Still struggling with iOS 26 battery life? iOS 27 could fix it soon – but here are 7 ways to boost it now

Relief for tired iPhones

16 Feb 2026, 13:00 · TechRadar

News By Alex Blake published 16 February 2026

(Image credit: Future)

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iOS 27 could help prolong your battery life, a new report claims
The changes should come to iPhones new and old
There are ways you can improve your battery life before iOS 27 arrives

Apple will likely show off iOS 27 at WWDC 2026 in June, but details have already started emerging about what it could deliver. While it’s expected to be a much smaller update than iOS 26, a new report says it’ll contain vital battery life improvements that could help your iPhone last longer, even if it’s an older model.

This rumor comes from the Power On newsletter published this past weekend by Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. There, Gurman describes iOS 27 as a “cleanup job” whose code changes “could improve battery life” for the company’s best iPhones. These changes should affect any device that’s compatible with iOS 27, including older phones.

Gurman says that right now, iOS code is “a bit of a mess under the hood.” That has led to various inefficiencies that can lead to sluggish battery performance. But with iOS 27 aiming to nix these once and for all – including by “removing scraps of old code, rewriting features and subtly upgrading apps to let them perform better” – the result could be a “snappier, more responsive operating system.”

We don’t know how much of an improvement we’re likely to see, and Gurman notes that “it’s unclear if [Apple] will market the changes – or if this is just a benefit of cleaning things up.” If Apple decides against promoting the battery increase, that could imply that the difference will be relatively minor – but many iPhone owners will be hoping for more, given their struggles with iOS 26.

How to improve your iPhone’s battery life

(Image credit: Apple)

Don’t want to wait until iOS 27 arrives in the summer? There are still plenty of things you can do that will improve your iPhone’s battery life right now. On its website, for example, Apple advises you to update your iPhone to the latest operating system, as this might contain battery and performance tweaks that can help your device last longer on a single charge.

Other than that, you can enable Low Power Mode, which disables several features that are known to quickly drain your battery life. Or you can enable the similar Adaptive Power Mode if you’re running iOS 26, and this automatically adjusts iOS features based on your usage patterns with the goal of slowing battery drain. You can enable both Low Power Mode and Adaptive Power Mode in Settings > Battery > Power Mode.

Dimming your brightness – or enabling Auto-Brightness, which adjusts your screen brightness on the fly, under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Auto-Brightness – will help to reduce the amount of power consumed by your display. Another screen tip is to disable the iPhone’s always-on display (if your iPhone is compatible) by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Always On Display.

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