iPhone 12 battery draining fast

Same problem as everyone else. I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max and am seeing battery drain of between 15% - 25% when idle overnight.

Have tried erasing device and restoring from backup, resetting device settings and have updated to the latest 14.3 iOS version and nothing has worked.

Apple need to sort this out!

Hi daytripper99,

😁 Don’t feel bad, I’ve had more than my fair share pulled AND I took no offense. It actually made me feel good that someone out there in the clandestine, no where at all, is actually looking out for all of us. It was not personal, trust me. Don’t get discouraged. Have a great day!

My phone no longer drains in idle anymore but now once I use it lightly the battery starts to drop in front of my eyes. Any update on this? This should have been fixed already. I want a refund at this point. They can have the 12 pro max back.

I have an iPhone 11, iOS 14.2 and my carrier version is 44.0. I experience the battery drainage issue intermittently and not remotely as bad as iPhone 12 purchasers are experiencing. But, I also have the Apple SMART battery iPhone 11 case, which is an extra battery pack. I do believe the extra battery is what has saved me. Sorry so many are having the worse case scenario, with this battery drainage problem. Frustrating.

okay folks.

I've found not a solution, because it's not normal to work like that, but why this is happening, at least with me.

as i told earlier i'm a mini user and i've had the same issue with battery draining on standby.

I will post 2 pictures which showing the battery drain on idle with LTE (In Bulgaria the iphones are caming without 5g port...)

OKay check this one, this picture is before turning the 3g

As you can see i've marked the connectivity of the celluar data that is lower it has never been full (i've tried with other phone that in the same area it has full connectivity) When the LTE is turned on i've noticced a huge battery drain like this one.

I was reading alot, people were trying hard reset, factory reset and etc. , and nothing that is clearing that issue.

So i just wondering what will happen if i turn to 3g like that:

after i've turned to 3g (because in Bulgaria there is no 5g iphones and usualluy using 4g)

i've notice not even a small drain like that:

In 7 hours on stand by and turned wi-fi (but enebled only 3g conection) it has lost onli 2%... and actualy i was waking up that night because of something and checking the instagram a couple of times, but for 1-2 minutes as you can see...

So most probably that issue is IOS related one.. i think. I'm not expecting this issue to be fixed from our network provider, so i'm waiting a support from apple to fix that....

Other colleagues with mini can try that and to see what will happen.

Best Regards!

I've also found that 3G is the only thing helping with the battery drain.

my carrier network is already updated to 45.0 and the drain is still there unless I put on 3g.

it's probably to do something with the 4g/modem/iPhone.. does anyone think this can be fixed with a software update or is it a hardware fault? because this is my second iPhone 12.. went from 12 to 12 PM .. experiencing the same issue. but same carrier and physical sim card/ data restored from icloud.

It is for sure not to demonstrate anymore but iOS 14.3 combined with the carrier firmware update didn't solve the issue.

I am using an iPhone 12 Pro Max, linked to a cellular Apple Watch, with dual SIM (both Orange) with data activated in 4G/LTE only on the eSIM. Yesterday, the day after my update to 14.3, my phone seemed to drain less than usual so I got some hope but finally not ... Here are my figures :

The phone was fully loaded yesterday at 8am, during night it drops from 105% (it has 200 mAh extra compared to design capacity) to 98%, which was not so bad for an iPhone 12. So I thought that they have maybe mitigated the issue in iOS 14.3.

So after having charged it to 100%, I used it all day long without plug it 1 sec. Uses are as below :

1. Moderate use in office, connected to WiFi, some texts, mails refresh every 15' or push for some accounts and a 5' phone call. So a very light use I would say... This was in Belgium and with LTE/4G.
2. Commuting back in taxi, then train and finally high speed train using texts, socials and medias. Still Belgium.
3. Still commuting but having some rest, in high speed train, listening music with Spotify (playlist in local and not streamed) and airpods. Mixed between Belgium and France
4. Back in France, texts again, reading news and with Uber app used for 30' in background.
5. Finally it is time to sleep, iPhone in idle from 0am sharp at 50%, absolutely no activity with do not disturb activated and sleep mode, so the screen shouldn't have been activated even once during the night... Wake up a 7am with only 32%.

So nothing is solved and as you can see, the slope is hardly less steep when the phone is idle than when it is in use.

I have some hope with the post below according to the post above about iOS 14.4.

But anyway I will return this device before the end of the return windows to get another with a new battery if the problem is finally fixed by iOS 14.4 or to go back on my 11 Pro Max without, almost, any regrets.

Night 6 Selected 4G, manually selected O2, connected to home wifi, mobile data off, background refresh off, low power mode on

15-12-20 22:00 battery 92%

16-12–20 09:09 battery 75%

Putting aside the battery issues, everything else is good. The hardware is ok I think, so won’t be returning, it’s such a pain to swap over and migrate banking apps etc. Looks like 14.3 probably won’t make any difference to battery situation for me, but not making it worse. Will update today.

Night 7 Belt & braces approach. Backed up to iCloud and my MBP, updated to iOS 14.3 today, no carrier update. Leave it manually selected on 4G, didn’t perform very well last night, draining 17% with 14.2.1 O2 setting 45.0

16-12-20 22:18 battery 93% left on 

17-12-20 09:00 battery 72%

iOS 14.3 no better for me 21% drain. Will manually select 3G and see how that goes tonight.

iPhone 12 Pro Max with 15%-25% overnight drain.

Last night I turned off WiFi, Mobile Data and Bluetooth and drain was 1%.

Seems to suggest this is a software issue so I guess we hold tight and wait for Apple to pull their finger out.

Exactly the same as mine. I have switched from OnePlus 6 too.. I was really happy in terms of battery with my OnePlus. Like you said even when connected to wifi a 1% battery drop would take almost 2.5 to 3 hours. But with this brand new iPhone 12 seems to drop within 5mins of usage(apps like twitter, i use most often). The problem with my device is, only when it is connected to wifi I see the battery drain happening quickly

Unhappy.. I am very sure Apple knows about the issue. Hope for a fix ASAP.

With 14.3 I think one thing slightly changed, the overnight drain, it was 20/25% now is 5%, better but not a fix. But the drain continues during the day even when not using the phone.

E see people people here saying that was a carrier update and the new number is 45.0...but for me the carrier update number is 45.1

i am really hoping for a REAL FIX on 14.4

LTE...but does't matter.

No one should be messing with settings just to get a "little less" issue with battery or any problem on the phone.

THE ONLY THING THAT STOP'S BATTERY DRAIN, OVERNIGHT OR DURING THE DAY, IS AIRPLANE MODE, and of course that's not the solution.

I think that a lot of people are impacted but not aware of.

I mean that several people around me told me that with the same carrier and an iPhone 12 Pro Max, they were not subject to this drain and that their battery had more than 2 days of endurance.

But when you go deeper, you realize that they are using the airplane mode by night or even switch it off ...

Here are the figures of one of them who is highly satisfied by his battery and his iPhone :

And as it is someone 75 years old, he has for sur a very moderate use in comparaison to the average. In the last 24h he has used his phone for 1h38 with very basic apps (no game, no photo, not any using needing a lot of power!), he has switched it off during the night, and he has gone from 55% to 27%

So a lot of people say that it is ok on their side, but actually, it is not ... The problem is, I guess, much more common than we thought. It is just that people, due to their uses are not aware of.

As I still have my 11 Pro Max, which is luckily not sold yet, I will restore it during this week-end and use it again during next week but I am pretty sure it will not handle like the 12 Pro Max. I will post some battery usage curves to allow every one to compare a normal iPhone and the 12 ;)

I also put a lot of hope in the 14.4 which seems to fix the issue according to a previous feedback in this thread.

No, this would suggest an issue with the modem itself, not software. When the modem is on in any way (WiFi, Bluetooth, mobile data), it causes excessive drain. When it is switched off, the iPhone has a much lighter drain.

The modem is clearly power-hungry and either Apple are aware of this and don’t care, or there is an issue with the modem which will require replacements but I guess Apple will wait for the issue to snowball in order for them to actually address the issue with either replacements or attempt to fix with a software update, though I doubt the latter is possible.