Apple's latest models, including the iPhone 17 Pro series and iPhone Air, experienced abnormal charging conditions after running out of power, causing concern among users. Mayo said that when his iPhone Air was plugged into a USB-C charging cable within seconds of automatically shutting down after the battery was completely drained, the phone would neither turn back on nor display the red battery icon that normally indicates charging.
According to reports, Mayo subsequently discovered that multiple users reported similar problems in communities such as Reddit and iFixit Answers, but the source of the problem and its actual scope of impact are currently unclear. Apple has yet to publicly comment on the matter, and the anomaly appears to have not been resolved in the latest iOS 26.4.1 and iOS 26.4.2 system updates.
He is suspected to have encountered the same situation when using the iPhone 17 Pro Max earlier this month. At that time, he forgot to charge his mobile phone while staying in the hotel overnight, and the device automatically shut down the next morning due to exhaustion of battery. He then used a USB-C cable to charge the phone, but the screen remained completely black for a long time without the red low battery icon. At first, he suspected that there was a problem with the hotel's power socket, but after changing multiple sockets and different chargers to no avail, he realized that something was abnormal.
Similar to Mayo's experience, this author finally succeeded in waking up the device through MagSafe wireless charging. He placed the iPhone 17 Pro Max on the Anker MagSafe power bank he carried with him, and waited for about 10 to 15 minutes before the phone turned on and started again.
Some Reddit users have reported that the standard iPhone 17 appears to be affected by the issue as well, not just the Pro and Air models. Judging from the current information, this phenomenon mostly occurs after the device "automatically shuts down when completely out of power", and then when trying to charge through wired methods, it appears as "wired charging is unstable or cannot wake up the device immediately". However, it is not yet confirmed that all users will encounter this problem, and the actual triggering conditions and the batches involved remain to be further observed.
Overall, current signs indicate that there is uncertainty about whether some new iPhones can successfully restart charging after the battery is completely exhausted, but the problem is "probabilistic" rather than inevitable. As the relevant situation has been reported by 9to5Mac and MacRumors, the outside world is generally expecting Apple to respond positively and provide a fix or clear explanation in subsequent iOS updates.