The three stars are for the design and neat system integration. And, yes, it charges your iPhone (12s in this case) – BUT – only when you are NOT using it. So you can throw the phone back in your pocket/bag, and wait for another percentage of phone battery regeneration. Just attaching this battery pack while continuing to use the phone, it will also continue to drain it’s battery instead of getting it recharged. – Really great, Apple! Unfortunately, I expected it to charge my phone battery when I am on the move and actually need some extra power (= actively using the phone!), and not when I don’t need it. In the latter case any cheap pluggable third party power bank would also do (and even better), or I wouldn’t have to charge the phone at all. At least, it would suffice to provide the power required to drive the phone, and stop further draining of the phone’s battery while in use. But no, not this battery pack!
Update: With recent IOS versions the phone now tells when it cannot be charged due to overheating, which might get tricky on hot summer days (also when the phone is in your pants pocket), so try to keep it as cold as possible. Charging works indeed much better and faster on colder days. (+1 star for wintertime!) - If I wouldn’t require it on (hot) summer holidays, I would rate it up.
Additional notes: - Suffices for roughly one charge of the iPhone 12s (recent version seems to have a bit more capacity). - I use to recharge this battery pack from another usb power bank within my bag, which worked surprisingly well and fast enough to fully recharge and reattach it to the phone before that runs low. By doing so, no larger/bulkier pack is required to be attached to the phone, even on very long days. - When using a phone case, make sure it supports MagSafe and is not too thick, else the battery pack might get loose easily.
