Iphone 12 battery life

iPhone Battery and Performance - Apple Support

"A normal battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles when operating under normal conditions. The one-year warranty includes service coverage for a defective battery. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers battery service for a charge." A degraded battery may display the notice: "Your battery’s health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity."

It is commonly reported there that you can anticipate losing about 1% per month of use, so you still having 97% after 8 months is doing quite well. If you were down to 80% within the one year warranty period then Apple would consider that not-"normal".

I (and nobody else responding here) can't second guess what Support would say. To me it seems you're still way ahead on life expectancy. I'd say keep on using it until it drops to 80%. If that happens during the warranty period then Apple will replace it under warranty at no charge.

You can always contact Apple and ask them about this but I don't know if they have any way of testing if the battery has suddenly had problems. They may simply go on the basis of when it drops to 80%. For all I know, the battery health thing could be non-linear, or you suddenly started using the phone in a different way that has put a lot of strain on the battery. I know my iPhone is probably 6 years old now and it still says 87% battery health. I only use it once or twice per month.

Refer to this document for ways to contact Apple --> Choose your country or region - Official Apple Support

Select your country (also look for "other" regions), then a product. If you don't see one that handles your issue then keep experimenting with selections until you reach one that gets you a chat session or a telephone call and get the representative to redirect you.

or:

Contact Apple for support and service by telephone --> Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

Support will tell you that your battery is performing normally. They will not consider a battery defective unless the Battery Health has dropped below 80%.

When the phone is a year old, you can expect health to be in the 88-90% range. Expect to replace the battery at about 2 years.

It looks like your battery is doing better than average. Check the Battery Health in another 4-5 months. You will drive yourself crazy if you check the Battery Health constantly.

Remember that Apple Support will not do anything unless your battery has dropped to about 80%.

It is likely your battery has been significantly degraded. If you purchased your iPhone 12 in 2020, that would be very likely.

Another thing might be applications draining your battery. Gaming, high graphics, location services, background processes, all of those can significantly affect a battery's performance. This happened with my iPhone 11.

Check to see how many background processes are running. Another thing is to check multitasking; the more apps you have open, the more processes your iPhone is trying to run.

Go into Settings>Battery>Battery Health, and check the status on your battery. Hope this helps!

For future reference on having your battery last longer, try limiting how many apps can run in the background. If you don't need certain apps using your location, try changing those settings in Settings>Privacy & Security>Location services. You can change location preferences for your apps and the iPhone's system.

Apple provides warranty for the battery for up to a year (last I checked).

I doubt it is still under warranty.

If you do not have Apple Care or Apple Care +, or any insurance for your iPhone, Apple can replace your battery for a fee of $89 plus taxes where applicable.

Hope this helps!

It really is hard to tell, particularly with such a small drop in total. It is frequently said here that you can expect a drop of 1% per month of use and age. However, as I can attest, that is not set in stone or else my battery would be be around 28% by now instead of 87%.

As I said, if you are really concerned you can contact Apple, but they may consider a small blip like that to be insignificant, particularly given that the absolute health is quite high for 8 months of use. It would not surprise me if they were only interested in if your battery is at the 80% level, yes or no.

Apple has a history of occasionally having improper readings of the actual battery health. It happened with my iPhone 11, and I remember in the Battery Health section of settings, when updating to iOS 16, it said something about batteries recently being recalled and that some readings are inaccurate, and to check Apple's website. Anyway, try restarting your iPhone a few times and check the battery health. This might help recalibrate the battery. The health reading has a margin of error, and sometimes it reads lower than what it actually is.

To your point of having social apps, Snapchat can be the biggest battery drainer. I have it myself, but that shouldn't be the sole cause; if many apps use your location, then it could be draining your battery. Another thing would be that your storage is almost full, and your iPhone has to work harder to process tasks and everything.

Ultimately, you should be concerned if you see a warning message appear about the battery being significantly degraded.

If it is at or below 80%, it may be time to get a new battery. Sort of like getting new tires with your car; it may be awhile before it has to be done, but once it has to be done, it is unpleasant; it's annoying, but it is necessary.

I've had to do it before. Me personally, I took it as a hint to check with my carrier about upgrade eligibility. But this differs from person to person. If the difference between the new iPhone offered by the carrier and your trade-in estimate is less than the replacement cost of the battery, I would suggest trading it in. Otherwise, maybe replace the battery. Sometimes carriers change the value of the trade-in depending on the condition of the device. If replacing the battery adds, say, twice the value of the battery cost, then that is good news. The longer you hold onto a device, the less it is worth and the more it depreciates. My apologies for getting off-topic a little bit.

All in all, you might have to get a new battery (If the max capacity is below 80%), and for future reference, take additional measures to limit battery usage. Avoid charging the phone and leaving it on standby for multiple days in a row (I have done this). It will RUIN the battery. Try limiting location permissions and background processes. I hope all of this helps, and I wish you the best with your iPhone.

Battery health displayed in Settings is just an estimate. It's not even the official battery health that Apple would use to determine if a device is eligible for a battery replacement service. I remember when I brought my iPhone to get the battery replaced under Apple's worldwide battery replacement promotion (where it didn't have to be under 80%), I had something like 92% battery health displayed in Settings, but they said the diagnostic displayed about 88%.

Sometimes the updates seem to happen quickly in succession and they're probably more about the way the software works. It's not a real time reading of the battery health, and occasionally it can go up (again - just an estimate).