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iOS 14.2/14.3 battery drain bug!

Not sure you know anything about this, but my iPhone 8 battery randomly started to be really bad.


One day my battery was working great and randomly it’s draining battery at a super fast rate...


I didn’t download or change any settings. My settings are the best for battery saving...


I’m hoping it’s a weird software issue!


Know why this could be happening out of the blue?


UPDATE: I have since update to the iOS 14.3 RC/GM and my battery has been much better but the issue is still there not 100% fixed!

iPhone 8

Posted on Dec 9, 2020 1:18 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 20, 2021 2:24 AM

A little follow up on my previous post.

In my company we have more than 100 users with iPhone 11 purchased on July 2020 and many (me included) have raised an issue that the phone is inadequate for our work due to fast battery drain.

We mainly use the phone for e-mail and messages between us (5 to 10 per hour) and access to a site over the browser to enter some data 5-6 times a day for about 10 minutes per time (plus phone calls off course).

With these many barely get through the day (80% to 20% charge) and some don't even reach the afternoon.

So our technicians performed some operational tests and came up with the bellow:

Main Settings:

Newly reset 6 months old iPhone 11's with Background app refers off, Location services only maps, WIFI calling, find my iPhone and share my location on, raise to talk off, Siri search off, App and IOS update off, Bluetooth off, 1 mail account and iCloud on.

stand by drain 14-20% per 12 hour.

Enabling airplane mode (working with wifi calling) stand by drain 6-12% per 12 hours

Disabling notifications stand by drain 2-4% per 12 hours. (actually my phone went from 93% to 55% in 5 days stand by).

So notifications seems to be a major culprit here but we do need them so turning them off is out of the question and obviously airplane mode is out of the question for people on the road most of the time.

Based on the notifications finding techs began to suspect the screen-on, battery usage.

So they put 5 iPhones on home screen without any widget, dark mode on and 20% brightness, no open apps and all above settings as described and let them on for 1 hour. The battery drain was 22-36% . Even continued the test until the phones went off and it took them 3.5-5 hours in total (sitting there, doing nothin with the screen on). That's a screen battery drain of above 1% per minute.

Now further to the above we performed the same test with safari open on a news page that auto-refresh and the results were double as bad. No phone lasted more than 3 hours.

To conclude they checked the battery status with iMazing and they found that the battery health displayed on the iPhones was 2 present above the the health reported by the program ranging from 90% (124 charging cycles) to 96% (47 charging cycles).

Out of curiosity Techs performed the same test on a same lot brand new spare iPhone and a coworkers iPhone still on iOS 13.

The new iPhone performed much better but still way less than the IOS 13 one which by the way had 99% (98 according to iMazing) battery health after 93 charging cycles.

Their opinion is that IOS 14.3 is too heavy on the battery and actually it kills it as the battery health seem to degrade much faster than the !OS 13 one. That's why it performs so much better on new iPhones were the battery is on its peeks.

With the above results the management decided to return all affected iPhones (42) to our ISP supplier and get them back only when they are functioning within described specs and all necessary settings on (the claim is that we buy phones based o functionality and operational performance to meet out needs and not technical data), so we wait a response from them.

For the mid time i got from the Techs a mid range android phone on Monday morning, fully loaded with my apps and i am charging it now for the first time from 27% battery. If i get used to the android UI and logic i think i will ask to stick with this one.





227 replies

Dec 28, 2020 9:56 AM in response to shashwat130

That looks like the battery info is incorrect/inaccurate. Try rebooting iPhone if you can see different percentage would show up. This won't fix the problem but at least you prove it's a battery info issue and not battery health issue. Besides this, some part of iOS is consuming lots of battery at times. This part also needs to be fixed.


@cyrille273, I never said I am working for Apple. I am a iOS/macOS/iPadOS/Windows/Linux software developer but not an Apple employee. You should read correctly.

Dec 28, 2020 2:29 PM in response to FinalCutPro7473

I have an iPhone SE (1st gen). Up until a few months ago, it was working just fine. By “fine” I mean I could get through the day on one charge. Ever since iOS 14 came out, the battery drain has been just abysmal. Even running the current iOS 14.3, the battery drops about 1% per minute, even if I’m not using the phone. I’m lucky if I can get to lunchtime with 20% battery left. I have to bring an external power bank to work, and usually have to plug the phone in twice over the course of the day. It’s also been taking longer to charge since the update. Ever since iOS 14, I’ve changed all the settings set to save battery. I’ve tried every reasonable hack I could find. The “Battery Health” says 84% but it says I don’t need to change it until it reaches 80%. I don’t want to switch to a new phone bc I’d rather wait for the iPhone 13.


Any solutions short of “buy a new phone” would be greatly appreciated. This phone works just fine aside from battery drain, and worked great before iOS 14. I don’t think the phone I itself is an issue.

Dec 28, 2020 4:20 PM in response to FinalCutPro7473

Hi

I’ve noticed faster battery drainage after swapping the iOS 14.1 to iOS 14.3.

I can tell I use standard iOS application in most of the time. No google chrome.


Apple,pls, fix this bug.


I’ve been happy with the original battery life till now.

the battery life percentage running out in front of my eyes. Meanwhile I read a few replies and writing this the battery dropped down about 2%

Dec 29, 2020 9:36 AM in response to shashwat130

I had the iPhone 6s and was having to charge the battery twice a day. I bought the iPhone SE 2020 and loved the battery life...until recently. I am back to recharging the phone twice a day. I am using Maps with display off most times and I may listen to podcasts. I tested the iPhone last night. I went to bed with the phone at 94%, all apps closed, and device connected to WiFi. When I awoke a few hours later, down to 83%.

This issue needs to be corrected ASAP

Dec 30, 2020 8:05 AM in response to fstx2k

Good advice from FinalCutPro7473 to contact "Product Feedback". I wonder if Apple even reads these discussion threads. Good idea to register your complaint via their feedback page. I wish they would at least acknowledge this issue exists and if they are working on it. I've even completely wiped my phone and downgraded to 14.2 but soon realized I lost all my contacts and pictures and the 14.3 backup of files would not load. So I reverted back to 14.3 IOS. Still have the bug. Its a shame we have to resort to disabling so many features and run in battery saver mode just to get a few more hours of battery life. I'm a light user and previously I could get 2 or 3 days before charging. These days I have to charge 2 to 3 times a day. Like everyones else, Even with no usage at all while I sleep, I'll loose 25% overnight.

Dec 30, 2020 9:13 AM in response to Rudy1197

I've just complained on the feedback form; also lodged complaints with the FCC and FTC, for what they are worth.


I also purchased a Moto G Power, reduced to $170 at my local Target store. I just cannot be bothered giving any more business to a company that is so clearly forcing obsolescence on older phones, and ignoring the many complaints from consumers about the last few IOS updates.

Dec 31, 2020 9:52 AM in response to FinalCutPro7473

I have similar issues since having upraded my iPhone7 to iOS 14.3! The phone has a healthy battery however the battery tends to go from 100% to less than 20% within a timeframe of roughly 7 hours, while the phone is in standby, doing more or less nothing. After rebooting the phone it may be OK for a day or two, but then again this phenomenon occurs. When looking at the battery usage indicator, I notice an unusually high amount of usage by the home and lock screen as well as the AppStore service. I also noted that charging the device takes a lot longer than it usually does. Pretty sure that this is a software bug and not related to any hardware issues.

Dec 31, 2020 11:19 AM in response to fstx2k

I'm curious as to whether anyone has tried to reset to factory configuration and run the stock phone for 48 hours to see how the battery holds up with no 3rd party apps installed. My guess is this is an app(s) that doesn't play well with 14.2/3 since there are literally millions of iPhones out there in use and only a tiny fraction exhibit this problem.

Dec 31, 2020 2:10 PM in response to LDO123

That's helpful information. But by the same token, there are a lot of people with 7's running 14.2 or 14.3 with no problem. So logically speaking, it's not the iOS.


I'm not trying to be argumentative, but to help figure this out. Having other devices to use, would you be willing to do a factory reset on your 7 and see what happens on a factory stock device over 24 hours? If the battery still runs down over a short period, then we will have definitive proof that it is 14.3. Until somebody does that, it's all speculation and no one here is going to be able to help.

Dec 31, 2020 4:18 PM in response to Zorksortronz

Its common for devices with the same model type, for example my 6s to have different hardware revisions during the manufacturing process. For example, my 6s has two possible A9 processor manufacturers., TSMC and Samsung. I'm sure there are other components in my phone that could vary over the production cycle of my phone. Also, there could be different revisions within the same chip manufacture for the same model chip. So to have one phone with the battery drain issue and the same model phone without is a possibility. Also as some mention, 3rd party apps could pose a problem as well but why wouldn't the battery monitor point out the app that is consuming the excess? Many of us place our phones in battery saver mode, close all apps, then wake up with 25% battery remaining in the morning and showing no app usage. Since nothing on my phone has changed and the battery usage started the very moment of the IOS 14 update, I'm convinced it is the IOS.

Jan 1, 2021 4:44 AM in response to amberge

Once again, is it the iOS or is it a 3rd party app that doesn't work well with the iOS. Your experience doesn't prove either. Until someone is willing to do some diagnostics, as I suggested, it's all speculation.


I'm not sure why there is resistance to perform a simple diagnostics by running a factory stock configuration overnight and reporting the result. What's the point of coming here and asking for help, then ignore it? Or maybe someone has, found out their phone works fine without all those 3rd party apps, and doesn't want to admit that it's not 14.3 that is the problem. OTOH, if a factory stock phone still has a battery issue, I'll be the first to admit the iOS is at fault.

iOS 14.2/14.3 battery drain bug!

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