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iPhone 6 and 6 Plus support faster charging, but ship with slower power adapter

Update: We’ve rounded up some nice 2.1A AC/Car charger and battery upgrade options for the iPhone 6/Plus

Apple has apparently enabled much faster battery charging in the newest iPhone models, but you’d never know it if you only use the included power adapter. According to a change in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus discovered by iLounge, both of the new smartphones are equipped with the hardware to support 2.1A charging.

The problem? Apple only includes a 1A charger in the box. If you’ve been using that AC power adapter to recharge your phone, there’s a much faster way to do it. Since the iPad has long supported 2.1A charging, you can grab a charger for the Apple tablet and use that to achieve a much quicker charge.

Another way to benefit from this new capability is to plug your iPhone directly into a newer-model Mac, which will charge it at the appropriate speed. iLounge noted that the Macs tested for this feature were running Yosemite with no mention of OS X Mavericks, so it’s possible that the change may require the upcoming OS, which is currently is public beta.

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Comments

  1. and the question is, how fast does it charge with the iPad charger?!
    we want to know difference in minutes

    • taoprophet420 - 10 years ago

      I know I went from 20% to full charge in under 45 minutes with my 6 plus hooked up to my iPad Air charger. I wasnt around to fully time, but it charges fast. Haven’t tried the supplied charger yet.

      I have used my iPad Air charger for 11 months now and it charged the iPhone 5 much faster too.

      • aboudy1 - 10 years ago

        This number above is inaccurate; I’ve long used the 12W iPad charger for the iPhone; the 5 and 5S charged at a rate of 0.8-1% per minute whereas the 6plus charges at a much slower 0.33% per minute or a little slower (1 hour and 7 minutes for 20%) with the iPad air charger

  2. Every iPhone supports faster charging. My 5S and 4S charge incredibly quickly on an iPad charger. Been doing it for 4 years now. No ill effects.

    • hmurchison - 10 years ago

      Ditto. The difference was noticeable on my iPhone 4 when I used my iPad charger.

      • Dylan Reichstadt - 10 years ago

        I’ve had my friend’s iPhone 5 battery fry from using the iPad charger…

      • rwtd - 10 years ago

        It makes absolutely zero difference on pre-iPhone 6!

      • Um, yes it does.

        Where HAVE you been?

    • PMZanetti - 10 years ago

      Placebo. This article is of note because all previous iPhones were limited in their ability to draw power from the adapter, regardless of whether it was 5w or 12w.

    • rwtd - 10 years ago

      Placebo effect

    • The iPhone will charge faster with the iPad charger. This has been discussed before many times.

      They’re all 5 volts including USB from your computer. They just differ in available current.

      iPad – 5 volts * 2 amp = 10 watts
      iPhone – 5 volts * 1 amp = 5 watts
      USB – 5 volts * .5 amp = 2.5 watts

      These are all max currents. ilounge has it wrong the iPhone can handle more than 1 amp of current when it’s fully depleted so it will charge faster with the iPad charger. But as it gets charged/full, it draws less and less current so for a topping off charge.

  3. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    That such great news. I always charge my iPhone using the 12w iPad charger, but obviously it doesn’t charge it any faster….with the big battery in the 6 Plus, I’m glad to hear it can take advantage of the high power adapter.

  4. Eric Dunn - 10 years ago

    I noticed the difference. Yesterday, the phone charge from 0 to 25 percent in about 15 minutes. Much faster than the iPhone 5s charging rate.

  5. CraftBeerTime.com - 10 years ago

    DON’T ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO HURT THEIR BATTERY LIFE

    Anyone that knows even a little about lithium battery technology knows that rapid charging degrades long-term battery life. Yes, it will charge faster with the iPad charger BUT it will also degrade the quality of the battery over time which will lead to lessened battery capacity. 9to5mac and MacRumors need to stop promoting this as it will hurt users batteries. Apple ships the iPhone with the charger that it does for a reason. If it was OK to charge the iPhone quicker, why wouldn’t they include the higher amperage charger (which costs them nothing additional to product) if it would allow them to cite faster charging times in their specs material.

    • Bryan Schwartz - 10 years ago

      This depends on many factors. If the battery is rated for 2C or even 5C charging then it won’t hurt it one bit. Also, the 6 has a ~1800mAh battery and the plus has a ~2900mAh battery. The plus wouldn’t even be charging at 1C with a 2 Amp charger. The regular 6 would be just over 1C. This means that only the iPhone 6 has even a chance of reduced battery life with a 2 amp charger if apple went for a 1C rated battery.

    • Jx - 9 years ago

      “If it was OK to charge the iPhone quicker, why wouldn’t they include the higher amperage charger (which costs them nothing additional to product) if it would allow them to cite faster charging times in their specs material.”

      If it is not ok to charge the iPhone 6 faster, why would they allow the iPhone 6 to accept the higher amperage?

      • If it is OK, then why did they ship it with a 1A charger? They would save a lot of money, through economy of scales, if they just made one charger for all of their devices.

    • Lisa Reaux Jamil - 9 years ago

      Do you really think Apple intended the iPhone 6 to take 8 hrs to charge 20% to full? I think this was an oversight on their part!

      • LTJXX (@LTJxx) - 7 years ago

        To the person who posted the comment with the term “economy of scales”:

        The correct form for that term is actually “economies of scale”. The word “economies” should be plural because there can be many different areas of cost savings which can be realized by using manufacturing facilities of sufficiently large capacity (for given demand) but “scale” is singular because it simply refers to the scale (or capacity, size) of a given factory and its production equipment.

    • I couldn’t agree more. I have studied and written about iPhone batteries for a few years, and rapid charging is never a good idea. Why don’t they just make one charger for all of their products? It would be cheaper. I know, even on their site, they say it’s OK, but Popular Mechanics, Battery University and other sources don’t agree. After all, they only need the battery to last 1 year, until the warranty runs out.

      Why do you think they tell iPad 2 and iPhone 4S users to upgrade to iOS 8 and 9? Both operating system “upgrades” will render those devices useless. They anticipate that most users will just buy a new iOS device. After all, the stockholders need Apple to sell more devices.

  6. dcj001 - 10 years ago

    “iLounge noted that the Macs tested for this feature were running Yosemite with no mention of OS X Mavericks, so it’s possible that the change may require the upcoming OS, which is currently is public beta.”

    No. I have been charging my iPhone 6 by connecting its Lightning cable into my iMac’s (OS X 10.9.5) USB 3.0 port, and I noticed that it seems to have been more quickly than my iPhone 5s did.

  7. nwmike - 10 years ago

    I’ve always used my iPad charger on my 4s and 5s. It charges in about 1.2 hours.

    • George Pollen - 10 years ago

      No need for the larger iPad charger to achieve that speed, though. The standard iPhone charger will charge that fast (roughly 2% per minute for the 5s).

    • standardpull - 10 years ago

      Me too. Fast charging of our household iPhones (4,5, 5S) has been well known for years. It seems that iLounge is 4 years behind “public knowledge”.

      • rwtd - 10 years ago

        It seems you’re ignorant because every pre-6 iphone does NOT support more than 1amp charging, so what you think is charging faster is 100% smoke and mirrors.

      • YES, they DO.

        Talk about putting your ignorance on display.

      • Tom Linder - 10 years ago

        All pre-iPhone 6 charge with 1Amp max. All other feelings are placebo.

  8. Joe Public - 10 years ago

    I suppose it saves Apple a dime per $649 unit, so makes a conspicuous addition to their bottom line.

    • aboudy1 - 10 years ago

      This number above is inaccurate; I’ve long used the 12W iPad charger for the iPhone; the 5 and 5S charged at a rate of 0.8-1% per minute whereas the 6plus charges at a much slower 0.33% per minute or a little slower (1 hour and 7 minutes for 20%) with the iPad air charger

  9. Cory © (@Nardes) - 10 years ago

    I’ve always used my iPad adapter for my phones, but last night was the first night I used my iPhone 6 with an iPad adapter and holy cow! I was really caught off guard and brushed it off as a fluke…. but now reading this, it makes sense! I went from dead to 60% in hardly any time at all

  10. herb02135go - 10 years ago

    Good thing your devices charge so quickky. Too bad that’s really an issue on your new phones though.

    I get about 2 days, not counting standby mode. Takes about an hour to go from 0 to 100 percent. That’s on my Galaxy S5.

    • George Pollen - 10 years ago

      Too bad the S5 battery doesn’t last as long, despite its smaller screen. Probably not an issue for you though, since the S5 doesn’t many apps well.

      • I’m not supporting the S5 here but smaller screen? I assume you mean the 6+… If you are going to make that comparison you should compare it to the Note and not the S5 since the Note and 6+ are roughly the same dimensions…

        A better compression for the S5 is the iPhone 6 which has similar dimensions but a smaller overall screen size.

    • George Pollen - 10 years ago

      The S5 runs malware great, though!

    • standardpull - 10 years ago

      My 5 had excellent battery life too, my iPhone 6 is even better.

      So again, Apple has an incredible winner on its hands. In the mean time, the rest of the smartphone industry is lurching with products that are less capable than the original iPhone.

      I heard that Samsung might pull out of smartphones to focus on their printers. Sad, but clearly necessary, as Samsung really only makes cheap garbage and most people have figured that out. There are a few Samboys out there that just keep on dreaming that their next version will be better, but history shows that they just don’t know how.

    • Greg Luecke - 9 years ago

      So you get longer battery life, which is a good thing, but then you have to use the Galaxy S5. It’s like you can get cheaper houses in New Jersey than in California, but the downside is that then you have to live in New Jersey.

  11. c93a - 10 years ago

    So I can use the 2.4 amp 100-240V charger that came with my iPad (2 or 3) without it causing damage to the 6’s battery? I know it charged my 5 faster but it would get really hot sometimes and that can’t be good….

  12. rtd5943 - 10 years ago

    So how do we find an “iPad” charger? Don’t they all look the same in the Apple store? They have the 5W and the 12W.

    • pecospeet - 10 years ago

      iPad chargers look like a mini version of a Macbook charger and (in North America at least) are marked as 12 watt. They also have interchangeable plugs on them, so they work with the international plug package.

      iPhone chargers look like a small 3D rectangle with a fixed plug on the end and are marked as 5 watt (at least that’s the look in North America – I have not seen any phone chargers from other countries).

  13. nono68200 - 10 years ago

    I charged my iPhone yesterday, and I thought it was really fast to charge! Normal, it was with iPad charger.

  14. nekomichikun - 10 years ago

    I noticed how fast the iPhone 6 recharges too on an iPad power adaptor and initially thought I had a faulty unit or something. Now this makes sense.

    It went from 3% to 20% in less than 15 minutes, whereas an iPhone 5 being charged at the same time went from 54% to 60% under the same time period.

  15. Robert Dufly - 10 years ago

    Folks there are a lot of 500ma chargers out there, as a matter of fact that is the spec for usb 1.0 and 2.0. so one thing about having the iPad charger is the iPhone (4, 4s, 5, 5s) will draw 1 amp on any charger that is 1 amp or greater, and the iPad charger is ‘greater’ so you will get roughly twice the speed if you are plugging the thing into the iPad charger compared to ‘any ole charger’ …granted that is only exactly the same as the phones original charger, which could also supply 1 amp.

    My point is you all are assuming placebo effect, but what has more likely happened is over time people got a replacement 500ma charger or are otherwise comparing to the speed of hooking to an older USB port, and correctly observing faster charging on the iPad charger.

    Now this is a separate discussion from actually being able to draw more current, as apparently the iPhone 6 can do….good to know

  16. Tony Trenkle Jr. - 10 years ago

    I’ve used that feature with the iphone 5 as well. So this isnt a new technology I dont think. Unless its faster than the iphone 5.

  17. Henry Aidasani - 9 years ago

    will faster charging be supported if I use Late rMBP 2013??

  18. Tracy Korhonen - 9 years ago

    The charger that came with my 6 is much slower than the one that comes with iPad. If this diminishes battery life, then what else are we to do?

  19. tdavismann - 8 years ago

    Got my 6s+ yesterday afternoon…I’m still charging it! But seriously, this is the first charge, so maybe that has something to do w it (fingers X’d), esp since a quick search yielded no help…at least pertaining to logic and my best guess going forward:
    I read that the original 6 and 6+ were painfully slow, but that using the 2.1A square chargers improved speed nicely. That was a no brainier”fix,” tho seemingly unlike Apple to leave such a glaring and obvious problem for (at the time) the star product of the Tech World’s leading innovator that prides itself on leaving no stone unturned… Well, my 6S+ is charging, and at this rate the Philosophers Stone will be unturned before my goshdamn phone is @100%.

    How do they let an issue like that, which is so GLARING and essential to functionality – and exhibited on a daily basis – exist without acknowledgement or (“l dunno”) maybe taking a…SWIPE… at either addressing the issue from square 1, or at least including/suggesting use of higher Amp’d chargers.
    —THAT, actually would better fit their $grubbing bus plan, as a new “high capacity CORD,” and $.01 alteration of their tablet chargers (obvi all tied up in a bow of aesthetically pleasing and “groundbreakingly” reshaped plastic…).

    Then they could just make sure that all other 2.1 A chargers are slightly off and won’t work, and even if so, the cords could just be designed to short out and/or cause shorts in the battery…so then they could reopen their monopoly on the charging accessories for another yr or so…
    “Sure, JUST try’n use your old iPad chargers…or God forbid……..those degenerate, identical looking and performing chargers made in CHINA…from the same factories that have made all our Apple Accessories/Chargers to date…but did it come in your Apple Box w your Device…or from our affordable Apple Stores? I think not!
    Yeah, they may be $3 vs $40, but do you trust the same shady Chinese manufacturers that make illegal…but identical in design and functionality…Apple products after business hrs AGAINST THE LAW?”
    —yes I trust them, about as much as I do Apple…since they are the SAME companies making your “legal” accessories during reg business hrs!

  20. Shaquasia QuasiaBaby - 8 years ago

    WHAT IF YOU DONT HAVE AN IPAD CHARGER OR A MAC COMPUTER TO CHARGE IT ON WHAT DO YOU DO?

  21. Brett Schulte - 8 years ago

    Maybe the reason some people think a 2.1 amp charger has worked for them is because their 1A chargers aren’t working and putting out their full labeled amperage? If a 1A is actually putting out .7 then it makes sense a 2.1A would in fact work better, even if the device isn’t capable of taking more than 1A?