iPhone 7 Plus with iOS 13.4 battery drain problem

Hello,

First, you can check your battery status in the Settings app through Setting > Battery > Battery Health. Any level under 80% indicates that you could very well experience battery problems due to aging of the battery.

If your battery starts draining much faster after a software update and the battery health is fine, you could try restoring your iPhone using Finder (on a Mac) or iTunes (on a PC). You can find instructions on how to do that at:

• https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201252 (macOS)
• https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/restore-to-factory-settings-itnsdb1fe305/windows (Windows)

Please ensure you first make a backup in iCloud so you can restore it after restoring the iPhone.

The VPN in settings supplied by Mcaffey app was draining my battery at an unbelievable rate.Everytime I would turn off VPN in settings ,after a short time the Mcaffey app would turn it back on.Even with cellular turned off.I had to delete Mcaffey app.Problem solves.

Not necessarily, if you have a weak WiFi or cell data signal then Safari will use more battery than it should. Some apps may be using much more battery than it should. In the past I have had Facebook (more than once), Instagram, LinkedIn, Gas Buddy, and Twitter be the culprits in battery depletion. That is why I suggested checking. The number of apps you have can also affect your battery drain in the first week after an update. If you have auto update turned on then during the first few days after an update your iPhone will be downloading and installing many, many more apps than it usually does which will drain your battery. It is also doing spotlight indexing and may be indexing/updating iCloud storage items.

If after a week the iPhone is still rapidly draining and there is nothing in the battery use that explains it that is when you need to contact Apple Support and report it. Not everyone is having rapid battery draining, there is no way that Apple programmers can no what is the issue with your phone other than you telling them. Just saying it is the iOS update and doing nothing more can lead to many updates where you will be posting here saying "No, Apple didn't fix my battery problem with this update."

Ok give this a try.

go to Settings/ General/Background app refresh.

turn off all apps individually then turn the service off at the top of the screen. Leave for twelve hours and reboot phone.

After 12 hours turn the service back on and start turning the apps you want back on a few at a time.

I could turn all mine on and the phone cpu has gone from 95% all the time to 15-20% and my battery is at 75% after 8 hours mainly background use compared to flat by about this time.

leaving for 12 hours, rebooting the phone, turning all apps off individually may not be necessary but this is how I got mine to works after about a year of wanting to chuck it against the wall.

I used to charge my iPhone 11 Pro Max every other day. But after updating to iOS 13.4 and continue to iOS13.5.1 my battery was draining in 24 hours, even with lesser usage. So I did some experiments:

1. Turned of Google maps running in background.
2. I turned off some Background App Refresh on 75% of my apps. I left only the ones I need the most
3. I set the Background App Refresh to WiFi only, it used to be both WiFi and Cellular

Under Settings and Battery I noticed that App Store was showing over 50% of battery usage, so I thought it was the reason, but senior advisor from Apple said that this reading doesn't mean its using the battery. That made me wonder if it doesn not meant anything why it is there. I thought maybe because of the watch syncing? Because my second iPhone RX that has no watch doesn't even show the App Store usage.

So I am testing and so far so good, Morning 100% and at 9PM its showing 74% Verses, before was close to 20%.

After messing with this iPhone X for hours and hours since the battery draining problem started, with ios 12.4.1, I think I have found the cause.

If I remove the Mail app then all runs normally! Great! If I want to use my phone without recharging every few hours I can’t have email! Perfectly reasonable? No is the answer. I was fully expecting a quick update from Apple since my very long and unfruitful conversation with them last Thursday.

This confirms that Apple are no longer a force to be reckoned with and that, over the years, I have wasted around £5000 on ipads and iphones that are effectively now just overpriced, underperforming pieces of junk.

some might say that there’ll probably be a fix at some point. I say it should have been virtually instant considering the ridiculous cost of these devices. Why did we buy Apple? Because they had (and I stress “had”) the reputation of being well made and reliable. This is no longer the case. With each iteration of the operating system comes bugs, inadequacies and a strange belief that just making things ‘look’ different makes us grateful when in fact, their new layouts and pretty graphics are no real improvement. Functionality is lost through new never ending deeply embedded illogical menus.

Where has quality control gone? Where has reliability gone?

To show my reasoning regarding “Mail”, the graph below shows a drop in activity when I removed the Mail app at around 16:00, the battery then behaved as it would normally, that is to say, ever since I bought this awful device - and others.

As soon as Mail was reinstalled at around 21:30 the activity rocketed again showing between 48 and 59 minutes per hour! All mail accounts had been removed so no fetching of data and high wifi usage, so you’d think - this is just because the app merely ‘exists’ on the phone!

I wish everyone that is suffering with this the best of luck. When you need to replace your prematurely exhausted battery don’t forget to ask Apple for some compensation because of the problem their ‘just out of college’ programmers have caused.

After certain updates, your iPhone might do something called “re-indexing”. This is a background process and it might cause your iPhone battery to drain a little faster than usual. This is not a software issue but rather something that enhances performance over the long run. The process is usually completed in about 24-48 hours.

You’ve already been given good advice that works, but you rejected it. Every time an iOS is released a FEW devices may exhibit battery drain. It is NEVER iOS - well, actually it was once 8 years ago, and garnered almost 13,000 posts at a time when there were only 1/10 as many phones as there are today, and on top of that it only affected 5% of phones that were using MS Exchange AND had a repeating event in the calendar. But other than that one instance, it is an app that did not correctly manage the version transition.

And there are several troubleshooting steps you can take to resolve it, one of which will always work:

• Restart the phone
• Kill all apps in the quick launch screen and restart
• Use the phone for a day, then check Settings/Battery to see which app it is, delete it and reinstall it
• And if all else fails, a restore to factory settings, followed by restoring a backup will always fix it.

I wish there was a proper solution to suggest. The community says restoring from backups or starting fresh doesn’t help the situation. Currently using Low Power Mode, using LTE as little as possible and turning off True Tone seem to be the only suggestions.

Frustrating, but I’ve also turned Siri off completely and battery seems to lasting a little longer.

Let’s hope Apple release iOS 13.4.1 with battery fixes soon - truly disappointing that so many users are being affected with terrible battery life across so many devices.

I found that the Fox News app and Siri appeared to be causing the major battery drain on my XR phone. Before iOS 13.4 my battery would last for a day or more. After installation it would drain over night with no usage. I deleted the Fox News app and turned off Siri and all app data that was being shared with Siri. My battery life improved dramatically. Hopping for a fix in iOS 13.4.1.

No, they are a user-to-user technical support site operated by Apple.

If you know it is a bug what is the bug? Does it affect all devices everywhere? Why aren't mine doing it?

On each device have you gone to Settings > Battery to see what processes/apps are using the most battery?

How long has it been since you updated.

Are there certain apps that are on each one of the devices?

How much code have you written in the past and what debug methods do you use?

I would start with Settings > Battery and try to see if perhaps an app you have on all the devices is misbehaving and needs to be updated.

I have never experienced battery draw in any previous iOS update before 13.4 on any of 3 previous iPhones. But since installing 13.4 my battery on my XR it started to drain to Zero overnight while I slept. Prior to 13.4 my battery could last up to two days. Something is drastically wrong. Since last Friday I have done the following which I am finding very helpful.

1. Deleted the Fox News app as it was consuming a lot of battery without being used.
2. Turned off Siri for the same reason.
3. Turned off every app's Show Siri Suggestions and Learn from App options.
4. Changed all Fetch New Data settings to Manual and changed from Automatic to every 30 minutes. I left Push on. I discovered my Contacts were consuming a lot of battery without being accessed.
5. Turned off all Background Refreshes.

Little by little I continue to delete and turn off functions to stop the draw. Before iOS 13.4 all of these features and functions worked just fine. There is something amiss with this iOS update.

Hope this helps with troubleshooting.

The battery drain issue on my iPad Pro running 13.4 has been resolved. I went through all of my apps and deleted any app I hadn’t used it over a year (over a dozen). Then I did a hard restart on the device, it has been running fine ever since. So it was most likely an old app that was causing the battery drain. I recommend anyone with the same issue on an iPhone or an iPad Try something similar. Good luck!

I agree in addressing the specifics. When my battery drain problem stated the Fox News app was showing 63% Activity and I had not accessed the app since before 13.4 was installed. My Contacts were showed 35% Activity so I started to address these two. As I mentioned previously, I deleted the Fox News app and then Contacts shot up to 71% when I looked at the Battery usage. So I took the steps listed below. That was yesterday and my battery is holding a charge similar to before 13.4 was installed. At this moment my Contacts are consuming 61% with a usage of 1 minute on screen. This does not seem right.

I have never experienced battery draw in any previous iOS update before 13.4 or on any of my three previous iPhones. But since installing 13.4 my battery on my XR it started to drain to Zero overnight while I slept. Prior to 13.4 my battery could last up to two days. Something is drastically wrong. Since last Friday I have done the following which I am finding very helpful.

1. Deleted the Fox News app as it was consuming a lot of battery without being used.
2. Turned off Siri for the same reason.
3. Turned off every app's Show Siri Suggestions and Learn from App options.
4. Changed all Fetch New Data settings to Manual and changed from Automatic to every 30 minutes. I left Push on. I discovered my Contacts were consuming a lot of battery without being accessed.
5. Turned off all Background Refreshes.

Little by little I continue to delete and turn off functions to stop the draw. Before iOS 13.4 all of these features and functions worked just fine. There is something amiss with this iOS update.

Hope this helps with troubleshooting.

For the record, a restore seems to have done the trick for me. Not sure the original upgrade was flawed somehow - I've not seen battery problems like this before, even when othershave - but battery drain and slow app performance were a real problem with 13.4 when it was first installed.

Post restore (and of course, post-reinstallation of a zillion apps) the battery drain and performance issues are gone. Can't say it'll work for everyone, but after checking around not *not* seeing a million people complaining of battery issues with 13.4 (just the 200 or so that piled on to this question), I gave it a shot and saw immediate improvement.