Apple finally added the battery percent indicator back to the status bar in the latest iOS 16 beta, and as my colleague Victoria Song wrote, it’s hideous. I’m normally somebody who keeps battery percentages off anyway, but the new one seems like it’s just bad. As Victoria pointed out, one particularly egregious issue is that the icon’s “battery” is full no matter what the percentage says, which makes the icon harder to parse.
That said, I’ve seen one mockup that’s in line with the new style for the battery percentage indicator but is far more glanceable. Check it out, from Brian Michel, engineering manager at The Browser Company:
To me, this mockup is much easier to understand in a pinch, which is what I want when glancing quickly to see how long I can get by without a charge. I love how the battery fills in to reflect how much juice is actually in the tank. And when the meter overlaps with the numbers, they switch over from white to black, which I personally think looks nice.
Here’s hoping Apple takes some inspiration from this mockup and makes some changes ahead of iOS 16’s public release this fall.