Don't panic. Charging your iPhone overnight won't affect them negatively in the
slightest.
Answering a question on Quora, tech writer Jesse Hollington refuted recent
reports that overnight charging does lasting damage.
"You simply can't overcharge an iPhone, or any other modern electronic device,
for that matter," wrote Hollington. "When your iPhone is plugged in and reaches
100%, it switches to external power and simply runs from that."
The explanation is that any device that uses a Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer
battery must incorporate a charging circuit that cuts off charging power when
it hits 100%.
Hollington went on to add that charging your battery before it's fully depleted
is actually the preferable way of doing it, because of the limited number of
'charge cycles' for a Lithium Ion battery which is about 500 in the case of an
iPhone.
He explained: "Every time you charge your iPhone up from 90%, you're using 10%
of a complete charge cycle. This means you could charge your iPhone up from
90%-100% 5,000 times before you'd have to worry about running out of charge
cycles.
"However, if you deliberately drain your battery to zero and then recharge it,
you're needlessly using up a complete charge cycle. Obviously if you're using
your iPhone until the battery goes dead, that's fair, but there's no need to
deliberately drain it before recharging it, and you'll actually shorten your
battery life if you do so."
That'll be music to Apple's ears given the recent issues with their iOS 9
roll-out.
And it'll make the record-breaking number of people who have ordered the new
iPhone 6S and 6 Plus even happier.
