Am I the only one with this issue? Yesterday, or the day before that, I updated my iPhone XR. One thing I've come to notice is that, since I updated it, the battery drains pretty fast. I'd say I'm an average user and I could go the entire day and it wouldn't reach 20%. Now, around 4PM, after being fully charged around 5AM, it's down to 50%. I just find it weird, knowing that I'm an average user, my average screentime is around 2 hours a day, so I don't know what's up.
***Sorry, posted too soon. Trying again***
I have been part of the group that has been impacted by severe battery drain of ~1% every 5-15 seconds since updating to iOS 12.1.4.
I tested the options mentioned in this thread, and have found that the issue seems to be related to app data download connections and/or downloading new data on the device (downloading an app from the app store, opening an app that needs to fetch new data, fetching new content by pulling/swiping down to refresh within an app, background app refresh, etc). I have confirmed that this issue occurs in both native apps such as Mail, App Store, Podcasts, as well as 3rd party apps.
Close all apps this did nothing, and the battery continues to drain. If not immediately, on the next background app refresh.
Power cycle (restart) device you can see evidence of some people's theory that there may be something going on with battery percentage calculation. After the battery appears to have severely drained, a power cycle will show the battery percentage back closer to what you would expect the usage to be prior to the draining event. A power cycle will likely still result in the device attempting to fetch new data, and more often than not will resume battery drain
Turn off Fetch New Data (Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Fetch New Data > toggle Push to off) + Power cycle device battery continues to drain
Turn off Background App Refresh (Settings > General > Background App Refresh > Background App Refresh > Off) + Power cycle device At first I thought this solved the issue while I was at work for a few hours in the morning, but when I started actively using my phone a bit more the battery drain started again
Delete Skype for Business + Power cycle device This is where I discovered that the issue is not isolated to only 3rd party apps doing things in the background and adversely interacting with 12.1.4... I tried this because some people indicated that they thought it may be related to Skype. I thought this worked for a while as well, until I opened my native iPhone Podcasts app and it started downloading new podcasts. I then watched my battery start draining at a rate of 1% every 5 seconds (I could hear a clock ticking beside me and timed it)
Turn off Bluetooth + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection battery continues to drain
Turn off Wi-Fi + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection battery continues to drain
Turn on Airplane Mode + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection oddly enough, this doesn't always seem to work in interrupting whatever process is trying to download new data, and in some of my testing the battery would continue to drain.
Turn on Low Power Mode (Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode) + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection this has been the only solution that I have been able to use to consistently and reliably keep my battery from draining. If the device is plugged in and charging, it will turn Low Power Mode off once it reaches a certain percentage (89%? 90%?) so you'll need to turn it on again once you unplug
Switch to a different device with <iOS 12.1.4 I have a spare backup iPhone 6S which is still on iOS 12. Apple will not allow me to restore from backup without updating to iOS 12.1.4 so I did not complete this test
Factory reset + restore at this point I did not have the time nor the patience to attempt this, but I did see that it did not resolve the issue for another user
Again, it seems like the only way to reliably stop the battery drain is to break or interrupt whatever connection is trying fetch new data by turning on Low Power Mode. I do have a lot of apps on my phone that I use regularly, which I'm assuming is the reason I may be impacted more than others since there is a lot of background activity happening with each additional app.
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tl;dr the battery seems to drain significantly when downloading new data or making a connection to fetch new data (unclear which it is, specifically), and the only workaround that reliably helps is to turn on Low Power Mode (Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode)
Update on my own post from 5 days ago - looks like the worst is over: NOT dropping like crazy anymore, even on wifi, yeah! So, what's changed? Sadly, I do not have a single reason, but I can share what changed in the last 24 h (see my earlier post for details of all the things I had tried before that did NOT help):
I suspect that it was one of the app updates or turning off the background refresh that made a difference. Will keep watching.
I have found that 12.2 has greatly improved the battery drain issue. However, prior to installing, I had restored and started it as a new phone rather than using a backup as I was concerned about the backup being corrupted which I was told (by an Apple Genius staff member) sometimes happens. It was a pain to have to reinstall the apps and put in passwords, but it may have made the difference.
Turn mail to Manual in settings as that eats battery. Then it will refresh when you go in to it. Also streaming radio does as well. Plug it in to listen to radio
Update:
I solved by uninstalling "Skype" last night.
At the moment it has not been updated from 2 weeks.
Did you post a screenshot of the battery stats? No. How helpful was that to us?
12.1.4 is not a bad update, but updates can be installed badly (not your fault but it happens if uou have a legacy of stuff in there).
Restore as new and come back here if it works no better.
FWIW - our older iPad Pro had severe battery drain after initially installing 12.1.4 but after a day or two it went back to normal. Just like many of you, at night it was 100% and by morning it’d be at 40% or lower. But yeah, anyway just wanted to report back that with no change on our end (didn’t restore) other than restarting, the battery life has drastically improved.
FWIW? That feedback is worth a great deal. It supports the concept of spotlight re-indexing and app background activity to adjust to changes which I suggested early in the thread normally lasts two days and has happened for as long as phones and tablets have had updates.
occasionally rogue apps (Facebook?) cause greater background problems that dont settle.
No, you're not the only one. Updated my iPhone 5S to 12.1.4 and battery drains much, much faster then before. Usage pattern and apps has not changed so can only assume the update has caused the problem. Problem being reported on other sites. One suggests downgrading to 12.1.3 and another suggests resetting the iPone and setting it up as new, not from a backup.
I have tried many things to eliminate the battery drain on my iPhone 6S. These include a hard reset, reverting to the previous OS version, backup and restore, and restore as new. None of these worked. My battery would not last the entire day. And I am not a heavy phone user. The only thing that has worked is to turn on Low Power Mode as soon as I remove the phone from the charger.
If either of those conspiracy theories were correct it would
Neither of those is true,
it affects a small number of users of all models including brand new phones and ipads. Why make an iphone X obsolescent??
it is app related. A mess-up by some developer but not intentional!
Try a Restore as new and take care what you re-install
Save your photos to ypur Mac Photos or cloud, backup to itunes or icloud. and then restore as new by
Going to Settings > General > Reset, then tap “Erase All Content and Settings.”
Do not install any apps just yet. Do not restore from backup. The 6S runs perfectly well on 12.1.4 so if it still drains your phone needs repair shop.
If the battery behaves then reinstall essential apps.
Until the Apple and third party app developers find the culprit app combination then the options are limited.
I encourage you to read the whole thread.
Hi Ian, no, you shouldn't HAVE to. But here is the hard truth: while it IS an issue, it only seems to affect a limited number of users, so no emergency fix will be coming. Which means you are left with a few basic options:
I tried the troubleshooting approach and found a workaround to at least get me limping along until the app update (appdate?) arrived - which took 1.5 weeks from when the saga started. There may be more than one problematic app here, so just because it worked for me doesn't mean it should have worked for you. But if it was 12.1.4 all by itself I would still be having the problem.
You replied directly to xtrasolar so did you read 21 pages of suggestions and user experiences?
Nice to have a cpu usage monitor though. 100% with all apps closed Is interesting .
To save you reading, backup and use itunes to restore to factory “as new” status (must use itunes, not just delete all data and settings) or hope for a fix soon. I wouldnt want 100% cpu for very long. I lost a macbook that way.
Sorry about that.
I upgraded to iOS 12.2 last night at about this time. I have not connected it to the charger since. So, after about 24 hours, the charge level sits at 62%. With iOS 12.1.4, after a few hours the battery was drained. For me, the upgrade seems to be working.
Oh boy, we have been down this road a few times already. It is clearly triggered by the iOS upgrade, but it is NOT an iOS issue per se. If it were an iOS issue, all users would have it, but that does not seem to be the case.
Of the many users who came to this thread and similar ones, anything from very old phones to phones just a few months old, and anything from the SE to the latest model (and even some ipads) were affected, which makes me think it is not a hardware compatibility issue (as in, certain chipsets etc. don't like 12.1.4). So, if it is not the iOS itself, and not the hardware that leaves certain profiles/settings or certain Apps.
In my case, it got significantly better after a slew of apps updates (and after having deleted some others) which for me is a strong indication that some apps cannot handle 12.1.4. Claiming that "it is the iOS" (A) does not help with finding a workaround (B) is demonstrably false and (C) will only cause shouting matches in a (users-only) forum ...
iOS 12.1.4 battery drain
