feature is active. You can adjust this setting from the "Adaptive Power Notifications" toggle.

I've been using Adaptive Power since iOS 26 dropped on Sept. 15, but it's tough to say whether the feature has had a noticeable impact on my battery life. I think it would help if Apple added Adaptive Power information to my battery stats, so I could compare the impacts before and after using the feature. For now, I'll continue using it, if for no other reason than to offer my battery the best possible chance of making it through the day without its charger.