- What’s the current thoughts on charging iPhones? Is it ok to continuously charge or should we be letting the batteries deplete almost all the way and then charge?
- Does anyone examine what cookies websites want to put on your devices? Or does everyone just click on ‘Accept All’ to move along quickly?
When it comes to charging best thoughts, I think it’s like that old saying about everyone having one.
My understanding about lithium based batteries is they have a preference for remaining half-charged. What that means in practice is you should never try to be religious about fully charging them and most especially never try to fully discharge them. The rest of the time you should live your life and not worry about it too much, because life is too short to not let the tech in your phone do its thing for you. 
I don’t browse the web on my phone, but on my desktop, I always select the most restrictive cookie settings (deny all if available)… out of spite… Since I use ad blockers, it’s really unclear if it actually makes any difference other than to my sense of sticking it to the man.
Generally the recommendation is not below 25% and keeping them around 80%, but I still charge mine mainly to 100%, which usually has it at around 40-50% the next morning, when I charge it, while I drink my coffee.
I always select only necessary cookies and I use NextDNS to block most tracking websites (over 2.5M sites at the moment).
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I have my phone set not to charge past 90% most of the time. I also rarely charge my phone overnight (I don’t like to have my phone in the bedroom anymore, ever since The Incident) so when I charge my phone, it’s on a fast charger and I mostly keep it around 60-70%. I really only deplete the battery on my phone if I’m travelling / on vacation. I don’t stress too much about it. I also consider my phone to be a disposable product. If not the entire phone, the battery is 100% a consumable product. I believe you should get a new phone every 3 years and by 3 years, even someone babying their battery will still probably feel the crunch.
I have my iPad Pro set not to charge past 80% because I keep it on the charger most of it’s life and I want my iPad to last at least 4 years, if not more. I also use YouTube most of the time on my iPad, which is a big battery killer. I don’t view the iPad disposable like the iPhone; even though Apple doesn’t repair them at all and they’re essentially disposable in the eyes of Tim Apple.
When I have to select cookies, I always select only necessary.
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Echoing what everyone here has already said regarding battery charging, generally advisable to try avoid completely charging or discharging the battery. I’ll add one thing to this - if you’re following this doctrine, you should try and fully charge/discharge at least once every few months. This allows the battery management controller to effectively re-learn the true capacity of the battery and give a more accurate state of charge.
But like @iFish said, this is all kind of moot seeing as most of us treat these devices as disposable anyway. And most of these charging tips really only make a tangible difference at scale (UPS applications, electric vehicles, etc).
As for cookies, check out the EFF’s Privacy Badger browser extension. I don’t trust most of the bolt-on “CYA” cookie preference pop-ups to even do anything. Best to set your preferences on your own terms, globally.
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Modern Apple devices actually take care of this for you. My iPad will about once a month or two charge itself to 100% despite being set to top out at 80.
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I have my iPhone set to only charge to 80% overnight, then in the morning, at the average time I usually pull it off the charger (5-6AM) it charges to 100% automatically. This is thanks to iOS
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I never liked this feature because my lifestyle hasn’t been consistent like since probably high school! And in high school I didn’t even have a cell phone yet (not that kids my age didn’t. I was just a late cell phone haver).
When my phone battery start to show its age though, I remove the 90% hard cap I have and I turn on 100% with the feature you’re talking about (optimized battery charging). I did that with my iPhone 15 Pro Max before retiring that phone a month ago.
The good thing is that iPhones are pretty good at holding their power over night off a charger. So with a fast charger, I never feel compelled to really leave it charging overnight. Unless I really need to wake up right away to go from bed to bus.
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Understood - but, I’m retired so, pretty consistent unless I’m traveling on vacation, but even then my go to sleep and get up times are pretty consistent
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I feel like ever since COVID, my lifestyle is probably similar to a retired person in terms of leaving the house. I leave for recreation/errands. But I’m home most of the time. I think if I worked in an office, I would probably just let the iPhone handle the battery itself and do what you do. since I’d be using a full battery probably everyday.
Ever since 2019, my iPhone (11 Pro max at that time) have always lasted 2 days. so when I need to charge it varies.
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yeah, my wife and I hit the gym every morning at 6:45, then do errands or recreation after we get home and shower
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