Battery drain on iOS 14.6

I have an iPhone SE and following installing the iOS 14.6 on Monday experienced dramatic battery loss. I have rebooted the device and this made no difference in improving the battery performance.

I tracked the issue down to the apple podcast app which is a major issue for m as listening to podcasts through the apple podcast app was the main reason for purchasing the phone to follow on from my previous iPods. I have Patreon subscriptions and hundreds of saved episodes on multiple shows stored in the app.

I have stopped using the app but have not deleted it and am currently using Pocketcasts and the battery performance is now fine and back to pre iOS 14.6 performance.

I hope apple get this issue sorted ASAP as if your own app cant work on your own device that a pretty poor show and a major issue I am sure for many users.

I’ve also narrowed it down to the podcasts app.

something that has seemed to help is to unsubscribe to a bunch of different podcasts. I was at a library of over 300 podcasts. I narrowed it down to 200.

in my iphone 11 pro battery health reduced 3% now its 95% and my device is 9 months old. Its a software issue there are many apps that not work properly with this update the use lot off battery and device getting hot. Apple should have to fix issue in ios 14.6.1 before ios 14.7 release . Please apple fix that issue . Its almost end of ios 14 now . So please focus on stability , heating issue , and battery drain.

I never post about this because this issue gets raised after ever single iOS release. But this time it hit me hard. My usage patterns are rock stable. I work from home and never go anywhere, especially since the pandemic. I rarely use my phone anymore except as an alarm clock. But I keep it near me at all times, and I keep it >50% charged at all times. Two days in a row now my phone has been powered off due to a drained battery when I pick it up. Battery health is good for a 7+ With a max capacity of 87%. I keep my screen very dim. It has never died like this.

I just read how often an OS update triggers a lot of background system activity while the system reorganizes, cleans up, and generally adapts to the new release, and that may be what is at play. If so, this behavior will stop within a few days. New features may consume more power, so that is something to monitor. But if it doesn’t go back to mostly the same power drain as before, then we will all know that this time there really is a problem. Time will tell.

jerel2u,

Right on all counts. Indexing and other background processes after an update often result in a period of faster than normal battery discharging. Often barely noticeable, but the impact of 14.6 was EXTREME. I updated on first day and the fast drain freaked me out. I was one of the early posters here.

Then, suddenly, by Thursday morning 6/3 (JST) things were back to normal. My drain seemed to be caused by Music background activity. Later Thursday, I got notifications that songs X, Y, and Z were no longer available. Connect the dots, and we can assume my (large) music collection was going through some massive re-indexing, possibly in preparation for the lossless options on the way. Perhaps the same with Podcasts, but I don't have that app on the phone.

I have a fast internet connection. If one's connection is slow, it might take longer for power usage to return to normal. Battery drain times are now at least as good as they were before 14.6. Wishing all the same luck.

Another user affected here - iPhone XR, the phone sometimes gets 30% charged overnight and stops. I can’t use earbuds on long video calls because I need to keep the phone plugged into power. Also noticing the phone heats up when using some apps, a problem I haven’t experienced since I retired my 5s.

So I did a test last night. I had the Apple Podcasts App playing podcasts the entire night.

I had the phone charged to 100%.

I placed the phone on a charger and pressed play.

Woke up this morning and the battery was at 78%.

Again, phone was charged to 100% AND placed on a charger, AND STILL LOST 22% BATTERY!!!

Apple's podcast app is just broken. No issues with another podcast app (ie Overcast, Castro, Pocket Casts, etc).

But ios 14.7 is long way to go about atleast it takes 1 month ios 14.7 have several betas so, if they fix battery drain amd heating issue in ios 14.7 not before like in ios 14.6.1 . So i must say battery will damaged and battery health also drops. Apple should have to fix in ios 14.6.1

Assuming there is one. I understand that it will be a while for 14.7. I was just saying what I found on a website. It’s a very trustworthy website, but that one is a prediction for sure. But I hope this doesn’t permanently damage batteries.

I was seeing this issue. I think it is mostly fixed for me. The steps I took:

1) Removed older apps I was not currently using. Hotel, airline and rental car apps. If I need them again, I can download them. My theory is that some of them need to be updated.

2) Refined my choices in the Podcast app. If you are "following" a podcast, make sure you have some limits on the number of episodes you want it to download. I had already set the app to not work in the background. When I loaded the app, my battery would suddenly drain. My theory is that it was updating all the apps I had subscribed to at the same time.

You may be onto something with that theory. To update an app, open App Store, press your photo in the top right, then once in the next menu, drag down from your name and photo. Dragging down like that does a force refresh to look for new updates, after that, just press update all.

I’m not having this issue, but people have said that the issues were often caused by podcasts and App Store. Has anyone tried deleting podcasts? (You can reinstall it if you’d like, but maybe that could help.)

Hey after downgrading your iphone , did the battery health which you lost came up ? Or its the same ? Even i lost 2 percent after the update for no reason on my new iphone 12 , also too much battery drain , i dont know apple will ever address this issue and fix

Added follow up for my case: The battery drain issue continued, sometimes better, but then bad again. This morning I backed up to Mac, restored the iPhone, then restored the backup. I've been on battery now for 30 minutes and device is still at 100% with the Podcast app running (but not playing) and Evernote running, but the device idle otherwise. Before I would be down in the 80s by now---the drop being immediate and very dramatic before. Hopefully that problem is fixed and doesn't pick up again.

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.