iPhones come with a Low Power Mode feature. It is turned on automatically when your iPhone’s battery life is 20% or below. The objective is to conserve battery life when the battery is low, so it lasts longer. However, Apple has silently added a new feature called Adaptive Power Mode in the same. Here is how it differs from Lower Power Mode.
How Low Power Mode Works
You can enable Low Power Mode from the Settings or Control Center manually or set it to activate when your iPhone’s battery hits a certain percentage. By default, it is set to activate at 20% battery life.
Certain features are disabled by default from running automatically when your iPhone is in Low Power Mode. For example, 5G, display brightness, background app refresh, and automatic downloads won’t work unless you use it manually.
Also Read:
- Apple Devices That Will Support iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26 – Full List
- How to Enroll and Download iOS 26 Developer/Public Beta
How Adaptive Power Mode Works
A setting called Adaptive Power Mode is now available in Settings > Battery > Power Mode. So what’s the difference?
Apple says the feature is designed to ‘make small performance adjustments to extend battery life’. It will do so by lowering the display brightness and allowing some activities to take a little longer to complete. Low Power Mode will continue to turn on at the 20% mark.
However, Adaptive Power Mode is a manual option that you can enable when you want. It should be available in the Control Center too.
As the name suggests, Adaptive Power Mode will allow certain tasks and apps to consume more power and resources to finish what they’re doing. The idea is to strike a balance between performance, running tasks, and apps that are essential to you, and conserve battery life.
iOS 26 will use Apple Intelligence and the powerful A18/A18 Pro processor to figure out your usage patterns to determine which apps deserve more power and where to cut back.
