A software bug on the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 lineup could leave your phone sitting plugged in overnight and wake you up to find it completely dead.
That is the specific problem Apple quietly patched on June 1st with iOS 26.5.1. The fix targets a scenario where wired charging stops working entirely when the battery drains too low.
Only a targeted group of users ran into it, but if you happened to be one of them, the experience would be genuinely baffling. Plug in your phone, go to sleep, and wake up to zero percent battery with the charger still connected.
You should note, iOS 26.5.1 is not available for older iPhones. Apple restricted it to the iPhone Air and every model in the iPhone 17 family.
If you own anything older, this update will not appear in your Settings at all, which makes sense given the bug was specific to those devices.
The update arrived about three weeks after iOS 26.5 shipped in mid-May. To grab it yourself, head to Settings, tap General, then Software Update, and it will be waiting there if your phone qualifies.
While this patch wraps up a loose end in iOS 26, Apple is clearly looking ahead. WWDC kicks off June 8th, and iOS 27 is the centerpiece of that event.
So iOS 26 is essentially in maintenance mode now, getting small fixes while the engineering team shifts its attention toward whatever comes next.
If you own an iPhone Air or any iPhone 17 model, pulling down this update sooner rather than later is the obvious call. Running out of battery is annoying enough without adding a charging glitch on top of it.
