When Apple released their portable MagSafe battery pack solution it stayed on the very conservative side as it was never redesigned to fully charge an iPhone Pro or Pro Max. Third party accessory makers quickly created their own versions which did what Apple’s could not. The only saving grace for Apple’s battery pack was its’ deep integration into iOS. Now, it looks to 1 up the competition feature wise by being software updatable. Last Wednesday Apple released a firmware update (v2.70b) which upgrades the battery pack to allow for a faster charging rate. After the update it will charge an iPhone at 7.5w vs the original and slower 5w. While a 2.5w increase doesn’t seem like a lot, it is better and doesn’t tax the battery cells as much as faster charging rates do.
To get the update you should connect the MagSafe Battery pack to an iPad with USB-C or a MacBook which it will then take about 5 minute to complete. If not, apparently, the update will take about a week to complete when attached to an iPhone during regular use. My only guess as to why this route takes so long is because it’s using some combination of bluetooth and the MagSafe to connect which is slow compared to a wired connection. To check the firmware version go to iPhone Settings > General > About > MagSafe Battery Pack while the MagSafe Battery Pack is attached to the iPhone.
Wyatt's Tech Corner 