Battery drain on iOS 14.6

iPhone XR. I updated to 14.6 very soon after its release. I was among the first here to post regarding the battery drain. The Podcasts app is not on my phone, but the Music app was using crazy power for a "background activity" for days.

Without action on my part (well, closing apps and running on low power mode for a while), the Music app has stopped its background activity and battery drain is normal. Left unplugged overnight, the phone had 92% charge this morning. Maybe the solution is time?

You can see the different behaviors below:

iPhone XS. In that instance I looked again a moment later after I posted and it was 99%.

Before posting now, just to double check, I let device sit for 30 minutes again with Podcast app open but not playing and screen off. Other apps are all closed. Bluetooth is on and connected to a smart speaker. Device is connected to mobile network and home wifi. Started at 100%. Had a reminder from Alexa come in and screen came on for that. Thirty minutes later battery is still 100%. Thirty-five minutes, still 100%. Forty minutes, still 100%.

But as I wrote earlier, before the restore, when battery drain was a problem, the drop was dramatic. That is the important observation to me. That immediate and dramatic drop in battery isn't happening now since the restore. It is hard to compare apples to apples -- all things the same -- and still keep using the device, however. And when battery drain was a problem, it would seem to be better before becoming horrible again. We'll see how things go over the next week.

Its probably not just airtag ping. Cpu activity is at least twofolds with 14.6.

mine was 6-8% before now not less than 15% unfortunatelly we cant see which process causes this problem.

look at parabolic graph. Its just simple tasks.

Having the same issue ever since updating to 14.5 on my 11 Pro. It just drains a lot while being locked and doing nothing. I don’t use the Podcasts app at all - I even deleted it, but it doesn’t seem to be the culprit. I already completely restored my phone with my Mac twice - once with a local backup, once with an iCloud backup after trying 14.7 public beta, which also didn’t help. It’s not even funny anymore - I may barely use my phone throughout the day, and it will still go down to 30% or lower by the time I go to sleep, and it never happened prior to 14.5. It was easily a two-day phone sometimes, and now it barely lasts a day doing nothing. It’s also always a bit warm when I pick it up, which means the CPU is doing some work, but it never shows any background apps in the battery stats. I scrolled through the analytics data and found some logs of some ‘duetexpertd’ having a high CPU usage for too long, which could be the cause of the problem. I’m still debating if I should try the iOS 15 beta to see if it’s fixed though. Don’t want to run into other stability issues and bugs.

I also have my old 7 Plus, and despite it having a dead battery with 69% capacity, it doesn’t have this issue, and it lasts much longer in standby than my 11 Pro with 88% capacity.

I have the same problem, first with the extreme battery drain and also with the podcast app it takes sometimes 70% of my usage and I only use it 1 hour a day. Furthermore since the upgrade to 14.6 my battery went from 83 % to 81% then 78% on capacity. IPhone is very hot when charging or downloading a single podcast ! I used to charge me phone every 36 hours and now it is at least twice a day. Apple should take responsibility… this is not acceptable!

Posting here will not solve the problem! I spoke with two apple support reps yesterday and they said they are unaware of any issues! So if they don't think there is an issue, what is there for them to solve?

Apparently Apple doesn't look at info from 3rd parties (like Forbes or Reddit) or even this website! A simple (Google) search for "iOs 14.6 battery drain" would show them how widespread the issue is.

So it seems they only respond to incoming telephone complaints.

So please call!!!

So disappointing, what a terrible way to treat customers.

What are you taking about!?! It's not normal at all! I have my iPhone 12 pro since December and still have 100% and believe me I use my phone a lot! But after an update 14.6 battery drain like crazy! 50% down in 4h! There is no help from Apple. I've tried everything they said battery is fine they can't even admit it's their fault. THEY REALLY THINK WE ARE IDIOTS! The only thing I've been told to go to https://www.apple.com/feedback/ and give them a feedback regarding latest update. So to all of you guys go to https://www.apple.com/feedback/ and tell them what your think otherwise they will not do anything! Nobody even check our discussion here...

rouhaan wrote:

Everyone, I have started a discussion on iOS 14.7 battery drain, write your reviews on battery life over there then at least Apple will listen to us.

It's not clear where you started this discussion as you didn't link to it. However, if it's here in these forums, no, Apple will not be listening to you. Apple doesn't read these forums for suggestions. If you want Apple to hear your thoughts on the matter, use the feedback page:

Product Feedback - Apple

I went and just deleted the Apple Podcast app (I use Overcast). I'll post if there's any noticeable difference in drainage …

Do you listen to Podcasts? This is the source of the abnormal battery drain on my iPhone X.

Once you restart it, which I see a few of you did. You just have to wait. I had that issue with 14.5, and after 3 days it was normal.

Yes, updated last night on my SE (2nd Gen) only a year old and it seems like the Podcast app is doing most of the draining, it is the app I most use (a lot in the background)

I know that there were some recent changes to podcasts. Oh wow! I just logged on to podcasts and lost 2% battery in 10 seconds. This is awful.

Apple needs to fix the podcast battery drain. If not, either need to find another app or switch to Android. The new podcast app is terrible. Whoever designed it must not use it.

I am having the same issues and I only use the iPod touch for podcast so this update has messed up my battery power…I reset all settings and got 20% for over 2 hours which is great…turned it off and 3 hours later back on and it’s draining like crap again