iPhone 12 battery draining fast

i’m not quite sure about the name of the method. But it seems to be a force shutdown of some sort. Steps would be quick press on volume up, quick press on volume down, and about a 10second hold on the lock screen button. All done in quick succession. One thing to note is you should be holding that lock button even after the ‘slide to power off’ screen appears.

after it turned off, what i did was wait for about 5 minutes, turned it back on, and charged it to 100% with all network settings off, including wifi. Hoping it works for you too

Had an interesting talk with Apple support tonight.

Support agent suggested that my battery issue might be due to phone copying all setup from iPhone 6 which is quite old. Has suggested that I backup phone ( PC or iCloud) then do a full factory reset, and NOT restore phone, and see if battery problem goes away. Then reload apps slowly and see if any one of them causes the issue.

Have not tried this yet, but sounds plausible.

interesting to know if others with issues transferred phone setups from a previous phone ( and which model) or if setup phone just as new.

Hi ColinFromSusse,

Very interesting theory, the possibility that the transfer of the data/setup from iPhone 6 to new phone could be causing the battery issues. This is a new consideration in figuring out this issue.

I did exactly as they advised you to do by doing a complete iPhone data erase via selecting Settings->General->Reset

“All contents and settings”

and no restore of “Apps or Data”. I then used the AppStore to download one app, then another, etc... it’s tedious but it will isolate the issue to either hardware or software. Good luck!

Hi,

I bought a iPhone 12 Mini 128GB on 12th Dec and noticed the battery is draining 25% or more at times when left idle over night. I tried few work arounds like disabling WiFi, keeping Low Power Mode to 'ON' always, Mobile Data and Background App Refresh but still the battery was draining constantly at 25% or 30% at times.

Took it to service centre by end of 1st week and they restored the iOS to 14.3 and asked me to monitor the battery performance. It remained the same even after upgrading to 14.3 version and i took it to service centre again at the end of 2nd week. They took the device for further investigation and said it might take 5 to 7 working days.

After a week when i got back the device they said the device was working fine under lab observation and no parts were replaced. In the meantime when I was talking to the Customer Care asking on the update, 1 of the representative said they replaced the battery since it had issues. I was hoping that the problem got resolved but at the time of delivery the Service centre representative said it was a miscommunication about battery replacement.

This time after getting the device, I got it with same iOS 14.3 version and with Background App Refresh turned OFF. I tried doing the routine test and found that the battery drained 25% when i kept the Mobile Data Option in 4G. The next day i tried to run it with 3G while leaving it idle overnight and found the battery drained only 5%.

I'm not sure how much the signal reception for 4G in Chennai, India and I have a Vodafone Corporate number. This is really sick to see the battery draining with 4G and I have to constantly keep a tab on my battery % leftover.

This being my 1st iPhone device since I was using Android devices over the last 8+ years i'm fairly unsatisfied with the experience and regretting my decision to go with this high end device.

Hello,

i bought the IPhone 12 Pro Max about 3 weeks ago. I had the same battery drain issues like almost every person in this thread.

I had contact to Apple Support, no issues found, spoke to an engineer, nothing helped. Everything seems to work fine, but i lost around 20-35% every night on the battery. I updated my phone last week to IOS 14.4 Beta 1 ( Public Beta ) and now... no battery drains over night. Tested it now for 6 days and the biggest drain was 5 % overnight. I believe ( others in this thread believe it too) that the modem firmware was the real problem. Hope it will work for you guys.

I received a iPhone 12 Pro a month ago. One night the phone was at 20% battery charge and overnight the phone has discharged completely and switched off. I had an iPhone 7 before this with 70pc battery life that lasted a whole night at less than 10pc

i tried putting the phone in airplane mode the next night and this time the phone lasted the whole night at 20pc. But the phone is useless in airplane mode. So while browsing these forums one user suggested to try out the below

Set Cellular Data options > Voice & Data to 3G instead of 4G if that option is visible.

Did this and last night the phone drained just 4%. I am scheduled on a call with Apple support for later today. I am guessing it’s a batch of these phones iPhone 12 Pro that are showing up these problems maybe.

I don’t want to keep a $1000 phone advertised with 5G in 3G or Edge network

sorry to say this, but the newest version of an ios update 14.F hasn’t fixed this problem (confirmed with a user) this comes from the phone hardware itself. many of them got good units but god bless all the users who aren’t aware of this at all. i used two iphone 12’s and 12PM, also the new iphone SE 2020 which is on 13.7 or something has the same issue. battery drains overnight. wasted two months on focusing and trying to fixing this but now i downgraded to 11 pro which doesn’t have this issue at all. i hope you’ll return and phones and request for refund or give away the phones. i’ve lost trust in the new phones and i m gonna wait patiently for the reviews of the newest one before i make the same mistake again.

I spoke to yet another senior apple support person yesterday, who also had not heard of the battery issue, but agreed to take it further. While writing up the issue to go to apple engineering , she noted that there were other reports of the issue.

Apple sent me a brand new 12 pro max replacement and unsurprisingly it exhibited exactly the same battery issues, dropping 16% overnight, with WiFi, mobile data and Bluetooth off, all apps closed.

I am waiting for a reply from specialist in a few days.

PLEASE everybody report it to apple, as the more people that do, the more effort they will put in to resolving this issue.

Also see this

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2020/12/03/apple-iphone-12-mini-pro-max-battery-drain-new-iphone-upgrade/?sh=5a8a5cf1254f

I have experienced same issues

• iPhone 12 brand new
• ~30% battery drain overnight

Tried adjusting many app, mail refresh, location settings etc. - didn’t help

Finally changing the cellular network from 4G to 3G reduced the battery drain to under 10% per night.

no need to tell you how disappointed I feel to buy 5G phone only to end up using it under 3G so that the battery is not trashed each night.

Hi

With my iphone 12 pro, i have a o2 sim card, i switched over to an esim but it did not make any difference.

So i bought a EE pay as you go sim and tried that on the phone.

The issue seems to have disappeared, the battery does not drain anymore.

I have read on various threads that users of Verizon, Vodaphone, O2 and three have these problems.

Its something on their network which is causing this.

Honestly right now it feels like i have a new phone. I was so fed up of trying to figure out the root cause of this.

So yes, EE UK physical SIM card (prepaid) works fine in comparison to O2 UK sim. Here’s my screenshot. It shows a completely normal discharge graph after I inserted EE sim at 12 pm. No battery drain whatsoever.

As previously stated in this thread, EE seems to be the only network in UK without battery drain.

And btw, EE signal is a lot weaker than O2, still no battery drain.

EE signal 1-2 bars, O2 is 3-4. Weird. Must be something to do with network configuration.

Apple should fix modem software! I’ll have a chat with senior support agent about this tomorrow.

This would be my second post here regarding iPhone 12 pro 256GB in USA. I have had this phone for now 10 days. Initially, I had an issue with battery draining when it is completely idle for 7-8 hours, on wifi and data off at about 7-10%. I called Apple support and escalated this issue to engineering team. The reply was my battery was behaving way above average its life. Apple support told that it takes time for a new battery to adjust itself for new ios as well as the usage and charging habit of an individual. After that it will perform to its fullest capacity.

Then for the last 4-5 days, after I got reply from Apple, I have been observing battery while idle, using on only wifi on/off and also only data on/off, and both of them on at the same time. While in idle state for 7-8 hours, with wifi and LTE data on, it hardly drops 1-2%, so that's a much improvement. Then on usage with only wifi on and only data and with both on, I used the phone and it lasted 8-9 hours straight, battery drops from 100% to 17% till this usage. This includes Facetime (on data as well as wifi), whatsapp video call and texting, Facebook, Safari surfing, speedtest app, Apple inbuilt mail app to check emails, accessing photos, playing a light (less power consuming) game, regular phone calls, and other apps like banking, paypal, weather, news, and playing with settings and also just surfing the screen here and there. I didn't take any photos or videos in these 8-9 hours of usage.

I have regular postpaid sim card.

So I think you should allow your new iPhone to settle down a bit and get used to the new environment.

Few suggestions I found so far.

1. Apple told to charge the battery to 100% all the time. Heat also effects the battery life, so try to avoid using phone while charging and also avoid direct sunlight (it is likely to drain more in idle state in hot environment).
2. I also reduced the "white point" to 50% which is in settings --> accessibility --> display & text size all the way option. I didn't put on lower power mode until it switches automatically at 20%. Brightness during this usage was from 15% to 90%, most of the time it was 25%) as I was indoor.
3. Also turn on "dark mode" on whenever possible, especially at night. It will help white pixels OLED screen consume less power.
4. Other settings, I always keep privacy --> location services to never or while using app option for all the apps. Also turn off location for all the system services except Emergency calls & SOS and Find My iPhone. Also turn off Signification Locations under system services.
5. Background refresh is turn off completely.
6. Notifications are on for certain apps only otherwise off.
7. Turn off the push option for emails. Rather go for manual fetch for the all the emails you got or if you need push option then go for hourly fetching.
8. Avoid automatic icloud backup.
9. Avoid automatic updates of app.

I have had used iPhone 6 and 7 since 2015 and had these consistent settings on all my iPhones. This helped a lot.

Note: Apple should now concentrate more on performance rather than just design and display. It's 2021, we are on the electronic gadgets most of the time. Battery is going to be the main concern for all gadgets like gaming, laptops, phones, or even in that case electric cars Apple should change their conservative approach to more liberal Otherwise, competitors will be ahead in the race in coming years. I hope Apple don't lose its charm.

Hope this will help you all here.

Hello! My wife and I have one telecom operator (Beeline, Russia). We are both always in the same place (we work remotely from home). My wife's Iphone 12mini is discharged by 20-25% per night, but my iphone 12 spends about 2% per night. How can this be explained? Now on Iphone12 mini I turned off 4G, leaving only 3G and the problem disappeared. Therefore, even with one telecom operator, the phone behaves differently.

Posting an update here to potentially help others.

I found that switching background app refresh to wifi only helped significantly.

Go to settings —> Search for background app refresh and then select it and put it to wifi only.

First day I tried that I lost about 10% compared to 30-40% overnight.

I’m still on my first 24hrs trying that but so far it seems to have made a difference.

I’m also still in contact with Apple seniors (we’ll get in contact on Monday so I have some time to test this new setting’s performance).

Anyone, please give the above a try and tell me if it helped

mrsnowballisgreat wrote:

After installing the iOS 14.4 beta on my iPhone 12 Pro I left the device idle all night (background app refresh turned off, Bluetooth and wifi on) after charging it up to 100% and unplugging at 23:30. By 8:30 am the battery has dropped down to 84% which is a significant improvement to iOS 14.3 but doesn't completely solve the problem.

Significant improvement?

A significant improvement is 4-5% per night. But not perfect.

But it turns out that the latest, test version of iOS does not solve the problem. Very sorry.

For those who have not read all 130 pages of this thread -

Settings - Cellular data - Voice and data - select 3G (if you have such a choice)