iPad Air 4 Battery Drain

As an update to my post a couple of weeks ago I got a new unit from the Apple store as a replacement because my compass sensor was broken. Apple refused to take it back or officially acknowledge the battery had an issue but because the compass was broken I was able to walk out of the store with a replacement unit in hand. The replacement is working great, couldn’t be happier. I am 100% convinced that a some sort of hardware issue was at fault. Maybe the broken compass sensor was drawing power when it was not supposed to or something. If you are having this issue I would recommend to push for a replacement, best of luck!

When I got my iPad Air 4 in November I immediately noticed the rapid battery drain issue, particularly when the iPad was supposed to be asleep. I could charge it fully at night and put it to sleep and when I got up and checked it again the battery would be down 40-50%, and this was with Bluetooth and cell service turned off and no apps open. I kept hoping for a software fix but finally contacted Apple support. None of the three techs I chatted with had heard of the issue. The first had me do a complete restore but it made no difference. The third and final tech, after much arguing on my part over his insistence that it was likely something small that an Apple Genius could fix in-store (which he really pushed for even after I expressed concern over Covid), agreed to set up a return. Apple immediately sent a pre-aid return box. It took them a few days after they got it but I eventually got an email saying it would be easier for them to replace it than to fix it (no indication what they thought the problem was). It took a couple weeks to get the replacement (maybe because I had had mine engraved) but I got it a few days ago. Problem solved. The new one has worked perfectly. It loses almost no battery power while asleep and drain while in use is comparable to my older iPads. I understand others continued to have problems with replacement units but that has not been my experience so I guess I'm lucky.

After returning our first unit we ended up buying another. This one does not have the issue: last two night in a row it lost only 3% overnight. Durring setup we restored from exact same backup as we did the first one.

A couple anecdotal observations:

• The first (bad) unit out of box had 50% battery. The second (good) one had 90%. Not sure if this is an indicator or not.
• The first one would get noticeably warm at lower right (when holding it portrait with USB port at the bottom). It would be warm there even when just sitting at the home screen. The second unit has never gotten warm, even after extended active use (YouTube, Facetime, etc).

I would say this is undeniably a hardware defect and I encourage anyone inside their return window to get a refund and/or new replacement. If you are outside return, definetly push for warranty replacement.

Update from me: I now have received a replacement brand new IPad Air and this one is perfect, over 3 days including using Procreate and a pencil, watching Netflix, playing games etc it only went from 90% to 16% battery. It also turns on fine even when not plugged in unlike my last one. Definitely a hardware fault for me.

Me too! The battery was draining very fast without any usage! Diagnostic test from Apple Support showed problem with compass sensor, peripheral lighting and barometer. Also the automatic screen brightness did not work and I thought that this model does not have this setting... My new iPad Air 4 it seems to work perfectly! Although at first I thought it was software issue, it turned out to be hardware. A photo of the new iPad’s battery...

Me too! The battery was draining very fast without any usage! Diagnostic test from Apple Support showed problem with compass sensor, peripheral lighting and barometer. Also the automatic screen brightness did not work and I thought that this model does not have this setting...

The tech of support told me that it is a hardware problem and that I should definitely take it to the service. Unfortunately, there isn’t any Apple Store in my country, Greece... I sent it to the authorized service center of Apple and they replaced it with a new one, without its box. I believe that it’s a brand new iPad because the first letter of the model number is “M”. My new iPad Air 4 it seems to work perfectly! Although at first I thought it was software issue, it turned out to be hardware.

Ask them to do a diagnostic test. It will be seen if it’s a hardware issue.

In my case the battery was draining very fast without any usage! Diagnostic test from Apple Support showed problem with compass sensor, peripheral lighting and barometer. Also the automatic screen brightness did not work and I thought that this model does not have this setting...

The tech of support told me that it is a hardware problem and that I should definitely take it to the service. Unfortunately, there isn’t any Apple Store in my country, Greece... I sent it to the authorized service center of Apple and they replaced it with a new one, without its box. I believe that it’s a brand new iPad because the first letter of the model number is “M”.

My new iPad Air 4 works perfectly! Although at first I thought it was software issue, it turned out to be hardware.

Call Apple customer support again and ask them to do a diagnostic test.

It is not normal for the battery to run out of 15% without use, and of course it is not a problem of the applications. It is our right to use our iPad with all its functions active, without thinking that its battery will be drained.

Ask Apple to replace the device. The guarantee is valid and Apple knows that there is a defective batch.

I regret that I kept the defective iPad for three months thinking it was a sotware issue!

I ended up working with apple support to get a warranty claim for this issue today. Initially the chat rep did not want to do it because the self diagnostic test they had me run out of the settings app reported the battery was fine. I ended up going into the apple store and the rep there ran another test and the battery turned up good in that test again but apparently one of the other sensors (don't know which one) failed that diagnostic so I was able to get a warranty exchange on that basis. Maybe the broken sensor and battery drain are related? While he was getting me set up with the new unit he spoke with his colleagues and told me that there apparently is some known battery issue on some units of the iPad Air 4 but that they thought it was likely software related.

When he did the exchange he stressed several times that it was because of the broken sensor and not because of the battery. I am not sure the rest of you would be as fortunate as me to have a broken sensor you didn't notice if you were hoping for an exchange. If it is indeed a software issue that effects only select units and Apple knows it I am sure they want to minimize the number of claims that happen before they fix it.

As an extra precaution I didn't restore from icloud, I am setting it up manually. Will post in a few days with how the battery is for the new unit.

Had the same issue with 2020 Air. The battery was draining abnormally fast. I had to charge my device 3-4 times a day with my normal 11-13 hr a day usage. Which was crazy because my previous 5 year old iPad Pro 9.7 was able to hold the charge for same period with same usage. Chatted with Support, they led me through OS update, Settings reset and all that stuff. Nothing helped, and then I brought it to the store and it was exchanged for the new one which seems to be way better. First image is from old one and 2nd is from new one.

I had the same problem. With the screen off (smart case closed) my iPad Air 4 battery was draining about 10% an hour. I waited a little over 7 months to see if maybe an iPadOS update would fix things, and came back to this thread a few times to see how other people were doing. Finally I called Apple support. The guy on the phone was friendly and helpful and ran a remote diagnostic check that was inconclusive. So, he set me up with a store visit with a licensed local repair site (Best Buy Geek Squad). The repair person ran another diagnostic that was also inconclusive. Because I had AppleCare+ he offered to swap the iPad for a new one for about 40 bucks. I was fine with that. The new one came in and… Battery drain with the screen off was about 1% in 6 hours last night. Amazing! Some kind of hardware issue.

I did. So mine drains at least 1% per hour with all the background, notifications and location off. I have tried airplane mode, wi fi and Bluetooth off. Turning the device off. It still drains when not being used. My wife had an iPad 8th gen and does not have this issue.

so I have dfu reset from scratch. I have tried different iCloud profiles. I have kept the iPad as new and not installed new apps. I have had Apple run diagnosis abs an authorised Apple tech do the same. They just dfu reset as I had already done. Battery seems by their checks to be okay. tech wrote on the notes. ‘Could be a software issue’. I downloaded and I am currently using ios14.4 rc but it doesn’t seem to have changed the battery performance notably. I get approx 7 hours screen on time if I use it normally. Idle 1%- max 3% per hour. Pretty bad overall. Not impressed with this device. It is also my second unit as the first device had terrible screen bleed. QA is very bad it seems.

i went through tech support steps and service. Tech said likely software as diagnostics are fine. I went through Amazon for refund. Perhaps stupidly I bought my third iPad Air 4. It’s battery is performing very well. I would estimate as much as three times better with only 2-3% drain in standby with wi fi Bluetooth off over 8hours.

my replacement device is on ios14.2 and I will not be updating. Ios14.3 and ios14.4 doesn’t seem to have fixed battery drain issues for those affected. it seems to have introduced a whole load of issues for lots of iPad users. Rushed software I suspect. Has got a lot of bad press around battery drain on the iPhone12 already, which I would suspect they have prioritised.

so my problem is fixed for now by being back on earlier software. I don’t believe that there was anything wrong with my last device from a hardware perspective.

had the same problem with the brand new IP4 but i kept calling customer support until i must have logged in about 10 calls, if it still under warranty they will replace the device, do it, this is a defect batch and they know. they will just give you intructions on how to return it, it must have took about a month since i have no local apple store here in the philippines, but still, got a new replacement ipad 4 air now and is without any problem at all or whatsoever. best of luck, patience is the key.

An update. I set up a brand new iCloud account. I dfu reset and now the iPad battery is behaving as I would expect. So this is an iCloud related bug. I don’t know what settings but will get onto Apple tomorrow and see if they can recommend any steps so that I can use my actual iCloud account. Not very impressed with apple and recent software.

BeefShandy wrote:

1. Watching Youtube/Netflix videos for 1hr 20 mins, battery power was consumed at ~12-15% per hour, which seems OK

2. When in standby mode, screen switched off, no background apps running, and a few possible battery-consuming features/settings disabled, battery power was consumed at a rate of ~4% per hour, which is shockingly high.

3. In standby mode, screen off, no background apps, but with every possible battery draining setting/feature switched off including Bluetooth, but still with WiFi enabled, consumption dropped to a very reasonable ~1/2% per hour.

Just replying to my own post from the nearly 4 months ago right at the start of this thread....

I'm convinced this is a software issue. I've continued to use my iPad Air 4 as described in "scenario 3" above: I disabled all sorts of options that I suspected might be battery draining. Since doing that 4 months ago, my battery life has been consistently excellent due to the power consumption during standby periods becoming miserly and dropping to a trickle...

Sadly, I've no idea which specific feature - or features - that I disabled led to the massive reduction in standby power consumption, but I do know that one or more of them was the culprit and disabling ut/them did the trick. Sorry not to be of more specific help, but for anyone frustrated I'd experiment with your settings, selectively disabling things that you don't need but which you think my be power consumers.

I was able to do this with my iPad because I only use it in a limited way, and disabling a bunch of superflous (to me) features didn't in any way impair my usage of the device.