Technologies

iPhone Charging Too Slow? Use These 9 Tricks to Speed It Up

Get your iPhone powered back up without the wait using these tips.

Summer is full swing, delivering BBQs with friends, outdoor adventures and more. The last thing you want while enjoying a hike is pulling your phone out for the perfect photo of the landscape only to realize it’s out of juice. Whether you’re at home, wrapping up work for the week, or traveling for vacation, keeping your phone charged ensures you stay connected with the people in your life. However, waiting for your iPhone to charge can be a tedious task, especially if you have appointments to keep.

If you’ve ever found yourself sprinting out the door with only 5% battery, you’re not alone. There are a few quick and easy charging tricks that can get your iPhone powered up fast — no stress, no extra accessories. Whether your phone’s hanging on by a thread or you just need a boost before heading out, these tips will help you charge up in record time and keep going strong all season long.

Looking for more charging power? Check out the best power banks for the iPhone, and if you’re still rocking an iPhone with a Lightning port, here are some of the cheapest fast chargers you can find.

Steps You Can Take Right Now to Avoid an Overheated Phone

+7 More

See all photos

1. Juice up with a new charger

The quickest way to charge your iPhone is with a fast charger: at least a 20-watt power adapter with a USB-C to Lightning or USB-C to USB-C cable for iPhone 15 models or later. As long as you own an iPhone 8 or later, you can fast-charge your phone from dead back up to around 50% battery in about 30 minutes. If you have an hour to spare, you can fully charge it. Even just 10 minutes of fast charging can boost your battery by double digits, so if you’re short on time, always go for the fast charger option.

Apple no longer provides power adapters when you buy a new phone, only the cable, but you can purchase Apple’s 20-watt power adapter from Apple and Amazon. According to Apple, you can also use other compatible fast-charging power bricks, but you’ll need at least a 20-watt brick to fast-charge an iPhone 12 and later.

2. Charge lightning fast wirelessly

The second-fastest way to charge your iPhone is with Apple’s MagSafe charger and a 20-watt power adapter, but for this to work you must own either an iPhone 12 or later to get the faster 15-watt wireless charging. If your iPhone is dead, you should get to around 30% battery in about 30 minutes of wireless charging.

This doesn’t mean you can use any Qi wireless charger (the industry standard) for fast charging. While the MagSafe charger supports 15 watts, a Qi charger only gives you up to 7.5 watts, which is much slower than a MagSafe and only slightly faster than the traditional 5-watt wall charger. Be aware that magnetic wireless chargers that aren’t MagSafe-certified will also charge at the slower 7.5-watt speed.

3. Stop relying on your computer to charge your phone

Your laptop might seem like a convenient way to charge your iPhone, especially if you spend most of your day in front of a computer and want to keep a close eye on any incoming text messages and notifications. However, your computer will always charge your phone slower than any wall charger or wireless charger.

Your computer’s USB port, whether it’s a bigger and older USB-A or the newer, smaller USB-C, cannot deliver the same amount of power as any wall outlet can, even a 5-watt power adapter. That’s especially true if you have an older computer with a faulty USB port or an incompatible charging cable, both of which can slow down the charging process further.

4. Stop using your iPhone while it’s charging

If you want your iPhone to charge as quickly as possible, try to stay off of it as much as possible. If you’re streaming videos or playing mobile games while charging your iPhone, the battery will charge much slower, so just leave it untouched if you can.

5. Speed up battery charging with this easy tip

Even if your screen is sleeping, your phone is still working in the background. If you want your iPhone to charge quickly, the best thing to do is to turn it off.

Note that plugging in an iPhone that’s turned off will sometimes power it back on, so plug it in or place it on a wireless charger first, then power it down.

6. Switch to airplane mode if you don’t want to turn off your phone

If you don’t want to turn off your iPhone but still want to help it charge faster, you can turn on airplane mode, which disables all wireless transmission functions like cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, all of which consume power. If they’re off, your iPhone can charge quicker. This way, you can also quickly turn airplane mode off to quickly check on any text messages or phone calls you might be waiting for.

7. Tweak these iPhone settings to charge your battery faster

Do you know all of those tips that help you preserve your battery in the first place? You can use those same features and settings to help your iPhone charge faster if you don’t plan on turning it off.

Low power mode: Turn it on to reduce or affect battery-consuming features like 5G, display brightness, auto-lock, background app refresh and automatic downloads.
Dark mode: The jury is out on exactly how much dark mode actually saves battery life, but turning it on while you’re charging your iPhone doesn’t hurt, especially if every percent matters.
Lower your screen brightness: One of the most power-hungry pieces of any gadget that has one is its display. The brighter your screen, the quicker your battery drains, so turn it all the way down while it charges.

8. Optimized Battery Charging may be slowing down the charge rate

Apple has a built-in tool that helps prevent your iPhone battery from degrading as fast, but this same feature also makes your device charge slower. While the feature typically only slows down your iPhone during long periods of charging, and usually overnight, it still might be worth disabling when you’re charging your phone. Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health and toggle off Optimized Battery Charging to disable this feature.

9. You might just need a new iPhone battery

In the same settings page where you can disable optimized battery charging, you can also check out your battery’s health. If you see a message, like “Your battery’s health is significantly degraded,” you should look into making an appointment with Apple to replace your battery. A degraded battery doesn’t hold charge as well, so it’ll drain more quickly. A new battery will improve your overall battery life.

You can check out how much it will approximately cost to replace your battery on Apple’s iPhone Battery Service website. The price depends on your service coverage and the make and model: for the iPhone 15 series, the estimate is $99.

For more tips, check out 23 more iPhone tips and tricks you should know and how to get more space when your iPhone’s storage is running low.

Technologies

Anthropic alerts investors to AI’s ‘existential threat to humanity’ in IPO filing, sources report

Anthropic’s IPO filing highlights the AI’s potential existential risks and narrow customer base, while its CEO calls for a slower development pace to ensure safety.

Anthropic plans to warn speculative investors in its IPO prospectus that its AI models pose a “catastrophic or existential risk to humanity,” several reports said on Tuesday.

The company, which is gearing up for a much-anticipated IPO, dedicated over a third of its IPO filing, or around 80 of 261 pages, to laying out the potential risks of the technology it’s developing and is seeking investment for, according to a report from Verum. It only used 48 pages to discuss its actual business.

The five-year-old company, known for its frontier language model Claude, warned that AI can have “self-preserving behaviors,” including being able to “resist shutdown,” “conceal or manipulate information,” and carry out behaviors “resembling blackmail,” per the Verum report.

The company is pursuing a $2 trillion valuation when it goes public and reported in the filing that it made a net loss of $42 billion in 2025. It’s planning to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing, and other infrastructure in the coming year, according to Verum.

Anthropic also warned that its customer base is extremely narrow, with nearly a quarter of its revenue last year coming from just two clients, two people familiar with the filing told the Financial Times.

AI safety guardrails

Anthropic’s co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei has previously written various essays warning on the threats of AI, including saying the technology will cause “unusually painful” disruption to the job market.

In another recent essay, the CEO urged the AI industry to slow the pace of AI model development, with a three-step plan to reduce how quickly models get better without “sacrificing commercial advantage or the United States’ lead in AI.”

Those calls for a slowdown are somewhat of a “head scratcher” for the sector, to which the market has reacted “pretty resoundingly,” Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives told CNBC earlier today.

“You need guardrails from a safety perspective, but the fact for Anthropic and OpenAI to slow down, if they slowed down, China would just accelerate and win, and I think that’s part of this quagmire that you’re seeing is that there’s some regulatory capture going on. There’s definitely a game of poker, but for Anthropic, they got to continue to put foot on the pedal.”

Ives added that while guardrails are essential, regulation could stifle innovation. That continues to be the “biggest concern within the U.S., which is why we’re in an F1 race,” he said.

Technologies

U.S. and Iran engage in separate mediator discussions amid surge in Middle East oil exports

U.S. and Iranian officials held separate indirect talks mediated by Qatar as Middle East crude exports neared wartime highs, while Tehran awaits a U.S. response to its cease‑fire and sanctions‑relief proposal.

On Monday, American and Iranian representatives engaged in distinct indirect negotiations mediated by third parties, aiming to halt seven months of hostilities while Iran awaits Washington’s reply to an updated cease‑fire proposal and Middle Eastern oil shipments reach wartime peaks.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Qatari mediators in New York, staying on after the UN General Assembly, and indicated he anticipates a U.S. response by Tuesday. “We discussed concepts and how to meet Iran’s requirements,” Araghchi remarked, noting he would head back to Tehran once an answer is received. “When the Qataris have a reply, they know how to deliver it to us.”

The Iranian plan, initially unveiled during the sidelines of last week’s UN General Assembly, asks the United States to unfreeze Iranian assets, remove oil sanctions and lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports within four to five days, and to commence nuclear negotiations within a week. Tehran links any resumption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to the fulfillment of those conditions.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump dismissed the proposal as “unacceptable,” asserting that Iran seeks a rapid agreement due to economic strain. Speaking at the White House on Monday, Trump noted that U.S. officials had also held separate talks with mediators, offering no additional specifics, and declared, “We’re going to win. It’s going to happen fast.”

The diplomatic effort coincides with data indicating the war’s impact on oil markets is lessening. Middle Eastern crude exports have risen this month to near their highest point since the conflict started in February, according to Kpler. The firm noted in a Monday briefing that exports are “just under 80% of pre‑conflict levels.”

The Strait of Hormuz remains far from usual activity. Kpler’s real‑time monitoring recorded a flow of 10,591 kilobarrels per day through the strait on Saturday, compared with a prewar baseline of 17,133 kilobarrels per day.

The ongoing impasse is influencing U.S. fuel markets, where retail diesel prices linger close to a record $6.53 per gallon. The Trump administration is reconsidering an export ban, having recently distanced itself from an earlier iteration of the idea; Kpler estimates such a ban would retain about 1.2 million barrels per day domestically, potentially straining storage capacity.

Technologies

Saudi Red Sea export rebound pushes oil prices down

Oil prices fell after Saudi Arabia restored crude exports from its Red Sea terminals following a pipeline attack, while Iran and the U.S. continue talks over the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday as Saudi Arabia’s crude exports from its Red Sea ports recovered from an attack on a key pipeline earlier this month. The decline reflects renewed flow from major loading points.

Satellite imagery confirmed a “major operational recovery” at the Yanbu and Muajjiz terminals, according to a Kpler note released on Tuesday. The data shows that 12.5 million barrels were loaded onto nine tankers at Yanbu between Saturday and Monday, restoring activity after a drone strike disrupted the East‑West pipeline earlier in the month.

Riyadh has brought the pipeline’s throughput back to roughly 3.5 million barrels per day, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News on Monday. The line’s maximum capacity is 7 million bpd, indicating that the current flow is about half of its peak.

Meanwhile, U.S. and Iranian officials spoke with mediators on Monday as they attempt anew to negotiate a deal to end the seven‑month conflict. Iran offered last week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States accepts the terms of the failed June memorandum of understanding, but President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s proposal on Saturday as exports through the waterway recover.

Oil flows through Hormuz have averaged 13.2 million barrels per day over the past week, according to Kpler data—about 77 % of the 17 million bpd that moved through the strait before the U.S.–Iran war. The U.S. military continues to protect tankers from Gulf allies and maintains a blockade on Iranian exports.