iPhone 12 battery draining fast

STOP messing with your settings, the fix is just temporary.

As i being saying, the best solution is for the problem being acknowledged by Apple, and for this to happen EVERYBODY should report the problem at customer support by mail, by phone or at Apple stores...DO THIS

Was losing about 17% or more overnight (7/8 hours) in standby on iphone 12 mini on O2 in the UK. Disabled icloud back up and had noticeably less standby drain during the day and only 10% over night which was actually nearly 10 hours in standby on this occasion. Only been 24 hours and maybe just a coincidence and back to normal tonight but that was my only change after speaking to apple yesterday.

not sure if others confirm it’s an O2 issue, but I have been following this thread since it started, and I can see majority of those facing the issue are on O2.

yes the next version of iOS does fix it, I’ve tried it out, n even posted screenshots, but moderators take it down as I’m not allowed to talk about it.

Dropping this here to whoever it might be applicable / helpful.

Those who do not have 3G option OR use Physical SIM as Primary for 4G Data can easily skip.

Device: iPhone 12 128GB

Location: India

Physical SIM provider: Airtel

Voice & Data: 3G

eSIM Provider: Airtel

Voice & Data: 4G

On the aforementioned settings for more than a week now with consistent results.

Also note that I am on WiFi most the time (95% plus), with WiFi calling enabled. WiFi, Bluetooth and Mobile Data all was turned off during the night (~7 Hours) i.e. non-active hours in the chart.

Below is the battery usage report for Dec 29/30.

✌🏼

Hey, try charging you 12 Pro max to a 100% and check the next day. I believe you should still be seeing 100%. This is because iPhones tend to drop the first 1 or 2% very slowly. This definitely is a software issue. I say this because my dad is using an iPhone 12 and he hardly looses 4 percent overnight with everything on.

This is happening to a small subset of devices. Apple would have noticed this already, we can expect a software update soon to fix this.

Update to my previous post. iPhone 12 Mini battery woes have continued. Two nights ago I turned off all Background App Refresh and turned on Low Power Mode. As seen in the first picture it still lost 35% in 6 hours with zero use.

Last night I just left it alone and off the charger from 9:15 to 7:15. It lost 55%.

I am exchanging it today at Verizon for a new one. I hope it works! I’ll have two nights with it before I have send in my XR trade-in. I don’t want to let it go until I know the Mini is a go.

My cousin also has a 12 Mini, on T-Mobile, and reports excellent battery life. She did an experiment for me and left it off the charger for more than 12 hours. With at least an hour of use she lost 11%. So it’s only a subset of 12s this is affecting.

Had to repost because apple doesn't allow some words.

The key word that is not allowed will be replaced with the following synonym: software-version-for-testing

After a drop of 50% tonight on my 12 Pro iOS 14.3, I am now giving the 14.4 software-version-for-testing a shot, see if that makes a difference.

Since I don't want to wait months for the final release or hope for tiny 14.3.x in the meantime, I'mma try the software-version-for-testing. Can always restore and go back if nothing should improve or the device should be too buggy.

Anyhow, there was a modem firmware update that came along with it. From 1.31.03-5 to 1.41.00.

Fingers crossed. The version of the carrier did not change however (The one that sometimes makes a popup appear notifying or asking you about a carrier update). That updating would most likely happen after or along the final release of 14.4 or maybe even not but I hope that it doesn't matter.

Will report back asap. I will also check the overall stability of the software-version-for-testing, so in case it is relatively fit for everyday use and the battery drain got fixed. I will only recommend to sign up, download the software-version-for-testing and try for yourself if the standby drain bug has been addressed. I will not recommend it in any other instance.

Also, the fix for the battery drain is more important to me (at least right now) than a buttery smooth user interface. I can very well live with a little bit jittery animations when closing apps etc.

Depends on when you got it. As far as I know, the 12 series started shipped with iOS 14.1 installed.

I got mine already being on 14.2 and the problem was pretty much there from the start.

The problem has very likely been introduced with 14.2, that's why your experience was different in the beginning.

2nd Update: I got my replacement 12 mini from Verizon on Saturday. Battery life during the day while setting it up was good, so I was hopeful. Oh, but when night came it dropped about 60% the first night and 48% the second night. So I threw in the towel and set up one of the many 5w chargers I have around to charge it all night.

Battery life today has been great - exceeding my hopes for the small mini. Off the charger at 100% at 7:22 am, and as of 9:12 pm after 14 hours of moderate use it's at 40%. That's comparable to my XR.

The replacement having the same problem tells me it's gotta be a software problem and not hardware, as it's unlikely an iPhone mailed to me from Verizon HQ and the one I got from the local store came from the same batch.

The replacement does have a better screen. The first one had very aggressive Tru Tone settings that shifted it so far to the warm side it looked more like Night Shift. The replacement has more neutral tones more consistent with the LCD Apple screens.

The battery problem hasn't been fixed, but I can live with it for now by charging at night like most of the world. Hoping 14.4 is the fix. Eventually I'll get to travel again, and the rapidly-discharging battery will be bad news when a charger isn't readily available.

I don’t think you’re alone reporting this. Others had similar experience when using the phone for basic things, especially on 12 mini.

I can’t compare to 11 pro because I never had one. But I noticed immediately that my 12 pro battery drops faster than my older 8 Plus, which had larger battery to begin with so it’s like comparing apples and oranges. But then a lot of people already mentioned that 11 pro battery performs better than 12 pro in every way.

I think, it’s a combination of hardware and some software bugs in 12 lineup which makes battery life so bad. I’m very surprised to see that most users actually have great battery life on theirs 12’s which doesn’t help in our case :-(

I have had this problem since the start. On my 2nd iPhone 12 Pro Max. Have been able to set it to 3g and it has been pretty good. Can last two days between charges. Set to 4G though and the battery drain is phenomenal.

I manage to get only 2% drop for 9 hours of sleeping on my 12 mini. I switch to 3G (from 4G), data off, switched wifi and bluetooth off, but I did not switch on low power mode (for me at least leaving it off saves more power than having it on - bummer). I will see if I can reproduce the same effect tonight.

Exactly...REPORT to Apple Support by mail, phone or in a local store.

Don't keep messing around with settings on your phone just to be happy with a little better drain.

Everybody experiencing this problem will not fix this by messing with settings, or try to understand what's happening, this is a APPLE problem to resolve and should be acknowled by them first ( it hasn't been yet ).

The only "weapon" on your hand is to REPORT REPORT REPORT

I honestly don’t have an answer to this. And I also remember that I experienced battery drain on the carrier which seems to be working fine now. So yes, it’s not that simple.

And just to be clear, this is not carrier issue, this is Apple issue. So please call Apple support and explain the situation and then request to raise the issue to the senior level and engineering team. But be prepared to go through restoring first, because that’s the checklist which needs to be followed. Don’t just wait here, it won’t help.

I spoke with a senior customer support agent and explained my experience with different battery performance on different carriers. They performed diagnostics which showed no hardware fault, so they forwarded to engineering team for further review. Waiting for those results now. I don’t believe they will admit to anything but I hope it’ll help to bring more attention to this.

Same huge problem on my brand new iPhone 12 (less than a month old).

When I turn off my SIM completely (I switch off the phone and then back on but don't put the SIM PIN), there is no drain.

While my SIM card is activated, the drain is significant.

Overnight (no use), I lost about 5-7% with no SIM and 30-40% with the SIM activated.

I contacted apple (3rd day today). They ran some tests, tomorrow they asked me to take some screenshots of the battery on settings. And hopefully they'll escalate to their engineers. I am 95% convinced that only Apple could potentially fix this issue either with a software update (if it's software related) or by recalling the faulty devices.

Has anyone received an official answer from Apple on how to fix this?