Apple took wraps off of the heavily rumoured iPhone 15 series on September 12 during its ‘Wonderlust’ event. The latest handsets boast multiple new features including a new USB Type-C port for the first time, titanium build, camera upgrades, and Dynamic Island on all models. This year, the Cupertino-based company has also extended support for the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (NavIC) to iPhone 15 Pro models. With the new move, Apple is aligning with India’s push to promote the country’s home-grown alternative to the GPS navigation system. Separately, a source code reportedly found in the iOS 17 beta indicates that the iPhone 15 will have an option to limit the maximum battery charge percentage.
The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are listed with support for NavIC. This was first spotted by TechCrunch. For those unaware, NavIC is India’s own navigation system and is similar to the United State’s GPS and Russia’s Glonass. The system was developed by India’s space agency ISRO for military and commercial users and was earlier known as IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System). NavIC consists of eight satellites and covers the Indian mainland and region extending up to 1,500km from its boundaries.
This is the first time that Apple has included support for NavIC in any of its iPhone models. With this move, Apple appears to comply with India’s efforts to promote the adoption of NavIC. The Indian government was pushing smartphone companies to enable support for NavIC on the handsets they will sell in India from January this year.
Separately, the iPhone 15 series will reportedly have a new feature that would allow users to limit the battery charge percentage to maximise battery health. According to a source code spotted by 9to5Mac in the iOS 17 beta that is released to developers, Apple will let users limit the maximum charge on the iPhone 15 series.
Once it goes live, the option is expected to be present in the Battery settings menu. Enabling the feature would stop charging after the battery reaches the percentage the user has set as the maximum. Inversely, when the feature is turned off, it will display a message saying the iPhone “will charge to its full capacity.” It is quite similar to the “Optimised Battery Charging” option and is expected to preserve battery health over time. Smartphones by Samsung and OnePlus also offer similar features.
The new charge optimisation feature is expected to be compatible with the iPhone 15 series with USB Type-C port charging. We can expect to know more about this functionality once Apple’s new software for iPhone — iOS 17— goes live for the public on September 18. The iPhone 15 series, on the other hand, will go on sale starting September 22.
