Several iPhone 17 and iPhone Air users are reporting an issue with their handsets where they refuse to power back on if the battery is allowed to drain fully. After users plug their handset into power to recharge, the device refuses to turn back on, reports 9to5Mac‘s Benjamin Mayo, who has experienced the issue first hand with his iPhone Air.
In addition to Mayo, users across Reddit and several other online forums have posts from users who have experienced the issue over the last few months.
Mayo describes the issue:
Last night, my iPhone Air battery went to zero about 11 PM. I plugged in the USB-C charging cable within seconds of it shutting down, assuming it would immediately boot up again, like you expect. But it didn’t. Minutes passed and nothing happened. There was no low battery indicator visible on the screen; the display was just black. It was like the phone was dead.
It turns out this is a thing. There are several threads online with posts from other iPhone owners describing the exact same issue, seemingly across all iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air models …
So, the Phone dies, user plugs it in, nothing happens. Nothing appears on the screen, not an Apple logo, not a charging indicator. Just a black screen.
While the bug appears to affect the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone Air lineups, not everyone with such a device reports experiencing the issue. For some users it has happened only once, for other, multiple times.
As reported by Mayo and other users, Skipping the charging cable and instead using a MagSafe or other wireless charger to charge it for approximately 10 to 15 minutes brings the iPhone back from the dead. After that, wired charging goes back to normal.
Mayo explains what might be happening:
It seems when the phone gets in this weird state, wired charging is an unreliable way to revive it, like it doesn’t pull voltage consistently. It might work, if you wait hours perhaps, but wireless charging is seemingly the best first try. Some of the commenters in those threads even said they took their ‘dead’ phone to the Apple Store, and the technician’s go-to method was also to grab a MagSafe charger.
If you don’t have a wireless charger on hand, some users report success in using a higher-wattage charger, like a 61W MacBook adapter or a 65W third-party USB-C brick. Others report waiting for hours then seeing the wired charger succeed in returning the iPhone to the land of the living.
