iPad Air 4 Battery Drain

Same. Rapid battery drain for the new iPadAir 4 - and it was not like this the first few days of unboxing! Seems the battery has dropped dramatically after just 1 week of use..

My 2-week old iPadAir 4 drains just as fast as my 2018 iPad 6 does after 2.5 years of use.

I primarily read kindle books (no music, no video, no pencil running). After a full night of charging my battery went from 100% to 4% in less than 6 hours of on/off use.

Seems low, yes?

My above answer wasn't fully accurate To clarify further:

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.

You can see these three consumption gradients in this screenshot - first on-charge, then steeply sloping while watching videos for 1hr 20min, then moderately sloping for 6 hours while in standy, then almost flat for 12 hours when in standby but with "everything disabled":

To reiterate; the left/middle-ish moderately sloping, section lasting ~6 hours of the plot above corresponds to scenario 2. as described above: screen off, standby mode, no background apps running (NB 'Battery Usage by App' during such periods show no app as consuming any power), yet it drains battery in this scenario ar around 4%/hour.

What's that all about?

I've only managed to get battery consumption down to expected(acceptable!) levels in standby mode by disabling pretty much every iOS feature I can think of (except WiFi) that might possibly consume power when the iPads not being used by me. Scenario 3 above, the rightmost very slightly-sloping (almost flat) section of the plot above lasting around 12 hours. Those steps shouldn't really shouldn't be necessary in order to gain acceptable battery drain in standby (non use) mode!

I am having the same issue. too much battery drain when idle. I did a factory reset and seemed to resolve for a while but is happening again. I don’t have an Apple Pencil and have very few apps installed.

Thanks for returning and posting that - seems weird as a fix but if it works it works! :)

If I can remember all the stuff I've disabled I'll try re-enabling it all and then let the battery drain to empty as worked for you.

If that doesn't work for me, then I'll just selectively disable things this time to see if I can zero in what's key to getting the standby-mode consumption down to that ~1/2%/hour that I achieved above when pretty much everything was disabled.

Hi SoupLauncher.... Seems like Apple doesn't think there's problem even though we are easily seeing battery problems when our units are turned off.. Time will tell when Apple finally acknowledges the issues we are reporting. No idea if it's an iPadOS problem or an actual battery problem. I am an electrical engineer so I know that we shouldn't see these sorts of battery drop issues with brand new units with Lithium Ion batteries when the units aren't even turned on.

Similar issue here - rapid drain of battery when iPad Air 4 is in standby mode, screen off, with no background apps running, and nearly every iOS feature also switched off (inc Bluetooth), just WiFi on.

Do you keep apple pencil connected? For me I am facing heavy idle drain with apple pencil connected (in side for charging even if the pencil is 100% charged), if it's not connected I am facing miniml drain.

New iPad Air 4, (iOS 14.2) right out of the box, I noticed the battery quickly draining. Called tech support who agreed. Did some useless trouble shooting. Tech then scheduled an appointment with Genius Bar, like I have more time for this. Apple products are not what they use to be. Will update resolution afterwards.

Search online to locate and call contact your nearest, “local” Apple Store location to try/attempt to make an appointment to get your Apple iPad Air 4 battery issues diagnosed and options presented to you.

OR, failing that,

Contact Apple support via the contact support link located at the upper right hand corner of every Webpage of these Apple support communities.

Use the Battery and Device Performance and Connectivity support categories to make multiple postings.

OR

by installing and using the Apple Support app found in the iOS App Store.

Tap the iOS App Store link below.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-support/id1130498044

Best of Luck to You!

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.

I have been having the same issue, my battery went from above 50% to about 25% last night with no apps running in the background (according to the battery management utility). I have been consistently having this issue. Posting my picture here to add to the pile of evidence.

I have been facing a battery drain also is standby, my iPad was sitting in 72%. I went out the house for 20min and then came back to see it like this. And when using it the battery consume faster after it drains in standby

Apple finally has to take responsibility! The description in the photo below is from the Apple Store app.

I have to turn it off, in order to charge it less often, in order to extend the life of the battery !!!

Shame on Apple!

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!