Hands on with Apple’s weird MagSafe Battery for iPhone Air

We’ve got the new iPhone Air MagSafe Battery, and after trying it out on an iPhone 16 Pro Max it’s incredibly clear that you should heed Apple’s exclusivity warning.

The MagSafe Battery Pack was a useful but controversial accessory that is now sorely missed since Apple discontinued it. There was some hope when Apple revealed a new model that’s exclusively made for iPhone Air, but we’re here to burst your bubble.

The iPhone Air MagSafe Battery is very thin, but it is also nearly 5 inches long. That wouldn’t be an issue, except Apple chose a very specific magnet placement for the battery.

Instead of putting the magnets near the top, like a regular MagSafe accessory, they are towards the middle. This is fine for the iPhone Air since it has such a high camera bar, but it means the battery isn’t technically compatible with any other iPhone.

We tried it with the iPhone 16 Pro Max and it simply doesn’t fit. When the magnets are aligned properly, the top of the battery pack sits on the back camera — though the iPhone still detects a trickle charge through the air gap.

We don’t recommend trying to charge the iPhone that way. However, the battery still works thanks to MagSafe being a circular magnet (the little vertical magnet is just for stabilization).

So, if your partner or friend happens to have one of these, you’re not at a total loss. Just stick the battery pack on sideways, though it is a bit awkward, so you’d likely just leave your iPhone flat on a table when using the battery that way.

Use the MagSafe Battery wired

Then there’s one more trick thanks to USB-C. The battery will charge smaller USB-C items like an iPhone or AirPods over a wire.

Anything bigger, like an iPad Pro or a MacBook, will likely attempt to charge the battery instead.

Some specs

The iPhone Air MagSafe Battery is a very slim and light product that actually packs quite a lot of power. When attached to the iPhone Air, it provides 65% additional charge, which translates to about 40 hours total video viewing time by Apple’s estimates.

The iPhone Air MagSafe Battery is a big upgrade

The battery is rated at 3,149mAh, offering 12.26Wh. Compare that to the chonky original MagSafe Battery Pack, which was 1,460mAh but had a weird 7.62V voltage, so its effective rating was 2,920mAh or 11.13Wh.

A small change in capacity overall, but incredible that Apple effectively flattened this battery to make it much nicer to hold with iPhone Air. A slim battery for a slim iPhone.

Of course, it’s still not going to have too much impact on something like an iPhone 17 Pro Max battery. There are better battery packs out there that actually fit for Apple’s iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro.