There are plenty of old iPhone wall chargers still out there very slowly powering up handsets. Fortunately, iOS 18.2 made it quick and easy to tell if it’s time to trash your old, slow iPhone charger.
The best iPhone chargers give your handset a big boost in as little as half an hour. Older ones take all sodding day. You don’t have to put up with slow charges if you don’t want to.
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Slow iPhone charger: Don’t waste your time
Modern iPhones can charge very quickly. In a recent test with a good charger, the battery level in my iPhone 16 Plus went from 13% to 65% in half an hour. That’s a 52% boost — enough to keep me going most of the day.
But then I tried an old Apple 5W wall charger I pulled out of a junk box. This is the USB-A charger that shipped with iPhones until a few years ago, and it’s slow. In a full hour, the battery level on my iPhone went up a mere 27% — about a quarter as fast as a newer charger.
But you don’t have to run your own tests to see how well your iPhone charger functions. A new feature in the recently released iOS 18.2 means a quick trip to the Battery section in Settings will alert you to a slow iPhone charger.
How to know when to throw out your old, slow iPhone charger
Screenshots: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
The best part of this trick is you don’t have to do anything special to see if your iPhone charger is ready for the rubbish. Once you have iOS 18.2 installed, your iPhone is already testing — and judging — your charger.
To see the result, go to Settings > Battery and look at the graph labeled Battery Level. Most of the graph should be green. If any portion is orange, you have an iPhone slow charger. The graph stays green when you juice up with a better one.
To double-check, plug your iPhone into the questionable charger and leave it there for just a couple of minutes. Now go back to Settings > Battery. A note in orange pointing out that you’re currently using a Slow Charger now appears. It links to a guide on increasing iPhone charging speeds.
Move to a faster charger
Apple’s suggestions on what to do with a slow iPhone charger include a large note: “You might charge faster with a different charger.” There’s nothing you can do to improve that one that came with your iPhone five or six years ago. It’s rubbish.
Buying a better charger is the simplest and most obvious solution. I’m a fan of the Plugable 40W Dual USB-C Charger. It’s fast, small, affordable and powers two devices at once. Read my review of it.
Although I’ve recommended pitching out that old, slow iPhone charger, you probably shouldn’t. It’s not hurting your iPhone, it’s just lame. Put the device and its cable in your luggage instead. A slow charger is better than no charger at all, and if you forget to bring a better one on holiday, you can turn to one that at least works.
But for daily use, life is too short to wait all damn day on an iPhone slow charger.
Small but mighty
Plugable Dual USB-C Charger Block
4.5
Plugable’s 40W Dual USB-C Charger is extremely portable, but still puts out enough juice to quickly charge a MacBook, iPad or iPhone. And it costs about half what Apple charges for its dual-port charger.
- 40W of power
- Two USB-C ports
- Foldable AC plug
Cons:
