The iPhone 18 Pro Max battery is so large that Apple had to add features to "hold back"

(Dan Tri) - Excluding the iPhone Duo, which has not yet been marketed, the iPhone 18 Pro Max is the phone model with Apple's largest battery ever.

At the event on September 9, Apple did not reveal the battery capacity of the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, but said the two models have video playback time of up to 36 and 45 hours, respectively.

In particular, the Pro Max version's 45 hours is the highest ever on an iPhone model.

iPhone 18 Pro Max is the iPhone model with Apple's largest battery capacity ever (Photo: Doan Thuy).

After this duo was sold on the global market, many technology experts "dissected" the iPhone 18 Pro Max and discovered that the version sold in the US, only uses eSIM and does not have a physical SIM tray, and is equipped with a 5,567mAh battery. Meanwhile, the international version, with an additional physical SIM, uses a 5,391mAh battery.

This capacity is about 11.7% higher than the iPhone 17 Pro Max launched last year.

According to the user support document recently published by Apple, iPhone 18 Pro Max is the first iPhone model to use a battery cell with a capacity greater than 20Wh.

Meanwhile, aviation regulations in some countries do not allow the transportation by air of electronic devices using a battery cell with a capacity exceeding 20Wh. This creates a problem for shipping iPhone 18 Pro Max to customers.

To handle the above problem, Apple equips the product with the "Prepare for shipping" feature. This feature is activated after the device leaves the factory, limiting the charge so that the battery cell capacity does not exceed 20Wh.

Thanks to that, Apple can transport iPhone 18 Pro Max to customers by air. This is also the reason the device may not be 100% fully charged when it arrives to the user.

Apple said this limit will be automatically disabled after users activate iPhone 18 Pro Max.

The "Prepare for shipping" feature is only available on iPhone 18 Pro Max (Screenshot).

In case it is necessary to transport the device by plane, such as sending it for warranty or delivery, users can also proactively activate "Prepare for shipping". This option is located under "Settings -> General -> Transfer or Reset iPhone -> Prepare for Shipping".

Apple only equipped this feature to the iPhone 18 Pro Max because this is the only iPhone model that uses a battery cell with a capacity exceeding 20Wh.

With the upcoming iPhone Duo, although the total capacity is larger than the iPhone 18 Pro Max, the device uses 2 separate cells so it is not in the above case. Therefore, Apple likely does not need to apply a similar limitation mechanism to this model.