iPad Air 4 Battery Drain

No problem Suzanne. Glad that worked.

Thechchlc - have you contacted Apple Support to report the issue you are having. As mentioned above, it seems Apple will only acknowledge there's a problem if enough iPad Air 4 customers complain.

Hello from Greece! I have exactly the same problem with all of you, with my new iPad Air 4 which I activated on 25/12/2020. I bought it from Germany Apple Store. I contacted the telephone support of Apple in Greece and after doing two diagnostic tests he told me that he saw that the compass and peripheral lighting sensors were active. He needed me at the service and there he told to do a reset as new. Of course the problem was not solved and I am sure now that it is a issue of software. I contacted again today and asked them to share it with Apple. I hope it will be solved in some next update.

hawaii. You are clearly a skeptic. That's fine. However, the cord buying is only for those of us with older computers which do not have USB-C connections...So, nobody is forcing us to buy anything we don't need.

Doing a factory reset is often the solution for things. What seems to have worked for me was draining and recharging the battery after the new iPad had fully downloaded everything from iCloud. Once upon a time, we were required to do this with various phones - I'm probably older than most of you on here so you won't all remember that trick. I don't think Apple needs to scam anybody.

Just curious what browsers everyone is using on their iPads. I normally use Firefox for iOS on my iPad for work but I tried using Safari for work today (doing the same procedures as I always do in Firefox) and noticed the battery drain is only about 20% of what I have been experiencing when using Firefox. I have been seeing nearly 50% drain in about 1~2 hrs of work using Firefox but saw only about 11% drain using Safari doing the same work. Doing this will help but won't fix everything but should help some of these problems.

Of course, this won't prevent the battery drain when the unit is turned off overnight or in sleep mode (with wifi, bluetooth, and air drop off). That seems like a separate issue.

Same issues for me. One night, I went to bed with 40ish% juice left and had it disconnected from wifi. Woke up to a dead iPad.

Today, woke up and took it off the charger after I disconnected from WiFi, made sure all apps were closed and turned off background app refresh. Lost 46% across several hours of it doing nothing but sitting in its case with the screen locked.

This has been the issue since I got it on Tuesday. I thought for the first couple of days that maybe it was still indexing after the backup was restored, but obviously not the issue. I had Apple support run a remote diagnostic on it and they say everything “Is operating normally.” 🙄 I was then informed that if I wanted a battery replacement that it would come out of my pocket.

I upgraded from an Air 2 and that bold thing didn’t suffer this badly.

My Apple support person said software was the issue and had me reset it completely, and then to manually add things and apps back, to not restore from any backups.

But I did that and the problem persists. It doesn’t drain as much while I am using it, only when it’s not being used.

After having owned a brand new iPad Air 4 for a day, it was obvious that the battery drain is horrible and the device is heating up as amply elaborated on this forum...

The tech support acknowledged the issue and I am getting a new replacement device.

Should the replacement have the same issue I will return it and have my money back. I don’t want to wait for Apple to solve this. All fun already spoiled.

Hi, first time posting here but I have the same problem. Brand new iPad Air 4 bought just over a week ago, fine the first few days but since updating to iPadOS 14.3 the battery has been draining overnight (it was at 63% at midnight, then totally drained to 0% at noon the following day, despite having been turned off.

this is my first new iPad in 8 years, but my ancient iPad 3 has a longer battery life.

we installed pro create and got a pencil yesterday, unsure if that’s related but I turned the pencil off before closing down.

Brand new iPad Air 4 purchased yesterday. After initial setup, iOS update (14.4), and a bit of browsing/YouTube, we charged it to full, unplugged it, and went to bed. This morning it was at 25%! Just like SoupLauncher's screen shot, it uniformly drained overnight.

I really wish I had found this thread before purchasing. The Source's policy is no returns on Apple products (which I didnt care about at the time as we've never had a problem with any of the iPhones and iPads we've had over the years), so our only option is to fight with Apple for a fix. I fear its going to be a long, protracted battle which, at best, ends with a refurbished iPad to replace a days-old one.

Next step will be to do it again today, take screen shots for evidence, and open a case with support. <sigh>

On reflection, given all that has been said, I've satisfied myself that this is a hardware defect. Due to Apple's policy of replacing even brand new unit with refurbished as warranty remedy, I opted to return mine for refund instead of pursuing warranty (my previous assumption that The Source would not do refunds was fortunately incorrect). Hopefully it, and all the others which are returned at retail for this issue, will resonate with Apple.

For my part I don't know if I even want to try again. No one locally has any stock so I have time to think about it, but even if I get one which doesn't drain its battery overnight, whats to say there isnt a deeper systemic issue with this new model which will prove problematic in the long run? We all know Apple has had chronic battery issues with certain iPhone models in the past (and the frustrating battle customers had to fight to get restitution). It worries me that we could be looking at something similar in a year or two with this new iPad Air.

For the first time in decades I am seriously disenchanted with Apple.

my replacement is working perfectly BUT I am still on IOS14.2, which came stock. Did you update to the 14.3 / 14.4 on your new device?

I get great battery life and minimal battery life. I’m holding off updating until I hear more reassuring accounts of how it is for other iPad users.

5 days ago I got my iPad Air 4, same issue with the battery. First I thought it was because I set ip up from an iPhone X backup, but then after reseting it, just installing YouTube App and Facebook App, I can confirm the issue persists. I've charged it 5 times in less than 2 days. Last charge 2 actual hours of youtube and safari use was enough to drain the battery. 8 hours of idle time consumed around 30% of the battery. This is ridiculous. I'm sending it back. Whats going on Apple? I have problems with my MacBooks Pro for months and now with my brand new Ipad?

n3ntjmatt wrote:

If the unit is turned off, there should be no notifications, no activity, etc.

I dont think anyone is talking about turning their iPad off. To clarify, when some people say "off" what they really mean is "sleep state". An iPad being on (but in sleep state) is fundamental to the experience. Instant-on, the ability to receive FaceTime or Skype calls, all those things require just a bit of power. No one expects a battery to last indefinetly when in sleep mode. At issue are those which are all but dying in a matter of hours while in sleep.

Hey, I am from Myanmar. The same issue is here. It is draining too fast. But, it is not draining anymore when the magic keyboard is connected to my iPad. I think it is a software issue. Please test it.

I did exactly the same on my old iPad and the battery was still draining. I had it for three months believing that it’s a software issue. But it wasn’t...

As soon as the warranty is valid and the device does not work properly, they must replace it... As in my case!

I wholeheartedly wish you the best!