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)
I've got an SE which was on 100% charge about three hours but is now down to 37%....despite having been plugged into a charger all night. Clearly the battery is draining far quicker than it's charging. The exact same thing happened last night as well but had never once happened before installing 12.1.4 the day before. Is this a coincidence? I think not.
The strange thing was that the phone had been fine during the day, when it was connected to the wi-fi in work, and only started draining at the same time in the evening that it started yesterday. I might try doing a factory reset but I won't have time until the weekend so hopefully Apple will pull their fingers out and sort this out before then. I suspect when I next update my phone I'll be looking at Android phones!
Lock screen will turn off after 5-10 seconds but a lot of them thru the night will have an effect. Maybe part of the 18%?
do not disturb may help. Anyhoo lets see what difference a day or two makes.
Edit: Lawrence types faster!
What will really help is to plug it in overnight. Then you don't care how much battery it uses, because it will be zero. And the phone will be fully charged in the morning. If you turn on automatic backups it will also back up the phone to iCloud every night when the phone is locked and connected to power and Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi stays on when the phone is connected to power).
Yes could well be Apple. They are responsible for testing new iOS updates with native apps and settings.
Equally third party app developers are responsible to test their products against iOS updates. They will have been given notice.
Doesn't matter how big Google or FB or Twitter or MS may be, they need to test their stuff too . Until we know which app or setting it is we should reserve judgement. Until then either live with it or clean out the phone.
Even Forbes doesn't report this - that is how big a bug it is. Google only finds this thread, plus some others from previous updates.
I think you have identified the problem, Alan From Boston.
I upgraded to 12.1.4 on Sunday night. Monday, I took the phone off the charger. Battery indicated 100%. 5 minutes later, the phone restarted itself and indicated 10%. Later, rinse and repeat over the last several days. When I plug it back in, it charges back up to 100% in something like 10 minutes. This is not normal.
Before anybody suggests a battery replacement, this is a brand-new battery; Apple replaced it on 12/22/2018. There is no reason that a brand-new battery (which has been working perfectly since it was installed) should be behaving in this fashion. I have not installed any new apps, nor changed the way I used the phone. The only thing that is different is the upgrade.
This problem is extremely annoying; my phone is effectively a doorstop at this point. Apple needs to fix this issue, pronto.
Hi all, wanted to update you all about my experience on battery drain after update this software, I have been using iPhone since 4 years, used to update all latest software as on when released, but this time I had experience battery drain from 93% to 4 % in one night. I used to check my battery consumption, majority was for Siri and Whatsapp with 48% and 26% respectively, I have observed like this for 4 to 5 days. I didn’t do any changes my to my settings but battery consumption is fine now but only change is Siri is not listed under battery consumption.
Please do check ur battery consumption from Siri.
if it is not there, then phone works fine.
This is my practical experience
many thanks
sathish
I have been experiencing the same battery depletion issues described by others. I have tried several of the suggested solutions including reverting to a previous OS version and installing the system as new. Two recent experiences need me to believe that Apple may be miscalculating the level of battery charge. The first incident happened in the morning. My iPhone 6S had been charging all night. I removed the charging cable and saw that the battery level indicator showed a charge of 10%. The low battery mode request appeared and I selected it. The battery level indicator then showed a 1% charge. Then the white screen with the Apple logo appeared. I waited and soon the unlock screen displayed. I entered my logon code and the battery indicator now showed 100%.
The second incident occurred yesterday. I left for an appointment and the charge level of the phone was 100%. I returned five hours later and the charge level was at 35%. The low battery mode request appeared and I selected it. I set the phone down on my desk and checked 30 minutes later. The charge level was now 69%. That totally blew my mind as there was no charging cable attached to the phone. From there the charge level decreased as I expected.
I now believe that Apple may be miscalculating the level of charge on the phone. With this erroneous value it is taking actions that are not warranted.
The problem for me started 2 updates ago. The battery started draining over night out of nowhere all the while I was paying attention to battery cycles not to fully charge my iPhone 8 to 100%. After the 12.1.3 came along nothing happened, same thing, the battery was draining fast. I checked to see my battery’s health after the 12.1.3 update and it was at 91%. Few weeks later when 12.1.4 came along, while no improvement on battery drainage happened, something else happened, my battery’s health went from 91% to 89% out of nowhere while I was still not charging my phone till 100%. All the while my girlfriend’s iPhone 7 experienced none of these issues and her phone’s battery health was and still is stable at 89%...
From Apple...
”Low Power Mode reduces or affects these features:
...so work from there
Here’s some more things that I noticed trying to figuring out what’s at stake. On my iPhone 8 when I do a complete cycle (charging the phone to 100%) and unplug it after fully it got charged it doesn’t drain that fast over night. That’s one thing and I think it might be on purpose so we can deplete our batteries’ life.
The other thing I noticed is how the apps I use come into play on battery drain. The apps I use the most are Facebook, Safari, Messenger, YouTube and WhatsApp. They somehow seem to keep working in the background even after they are completely shut down.
Therefore I tried a little trick. After closing all of those apps I open the google translate app because I know it doesn’t exchange data in the background. I switch the screen off, open it again, close google translate from the background and then switch the screen off again.
What I think this means is that somehow the apps are still running and exchanging data even if they are not active in the background. The last one opened I think it does that. So if one tries to make the last opened app one that doesn’t exchange data in the background, the battery won’t be drained anymore.
hi al,
let’s summarize my experience.
I’ll upgrade to IOS 12.1.4 OTA ( I do not think my phone was official in 12.1.3...maybe I’m wrong but the last was 12.1.2....) as no reasons to remain in 12.1.3.
I’ll try the Google Translate workaround as well.
have a good one!
robert
Sad to report that after a week of relative normalcy the drain is BACK - and with a vengeance! As in, imagine the proverbial cliff - that's what my battery level looked like over lunch today, dropping 30% over 40 minutes while watching some videos / browsing the web. It slowed down once I switched to activities that did not involve network usage (podcast / ibooks).
So - what changed? Not sure: 4 apps updated last night (whatsapp, ticketmaster, linkedin, a Japanese dictionary app), I also activated Microsoft messenger (which I had never used before) and turned on "find my iphone" (which I had turned off for the restore session 1.5 weeks ago). By now I have kicked out linkedin and the dictionary app and turned find my iphone off again, but to no avail - in the time of writing these few lines (on another device) it has dropped 2% again, you can basically watch it :-(.
Hm, will delete messenger next and perhaps also ticketmaster, but I don't have high hopes ... sorry guys, but in fairness I thought I should share that the apparent fix I reported a week ago was temporary only.
Same - nearly new iPhone XS Max, battery suddenly barely lasting the day on a very normal usage pattern (previously was ending the day at >50%). Some comments in this thread suggest Mail is causing it - and I have a similar experience. For me it’s nearly a quarter of my battery use for background activity.
Me too. First generation iPad Pro 12”, no changes in usage patterns. System monitor apps show nearly 100% CPU usage even after closing all apps the recommended way (swipe up). Because no third party apps can show individual processes running any more, I can’t see which one(s) exhibit runaway CPU usage. Rebooting,provides temporary relief. Maybe a runaway Spotlight plugin? A network daemon? I wish I could say. Apple needs to fix this.
I understand - saying "it's not the iOS" when it is clearly triggered by upgrading the iOS seems a lot like saying "the shoe fits, it's just your foot that doesn't".
Just to explain myself better - my starting hypothesis was: if you start from scratch with a completely fresh install of 12.1.4 it doesn't drain. Not that I know this from personal experience, but if it was otherwise there would be riots at Apple stores. There are a few hundred thousand units sold each day, I believe, and always with the latest OS - Somebody would have noticed. If you really started from scratch, with a new ID (everything default) and it still drains ... hm, that's puzzling.
Why does it make a difference - well, if it is the default behavior of the iOS then you can kiss any hope of a solution goodbye until the official fix arrives. If it is the iOS in combination with some setting/app you may be able to find a workaround. That's why I insisted on that fine distinction - wasn't planning on causing any aggravation.
iOS 12.1.4 battery drain
