PSA: MagSafe probably isn’t charging your iPhone when using Continuity Camera

iPhones are powerful pocket computers with advanced chips, price tags largely exceeding $1,000, and they’re at the center of much of our lives. They also, since Apple debuted Continuity Camera in macOS Ventura, serve as pretty great alternatives to a dedicated webcam.

Unfortunately, as one writer discovered, the dream of keeping an iPhone charged while it serves as your webcam is just that: a dream only. Likely due to heat management features, iPhones tend not to charge when using Continuity Camera—and especially not if you’re using MagSafe.

The mystery of the non-charging iPhone

Adam Engst at TidBITS discovered that following a Zoom meeting where he used Continuity Camera, his iPhone had dropped battery charge significantly despite being connected to MagSafe the whole time. This led him to the following Apple documentation:

Continuity Camera works wired or wirelessly. To keep your iPhone charged while in use, plug it into your Mac or a USB charger. Your Mac will notify you if iPhone battery level gets low.

Engst’s theory makes a lot of sense. He writes:

I suspect that Continuity Camera taxes the processor sufficiently that the iPhone heats up. (It’s always warm when I take it off the mount after a meeting.) Since MagSafe charging also causes the iPhone to get warm—warmer than USB-based charging—Apple’s battery optimization system may be putting charging on hold to protect the battery from thermal overload. Which is good, if unexpected in the moment.

As great a feature as Continuity Camera is, it would be even better if you could reliably keep your iPhone charged while in use. Apple recommends using a wired charger, but Engst notes that several Reddit users found that even the wired method was ineffective.

9to5Mac’s Take

It’s understandable that Continuity Camera would cause the iPhone to warm up in a way that makes charging difficult. But it would be nice if Apple’s documentation for the feature was more clear about this limitation.

If you only have occasional meetings that use Continuity Camera, this probably isn’t a big deal, just something to be mindful of. But if you’re in and out of Zoom meetings all day, it may be time to invest in a dedicated webcam rather than relying on your iPhone for good video quality.