As you can see in my chart below, the estimated charging minutes is the time it would take an adapter to charge an iPad Pro (12.9-inch) from 0% to 80%. I tested charging with Apple’s 12W and 29W adapters with baseline settings that I never changed:įor each test, I noted the average mA gain and change in system-reported battery charging level.Ī note on fast charging. I’ve compiled the results below, with some interesting takeaways.
Ipad pro usb 3.0 adapter series#
With Marco’s app and my two Apple adapters, I ran a series of tests to understand adapter performance in a variety of conditions. Contrary to what some initially reported, the 29W adapter isn’t new at all – it’s the same power adapter Apple released last year, only now it can be used by the iPad Pro as well. The USB Power Delivery specification is also used by the 2015 MacBook. In hindsight, it seems like the new USB controller in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro wasn’t only meant to be used for faster transfers, but for faster charging as well.
In both cases, voltage x amperage rounds out at 29W, which is indeed the USB-C power adapter we’re dealing with in this case.Īs for USB PD: it stands for USB Power Delivery, the new single-wire protocol that enables power and data transfer through a single cable. On the 29W adapter, on the other hand, Apple printed two output options: 14.5V x 2.0A with ‘USB PD’ or 5.2V x 2.4A IOKit exposes 14.8V x 2.0A with USB PD. With that charger and the screen turned off, iOS reports an average gain of 1680 mA, which, considering that electrical efficiencies are never 100% with USB adapters, is pretty good. When connected to the 12W adapter, iOS refers to it as a 12W “USB brick” (12W = 2.4A x 5V). The app does what other battery utilities from the App Store can’t do: it detects the type of charger being used, it displays elapsed time during each test (it doesn’t have to run in the foreground), and, more importantly, it returns average gains in milliamperes when a charger is plugged in.įurthermore, IOKit exposes adapter information that is printed on the physical adapters but not usually reported by iOS itself. Marco was kind enough to send me a build of an app which, by using IOKit (with private APIs not meant for App Store distribution), reports changes in battery level over time for both gain and loss of energy. I asked Marco Arment if I could use his battery level monitoring tool that he built to observe the performance of Overcast for version 2.5 of the app. time to fully charge) and empirical evidence, could there be a way to benchmark the 29W and 12W adapters to obtain averages for different charging conditions in a series of 10-minute samples? I started wondering: in addition to traditional measurements (e.g. As soon as we wrapped up our coverage of the March 21 event, I went ahead and splurged 98 Euros on a 29W adapter and a 2-meter USB-C to Lightning cable.Īfter I received the 29W adapter and the cable, I tried to charge my iPad Pro while I was using it and I noticed that it was way faster than the default 12W adapter. Fast charging on the iPad Pro is a big deal to me, though I understand why people who primarily use it at home and charge it overnight won’t see the appeal of it. I use the iPad Pro as my only computer every day, and I often need to quickly charge it before going out so I know it won’t run out of juice when I’m using it for a few hours on 4G with music playing through the speakers. While the 12W adapter is recommended for fast charging on the iPhone, it barely manages charge a 12.9-inch iPad Pro in under five hours if it’s not being used. Just as everyone was focusing on the smaller iPad Pro and its True Tone display and superior camera, Apple’s semi-hidden note on fast charging seemed to promise a fix for what is, in my opinion, the most annoying aspect of the big iPad Pro – it takes too long to charge.Īs I noticed when I was reviewing the iPad Pro last year (and as reported by other publications), the 12W power adapter included in the iPad Pro box takes about four and a half hours to fully charge the device. You can also use the cable with an Apple 29W USB-C Power Adapter to take advantage of the fast charging feature on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. When Apple refreshed its online store with a new USB-C to Lightning cable with support for fast charging through a 29W power adapter on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro last week, the addition immediately caught my interest.