In this podcast, Thomas Domville walks through Apple’s new Adaptive Power mode in iOS, explaining what it does, which devices support it, what trade-offs to expect, and how to turn it on. You’ll learn how the system uses on-device intelligence to detect unusually power-hungry apps or tasks and gently throttle performance to extend battery life—plus how this differs from the traditional Low Power Mode.
What is Adaptive Power?
- An AI-assisted battery feature that watches for apps or tasks using more CPU/battery than usual and automatically makes performance adjustments (e.g., slightly dimming the display or allowing some activities to take longer) to reduce drain.
- It’s conservative compared to Low Power Mode—only intervenes when something is actually hogging resources, so the phone behaves normally most of the time.
- Trade-offs: When Adaptive Power kicks in, you may notice subtle slowdowns (emails/messages can arrive a bit slower; animations feel slightly less snappy; display may dim a touch).
- Device support: Requires newer, AI-capable iPhone models (as referenced in the show).
Key points & takeaways
- Set-and-forget: Once enabled, it only activates when needed—otherwise your phone runs as usual.
- Notifications available: You can enable an Adaptive Power notification so you know when it’s actively managing performance.
- Works alongside Low Power Mode: Low Power Mode remains the more aggressive option; Adaptive Power is a lighter-touch, smarter layer for everyday use.
How to enable Adaptive Power
- Open Settings.
- Double Tap Battery.
- Double Tap Power Mode (near the bottom of the screen).
- Toggle Adaptive Power On.
- (Optional) Turn on Adaptive Power Notifications to be alerted when it activates.
- (Optional) Use Low Power Mode when you want a stronger, system-wide battery-saving profile (iOS will typically prompt you around 20% battery).
VoiceOver tips (from the demo)
- In Settings, navigate by swiping right until you reach Battery, then double-tap.
- On the Battery screen, you can four-finger tap near the bottom to quickly reach elements closer to the end of the list, then flick left/right to Power Mode.
- Toggle Adaptive Power and Adaptive Power Notifications with a double-tap.
When to use which
- Adaptive Power: Daily driver—great for automatic, gentle savings without constantly changing how your phone feels.
- Low Power Mode: Use when you need maximum battery conservation (travel days, long events, low-battery emergencies).
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Thomas: Hello and welcome. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. I have a great battery saver mode that I want to introduce you today. Now, this is starting in iOS 26 and newer. We have a new battery adaptive power mode, and essentially this will allow Apple Intelligence, which is going to be kind of a drawback for some of you because this is only going to be available for those with the newer devices such as the iPhone 15 Pro, and newer, so you have to have AI-capable device to be able to use this adaptive power. So what is this adaptive power? So the cool thing about this is that the AI will just kind of watch your phone for you, and if it ever detects an app or a task that's just kind of just draining the battery a little faster than normal, taking a lot of CPU consumption, it will analyze it, and it'll detect it, and then it will try to make tweaks So it doesn't drain the battery as fast. And I have seen some significant difference with this for myself. And so I can't say enough how important this is or something that you want to look at. Now, in saying that, enabling this, I will say that you will notice some slowdown in certain things. So if it does kick on, that you're going to see the screen display dim just a little bit and task seems to take a little longer, meaning that your emails and your messages may take a little longer to get to you than normal. Now, even though it's on, and if it's not detecting anything consuming a substantial amount of your CPU or battery, then have no worries, all your information ends. apps will work just as normal. So it only takes effect when it notices that a particular app is being hogged. And it will kind of throttle that a little bit for you so other things don't consume your battery as quickly as they used to. All right, so where is this feature and where can I find it to turn it on? Well, you're going to be able to find it in the batteries within the settings. So let's head over to native settings.
VoiceOver: Settings. Double tap to open.
Thomas: Let's go ahead and go in here. One finger double tap. Now swipe to the right until you find battery. One finger double tap on that. Now at the very bottom, near towards the bottom. It's not the last element, but it's the second from the last element when I did this podcast. So I'll do a four finger tap on the bottom half of the screen.
Thomas/VoiceOver: And go left. And that's where we want to go. Double tap on power mode. adaptive power switch button off double tap to toggle setting now let's turn this item on on and now the adaptive power mode is on now let's go to the right there are some other things i want to point out to you adaptive power notifications switch button on double tap to toggle setting
Thomas: That's clever. I like that. So it'll give you a notification when something kicks in and the adaptive power is active. So that is something that you'll need to double tap to turn that on if you want to get notification when that gets kicked on.
VoiceOver: When your battery usage is higher than usual, iPhone can extend your battery life by making performance adjustments, such as lowering display brightness, allowing some activities to take longer. We're turning on low power mode at 20%.
Thomas: So that's a pretty good, in a nutshell. And then, of course, you still have your handy-dandy dependable.
VoiceOver: Low power mode. Switch button off. Double tap to toggle setting.
Thomas: Lower power mode, which we've had in previous iOS, which takes more of an aggressive stance about what your throttle and such is. It's a little more aggressive where the... Adaptive power is more conservative and not so aggressive as a power mode, a low power mode. So with that on, now from this point on, if any apps or tasks is taking some high amount of CPU usage or your battery is starting to drain more more than usual, that will start curbing it, and we'll get a notification, let us know that it's occurring, and thus we'll save on your battery life percentage on that day. So this is a great new feature that I want to introduce to you, all of you. And if you have those devices that support AI, then I definitely highly recommend turn this on to extend your battery life. All right, well, that's going to do for me. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. Until next time.
Comments
Some Kind of Paradoxish Thing
There's a weird issue with apps aimed at optimizing performance, efficiency or power consumption: Disk cleaners take up some disk space themselves and often run in the background, task killers run as system tasks themselves with a certain portion of the CPU allocated to them, and battery savers drain the battery themselves, all inevitably. Not only that; task killers often cause more battery drain by killing even the processes that are needed quite often, leading to lower performance. So I truly wonder in what cases the gains outweigh the losses. I'm genuinely trying to ask something here.