Testing Battery

[ChiffaN]

It is good to let the battery completely drain (until the unit shuts itself down) once every 4-6 weeks. This process re-engerizes the battery so to speak.

Folks, I would advise against this. This was the case with older Ni-Cd and Ni-Mg batteries but the iPhone, as most other newer devices uses a Li-Io or a Li-Pol battery. And for these kinds it's actually akin to death to drain the battery completely. This is why you might notice that the iPhone actually shuts down BEFORE reaching 0 - to have a bit of charge left to keep the battery alive.

[mrholder]

Good point ChiffaN. Didn't know that. I hardly ever let mine get below 20%.

[iPhonephreak]

I always thought charging your battery a lot wasn't good.. (like before it drains out completely).

You can't overcharge the type of battery that is in these devices. Give it a charge whenever you can/want to.

[Ron]

Updating my earlier post where I mentioned the "Accura" app. After the update that was supposed to fix the 0% battery health, my iTouch still registers 0%.
#Accurafail as the tweet would go....

[mrholder]

Thanks Ron. I'll steer clear of Accura.

[juubee]

Folks, I would advise against this. This was the case with older Ni-Cd and Ni-Mg batteries but the iPhone, as most other newer devices uses a Li-Io or a Li-Pol battery. And for these kinds it's actually akin to death to drain the battery completely. This is why you might notice that the iPhone actually shuts down BEFORE reaching 0 - to have a bit of charge left to keep the battery alive.

Oh wow. Thanks for letting us know. Good thing it doesn't completely drain out then so I couldn't have (attempted to last night).

[Ron]

O.K. I just downloaded the latest update to Accura (vers. 3.2- Feb 10th) It at least gives me a reasonable result when I check battery health (100% for a virtually new iTouch 3g 32 gb- as opposed to 0% before update). It has always seemed to match the iPods 20% warning level when I used the "estimated battery health" slider. Is it accurate? The million dollar question! The jury is still out on that one. If i can help answer the question I will post it here....

[wiredmind]

From Apple's website:

For iPod Touch:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/ipods.html

For iPhone:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html


A very detailed thread (it has a guide to test for defective batteries):
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=525741