This iOS 26 feature makes the iPhone 17 Air a more reasonable upgrade for me

Day one of Apple's WWDC conference is over, and my brain has been wrapped around one particular feature ever since. It wasn't announced during the opening keynote, nor did it make it onto the all-encompassing graphics chart of iOS 26 features, but it's a big one -- if it works.

Also: Everything you might've missed at WWDC 2025: iOS 26, Liquid Glass, MacOS Tahoe, more

The feature I'm referring to is called "Adaptive Power," a battery conservation tool that's baked into the Power Mode settings in iOS 26. You'll have to dig through a few columns to access it within the Settings app on the developer beta. Once you turn it on, your iPhone will automatically throttle certain background tasks to help you conserve battery whenever it detects high-performance workloads.

In Apple's words, "When your battery usage is higher than ...