iOS 16.6 Battery Draining Fast

This is not solved. I opened a call with Apple support and they are aware of it. Please log a support call with them. Also it may be causing the battery health on older phones to drop as well. My daughter's iPhone 11 pro did so (It fell below 80% and recomended replacing) in which case you should claim on Apple to replace it for you for free if it is iOS 16 that has caused it.

[Image Edited by Moderator to Remove Personal Information]

Hi!

I bought a new iPhone 14 pro no so far ago, and had the same issue. Before i had 13 pro and had same issue but solved it by resetting network settings, but it did't help me with 14 pro. I've done all recommendation i found :) even reinstalled from DFU, and set all phone configs manually, without importing from iCloud or elsewhere.

So after week investigation i found out that after disabling "Time-Sensitive Notifications" in all apps, i lost only 3% during night in a background, this percent was 25-30 before.

What worked for me (12 pro) after both the update from 15 to 16.1 when the problem began and again from 16.1 to 16.1.1 when it resurfaced was deleting all my messages in iMessage. Seems no matter how long I was on power and WiFi it was not able to reconcile something in iMessage. After deleting messages across iCloud iMessage phone battery back to normal within 1 hour of being plugged in and on WiFi.

denice186 wrote:

. Very upset that at the Apple Store, it was not mentioned to me that the new upgrade is causing this battery depletion.

That’s because the new upgrade is not causing the battery depletion. Using your phone causes battery depletion.

Batteries are consumables; they lose a little capacity every time they are discharged, then recharged. On average this works out to about a 1% loss for every 25 “full charge cycles”. As one example, if you charge the phone overnight, every night (and that is what you should do; it is a best practice), it starts the day at 100%. If it drops to 20% by the end of the day before you charge it again overnight that counts as 0.8 full charge cycles (20% to 100%), or about 24 full charge cycles per month of use. For this example your battery capacity will lose about 1% per month. Of course, if the end-of-day level is higher than 20% the capacity loss will be a little less, and if it is lower than 20%, or you charge it during the day, the capacity loss will be higher.

Once the capacity drops below 80%, or if there is a message in Battery Health that the battery is not meeting peak performance expectations, it’s time to change the battery→iPhone Battery Replacement - Official Apple Support

The absolute best way to get maximum use on a charge, as well as slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates. Here's more information→About Optimized Battery Charging on your iPhone - Apple Support

Battery drain was indeed an issue for many and not because the device is old or the battery was not charged optimally etc. After the upgrade to 16 my cellular use for “messages” with 16.0.1 then “contacts” with 16.1 was gigabytes overnight with those apps off and battery meter not showing those apps to be active yet in the cellular settings they were burning thru data and the phones temp made it a hot potato. I am pleased to report 16.2 seems to have fixed it for my case but to assume users are just not realistic with their device battery life or in some way not behaving optimally is not helpful.

I was having this issue too and found this thread on iOS 16 battery drain to be pretty informative. It basically says that your phone is probably indexing a bunch of stuff after the update and therefore using more battery right now, but should return to normal soon.

for me, iPhone X and iOS 16.0.2 disabling exposure notifications improved the situation a lot. I believe this is one workaround until it is fixed.

I disabled both the corona warn app (Germany) and exposure notifications and by battery holds like before iOS 16.

Not only is it causing battery drain, it is causing the maximum battery capacity to deplete rapidly. I have an open case with Apple. I called them on Sept. 30th and today. The first advisor had the audacity to tell me that this tremendous drop in battery capacity is normal. But then he pointed out that he does see my battery draining rapidly while we were on the phone. To sum it up: I have rapid battery drainage and maximum capacity depletion. I honestly believe that Apple is doing this to make people buy new phones. I do not have money to buy a new phone when my old one was working fine up until the software update. I have a 11 pro max. My husband is also having the same issue with his 11 Pro.

I have just bought a new SE 3rd gen a few days ago. I thought it was broken, even went to an Apple store where they reset the firmware after running a diagnostic. They didn't see any problem with the battery, just a major draw and large unexplained CPU-usage . From what I can tell my phone does not drain battery unless I log in with the Apple-ID. Just now I had the phone erased and did not set up my Apple-ID. Now the battery usage is normal, still using WiFi, Bluetooth and Location services, but no major draw as it seems. Later this evening I will try and add my Apple-ID to confirm this hypothesis.

Ever since I updated to iOS 16 my battery life has been exceptionally good. Better than I could ever have expected. I charge it overnight, and by the end of the day it is still between 60% and 80%. iPhones don’t use battery energy; APPS on iPhones use battery energy. So you need to figure out which app or apps are causing your problem.

As a start do you use VPN? That’s a common cause of energy waste, especially if you didn’t reinstall the VPN after updating. Otherwise, go to Settings/Battery and see which apps are consuming the most energy.

Try and update to iOS 16.0.3 for me battery is slightly better on that one

Sign out of iCloud and I bet the problem is solved. If this works, it is some component of iCloud that is spinning its wheels causing the drain. For me it was messages, then contacts.

The normal troubleshooting procedure for a problem like this is as follows (only do the subsequent steps if the previous one failed to solve your problem):

1. Try closing the app that is causing the largest battery drain.
2. Delete the offending app and reinstall.
3. Reboot your iPhone (TOBO: Turn Off, Back On)
4. Upgrade iOS to the latest version (Settings > General > Software Update > Download and Install)
5. Try putting your device in Recovery Mode (you'll need a Mac or Windows system, Lightning cable, and if on Windows, iTunes). This will reset your iPhone and require you to restore from a backup (a backup on your Mac/Windows system will go a lot faster than an iCloud restore, but you should definitely have a backup before trying this option).

Hope one of these solves your problem.

Well, I’m glad you discovered what was using energy, but there’s a way to prevent any drain overnight, and extend the useful life of your battery as a bonus. The absolute best way to get maximum use on a charge, as well as slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates. Here's more information→About Optimized Battery Charging on your iPhone - Apple Support

Well, with 1.5 billion iPhones in use it could easily be 1.5 billion different apps causing battery drain. Probably not, but there will be hundreds of possible apps.

One of the bigger problems is installed VPN that is not configured correctly or was not deleted and re-installed after the update.