iOS 17.2 is bringing a big, unexpected upgrade to the iPhone 14 and iPhone 13

The iPhone 14 Pro Max (Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)

iOS 17.2 is now close to launching, and thanks to various betas we’ve had a good idea of what to expect from it for a while. But the iOS 17.2 release candidate has now been seeded to developers and beta testers, complete with full release notes, and there’s one notable feature that we weren’t previously aware of.

Specifically, the release notes – spotted by 9to5Mac – mention that there’s now “Qi2 charger support for all iPhone 13 models and iPhone 14 models.” Qi2 is the new wireless charging standard from the Wireless Power Consortium, and it allows compatible devices and wireless chargers to charge at 15W rather than the 7.5W of the previous standard.

So while that’s still no match for the fastest proprietary systems we see on some of the best Android phones, it’s double the power of the previous version.

Matching MagSafe

In Apple’s case, you could already charge at 15W with MagSafe-certified chargers, but when using other wireless chargers you’d be limited to 7.5W on the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 lines.

So the iOS 17.2 update should mean that a far larger selection of chargers can now juice these phones up at 15W, and that you should be able to get cheaper chargers that offer 15W of charging power.

If you’re wondering where the iPhone 15 line sits in all of this – that already has Qi2 support. It launched with Qi2, making it one of the first smartphone lines to support this standard.

It is worth noting that these iOS 17.2 release notes don’t outright say that this update means the iPhone 14 and iPhone 13 lines will be able to charge at 15W with Qi2 chargers, but supporting the standard presumably means they will.

We’ll find out for sure soon though, as iOS 17.2 will likely land around mid-December (so in a week or two). When it does, it won’t just bring Qi2 support, it also contains Apple’s new Journal app, a Translate option for the iPhone 15 Pro’s Action button, changes to the App Store’s layout, and more.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.