Here's how Apple circumvented the battery shipping restrictions for iPhone 18 Pro Max

If you've been following the smartphone trends in recent years, you've probably noticed that the battery capacities of recent flagships have grown significantly. That's mainly because of the new silicon-carbon chemistry that allows higher-density cells, which in turn allows manufacturers to offer larger batteries at the same size. However, manufacturers found themselves in a bit of a conundrum since international shipping regulations make shipping batteries with cells larger than 20Wh quite the challenge.

These regulations forced manufacturers to either split the batteries into more than one cell in order to remain under the 20Wh threshold or just ship phones with smaller batteries for markets such as Europe or the USA. Apple found a clever way to circumvent these rules with a software trick.