IOS14 severe battery drain on SE

Since updating to ios14, my battery on the SE is just terrible and drops considerably. I have spoken to Apple support who did a diagnotics check and booked me in to an apple store for further investigate. The apple store states that nothing wrong with battery and they performed a systsem reset. Unfortunately no difference with battery performance. Phone was fine before the upgrade with a once a day charge. Anyone else had similar and is apple going to fix this with a further update. The phone is no good to me with constant charging.

iPhone SE, iOS 14

Posted on Oct 9, 2020 9:08 AM

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Posted on Mar 6, 2021 6:44 AM

My first gen SE battery began dropping like a stone after the 14.3 iOS update. I am an older user and I do not use many apps at all. I would go out with the phone at 100% and two hours later it would be down in the weeds (< 20%). After a complete backup/reset/restore I managed to get it somewhat back under control, and I turned off automatic sw updates. Then I forgot about the iOS issue (I'm getting older - give me a break); got annoyed at always seeing the red "1" on my Settings icon; and "accidentally" updated to 14.4 last week. Then I found and read through this forum. I live too far from an Apple store, so I made an appointment at my local Best Buy through the Apple support website. Showed up at Best Buy yesterday. "Oh, we don't support that older model anymore. Apple doesn't even give us the tools/training to work on it anymore. We've tried notifying Apple several times because people with older phones keep coming in with Apple appointments. It's how they get you to buy a new phone." Best Buy referred me to a local cell phone repair shop. They replaced the battery for $70 at Noon PST 3/6/21. Phone changed from 83% battery health to 100%; showed it had a 71% charge; and hasn't budged from that since then. It feels like a brand new phone, and I'm a happy camper.

140 replies

Nov 22, 2020 8:03 AM in response to CGBates

Hi there, I have a SE 1st gen that had the exact same problems described in this thread. Basically the phones battery would drain very quickly and it would barely make it through a night not even in use. Battery health meter was 87% and apple tech said there shouldn’t be an issue. I opted to pay the $49 and send the phone in to apple to have the battery replaced. Is now like a new phone, problem solved. Apple tech clearly doesn’t acknowledge that there is battery problems with these phones.

Dec 11, 2020 4:13 AM in response to zsocika

Same problem, I think. I'm just learning to associate it with iOS 14. 1st gen. iPhone SE is 2.5 years old. Battery Health claims it retains 91% capacity, but it acts like battery is on its last legs. The phone will shut off reboot in the middle of a call or text, sometimes minutes after being fully charged. Then say it has 10% or 1% charge and refuse to reboot, even when plugged it. So the phone is now thoroughly unreliable, and I am completely soured on Apple. Either the diagnostics are lying, and/or the battery is a basket case and/or iOS sucks. All of which condemn Apple.

Unless they offer free battery replacement, or immediately fix iOS 14, Apple has lost my faith, and I will badmouth them everywhere I can. Of course, if they did offer battery replacement, how would I ever hear about it?


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IOS14 severe battery drain on SE

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