Everything You Need To Know To Fast Charge Your IPhone
iPhones don’t support the same blazing-fast wired or wireless charging speeds as most premium Android devices out there. An iPhone’s maximum charging speed tops out at 20W, unlike Android phones that can be charged at speeds of up to 120W. While that might not sound sufficient on paper, you can still fast charge your iPhone from flat to 50 percent in 30 mins.
However, there are quite a few caveats in fast charging your iPhone that you need to know about.
Apple doesn’t bundle a power adapter with any iPhones now, which makes fast charging them more convoluted than required. And even the power adapter that Apple bundled with older iPhones can’t be used to fast charge them. Before you learn how to fast charge your iPhone, you need to know whether it supports fast charging or not.
Which iPhones Support Fast Charging?
As notes in one of the Apple Support pages, compatible iPhone models can fast charge from 0 to 50 percent in 30 minutes, with a compatible charger supports fast charging. The company first added fast charging support to its iPhones back in 2017 with the iPhone X and iPhone 8.
The following iPhone models support fast charging:
* iPhone 8 and 8 Plus
* iPhone X
* iPhone XS and XS Max
* iPhone XR
* iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max
* iPhone 11
* iPhone 12 and 12 mini
* iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max
* iPhone 13 and 13 mini
* iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max
How to Fast Charge Your iPhone
To fast charge any of the iPhones mentioned above, you need a USB-C power adapter with Power Delivery support. Finding such chargers was an issue when the iPhone 8 and iPhone X first launched, but as USB-C adoption has increased it has become easy to find such chargers.
Do note that you can use an 18W power adapter to fast charge all the iPhones launched up to and including the iPhone 11. For the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 series, you need to use a 20W USB-C adapter, with the latter even supporting slightly higher charging speeds with 30W adapters.
The good news is that you can use the USB-C charger to fast charge your other devices, including MacBook, Nintendo Switch, GoPro, and other devices. Similarly, you can use the USB-C power adapter bundled with your MacBook to fast charge your iPhone. Check out some GaN USB-C chargers that you can use to fast charge your iPhone.
Apart from a USB-C power adapter, you also need a USB-C to Lightning cable to fast charge your iPhone. Apple bundles this cable with the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, but older iPhones shipped with a USB-A to Lightning cable, which you cannot use to fast charge your iPhone.
So, apart from a USB-C adapter, you’ll also need to buy a USB-C to Lightning cable for fast charging your iPhone. If you don’t want to buy a new power adapter or Lightning cable, you can follow these tips to charge your iPhone faster.
The iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 series also support fast wireless charging at speeds of up to 15W. However, for that, you will need to use a MagSafe wireless charger, with standard Qi wireless chargers only capable of charging the new iPhones at speeds of up to 7.5W. All older iPhones do not support wireless fast charging and can only charge wirelessly at speeds of 7.5W.
Your iPhone will warm up a bit when it is being fast charged, but this is not a matter for concern.
Fast Charging Your iPhone Has Some Limitations
Do note that you’ll only see the benefit of fast charging your iPhone when the battery is very low or nearly drained. As noted above, your iPhone will fast charge from 0 to 50 percent in 30 minutes. After that, the charging speeds will slow down a bit.
Once the battery level reaches around 85 percent, your iPhone will start trickle charging, and topping the battery to full will take considerably longer from here on. This helps increase the lifespan of the battery.