Some 2025 iPhone models have been repeatedly reported to fail to power back on after their batteries fully drain, even after being connected to a charger.

On April 27, the online media outlet Gigazine reported that the problem has been confirmed across the iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 lineup, but the frequency of occurrence and the scope of impact are not yet clear.

The first known case came from an iPhone Air used by Benjamin Mayo, a reporter at 9to5Mac. Mayo said that after the battery dropped to 0 percent, he charged it with a USB-C cable but the phone would not turn on. He added that no low-battery warning appeared on the screen. He described the situation as "as if the device was broken."

The problem did not appear to be limited to a single type of charger or cable. Mayo said he tried charging with several USB-C cables, but the device did not respond. He added that the iPhone Air was not recognized in Finder even when connected to a Mac. The symptoms suggest the device did not accept the charging connection itself, beyond simply having a drained battery.

On the internet, users continued to report similar symptoms across all models in the iPhone 17 series released in October 2025. Still, it was reported that the problem does not occur across all new 2025 iPhones, and that it is not a symptom that is necessarily reproduced whenever the battery is drained on a specific model. Mayo also said that since buying the iPhone Air in September 2025, the battery had been fully depleted 2 to 3 times, but this was the first time it did not power on after charging.

So far, the most effective response has been using a MagSafe charger. Users said that when they placed the iPhone on a MagSafe charger and left it there for about 15 minutes, it often rebooted. Mayo also succeeded in turning his iPhone Air back on using the same method.

Similar cases have also been raised for other Apple devices. One user wrote, "The same thing happened on my Apple Watch Ultra 2," adding that when the battery is drained, it only powers on and begins charging after 30 to 45 minutes on the charger. The user wrote that the phenomenon has continued since January 2026 and suggested it might be a new problem after a software update.

In-store responses at Apple Store locations were also reported to point in the same direction. When an iPhone user who had experienced the same issue visited a store, an Apple Store engineer was reported to have instructed the user to "charge the device with a MagSafe charger."

It has not been confirmed whether the issue is a hardware defect, a software problem or an exceptional symptom that occurs only under certain conditions. It is notable that user reports are concentrated on specific model groups, but it is also unclear how widely it appears among overall users. As a result, 2025 iPhone users may need to first try MagSafe charging if the device does not respond to USB-C charging after the battery fully shuts down.