During the last couple of weeks, I have been able to test out the original Apple MagSafe Battery Pack that was first released in 2021 (thank you, eBay). I have been testing it on my iPhone 15 Plus.
For starters, let’s talk about the design.
It looks pretty nice and certainly something that Apple would create. I love the sleek white color to it since it reminds me a lot of the old Apple earbuds that used to come with the iPod and iPhone back in the day. It’s just simple which is an aspect of Apple that is still there even today.
Then we have it being able to clamp on my iPhone via the MagSafe and I have the London OtterBox Lumen Passport case. It does sync well with iOS too, in terms of seeing how much charge the battery pack has, but that’s pretty much where the good times end.
When putting the MagSafe Battery Pack on my iPhone, it goes on there but with my case on it, it tends to not stick that well, even with the MagSafe on it. To me, that is worrisome because it almost implies that Apple wants you to buy its iPhone cases because those will get you better support than other third-party cases.
The next issue with this battery pack is the fact that it stabilizes the battery but does not charge it all that much. I used the case for about 30-45 minutes and it charged my iPhone 15 Plus only about two percent. Additionally, even the battery life on the MagSafe Battery Pack was not great and was more than halfway drained (see the second photo above).
Now, the argument can be made that it was not designed to be a “mega-charger” for your iPhone, but I do think that for the amount of money that this case cost originally ($99), it should have done more than just stabilizing the battery.
In 2026, there are third-party MagSafe and external battery chargers that do a way better job than Apple’s battery pack here. Best of all, those other solutions will have support for USB-C too.
Apple does have a version of the MagSafe Battery Pack exclusively for the iPhone Air that were both released last year.
Overall, the Apple MagSafe Battery Pack gets 2/5 stars from me. It had a good design for its time, stabilizes the battery for a bit, and the iOS syncing and compatibility that third-party cases don’t. But since it is 2026 and there are too many other options out there that merely put the original MagSafe Battery Pack to shame.
Rating: 2/5 stars
