iOS 14.6 podcast app draining battery

I'm with you. Same issues and PIA resolution to have to use Spotify. How these updates are released without fully testing is beyond me. I don't want to "hope" that someone from Apple is monitoring these issues and taking action - Does anyone know how do we escalate?

The update to the podcast app is both terrible and yes, also draining my battery. Why do they insist on breaking things that work? There were a lot of podcast I would listen to but was not subscribed to. They're all gone! I've tried to no subscribe to all of them. But yes, my battery was full a couple hours ago and now its at 10% since turning on podcasts and charging can't keep up. On a 12 Pro Max.

Same here. My phone is 2 days old. They said nothing was wrong with it. It died after 4 hours of use the first day I had it. I hardly used it I just listened to podcasts. My old iPhone didn’t do this I wish I didn’t spend all the money upgrading what a waste!

Since the new update for the podcast app my phone gets hot and the battery dies really fast. And when I click play it will take 10-15 to start playing and sometime 30-45 seconds. I used to listen to podcasts on my phone all day at work and have 30-40 percent battery left at days end. Now it won’t make it all day

This fix doesn't seem to work. It seems to be a bit better, but no way this could be used.

I'm currently looking for other podcast apps than apple podcast. Because I hope that will fix it. Any recommendations?

Me too. I thought maybe something was wrong with just my phone. I reset to factory then restored. Still having this issue w podcasts. My battery lasts less then an hour if I’m listening to podcasts and it starts jumping to different podcasts randomly. My phone gets extremely hot too.

Now that I see I’m not the only person with this issue, my hypothesis is apple wants you to think something is wrong with your phone so you buy a new one.

Its so disappointing.

Hi Apple,

I this is my first time posting, but I too am an avid user of your Podcast App running a iPhone Xs that was working fine and with the update to iOS 14.6 is now draining 50% battery in an hour with almost all of this being attributed to the Podcast App. My phone is now mostly tethered and fear for the batteries health as the phone is running extremely hot.

I hope this can be remedied.

Cheers,

I’m having the same exact issue. So bizarre. The iOS Podcast app was always a little laggy, but it wasn’t infuriating to use prior to this update. I installed the update on my iPhone 11 Pro and the change was immediately noticeable. Apple customer support had no idea what the issue was and tried to have me troubleshoot, even though it was glaringly obvious that there was a serious mistake in the programming of the Podcast update. So I just got the iPhone 12 Pro, switched to Verizon and started fresh (instead of setting up from a backup) and the issue is still just as bad on a brand new phone. Can’t imagine how this slipped through the cracks, this is a major app and seems like a glaring oversight. Please fix soon, I listen to podcasts every day!

What I meanwhile think, that this happens, if you have subscribed too many podcasts, with lots of old, never heard episodes.

Because it currently looks so, that it kind of "repairs itself". Don't know how, but this is effect of sucking the batteries dry has been going down the last weeks. Not perfect as it was, but much better since 4 weeks ago.

I have for example about 85 Podcasts and a lot of never heard stuff, I estimate over 3000 episodes never heard (I've chosen "load only new episodes" and "delete heard episodes"). Currently the podcast app takes about 8,4 GB of iPhone memory. 8-) Its a bit much, but I have podcasts when I like it.

How many do others have?

This is 100% happening to me too. It has also taken my battery health from 99% to 94%

I have only had this 12 Pro Max since January.

Podcast app was supposed to be updated with new iOS…it only got worse and has killed my battery.

APPLE SUPPORT PLEASE HELP! (At least give us a good reply in this thread).

my phone battery is being ruined by this…on my $1200 brand new phone. :-/

I have had the exact same issue on my iPhone 12ProMax that I purchased in January.

When I first noticed the warming after the update I checked my battery health and it was still at 100% and didn’t worry.

It has only gotten worse. This morning a 25 minute podcast took my phone from full charge to 86%….that is ridiculous.

Worse yet my battery health is at 94%

This is absolutely unacceptable. I spend an hour on the phone with Apple Care and there was zero acknowledgment of the Podcast update causing issue.

I was told if my battery health hits 80% within the first year it will be replaced for free.

My brand new $1200 phone can’t handle Apples own Podcast App! This is bad.

Since iOS 14.7 it seems, that everything is working smooth again. It took some days after installing, but since 1,5 weeks there are no issues anymore and the podcast app seems to run a bit smoother than before - far away from perfect, but no more battery issues anymore on my iPhone 8.

I have the exact same problem. Honestly I just downloaded a different app to use for podcasts and haven’t had any issues with the other app. I have to double check where I was on the things I’m listening just so that I can listen to podcasts while I’m at work. I’ll probably use apple podcasts again if they fix this problem but it’s not worth the trouble of using an external charger 4 times a day.

[Edited by Moderator]

You can try to make a feedback about the Podcast App.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

I too have experienced the same issues and have deleted the app and downloaded it again with no success. This is clearly an issue with the recent update, please fix this.