iPhone 14 Plus iOS 16.4 Battery Drain

RESOLVED!

I've been dealing with the battery drain issue since upgrading to iOS 16.4. I tried implementing various battery-saving settings. That didn't work. I tried updating to iOS 16.5. No dice. I tried signing in and out of iCloud. Nada.

Finally, I had enough and called Apple Support. This resulted in a three-hour support call where we were able to fix the issue. It appears that iOS 16.4 didn't load properly on my iPhone. We therefore restored my iPhone to factory settings, downloaded iOS 16.5 again, and restored my apps/data from an iCloud backup.

I used these resources to complete the process:

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings 

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup

Since going through this process, my battery consumption has more or less returned to what it was before the iOS 16.4 upgrade. Just make sure you follow the instructions carefully. That is, make sure you have an iCloud backup to restore from and that you've signed out of Find My iPhone beforehand.

I hope this method helps all of you.

I have noticed the same problem. I have a 14 pro max. What I did is turn off the 'always on display' and that seems to have stabilized my battery drain. I had the same problem with the initial release of IOS 16 .. looks like they've regressed yet again. I suspect they already have a fix for 16.4.1 .. as is usually the case. If you have a similar issue, I would just turn it off until the next update. If nothing else, it'll lessen the drain.

The battery will normalize in a few days when the background indexing is complete. Leave the phone alone to do it’s thing. Removing it from battery saver mode and plugging it in also helps speed up the indexing in my experience. It takes a bit longer if you have a lot of files/media on your device. Cheers

This seems to be a widespread problem. I saw an article

about it in Cult Of Mac the other day.

No answers from Apple so far.

One suggestion; If you're using

a VPN like Nord or SurfShark, turn it

completely off, as in zero protection and the app closed

and then watch your

battery usage. VPNs continue doing

something in the background even when

the phone is off (locked, not powered down)

The VPN guys will tell you that it's negligible,

but don't buy it. Look at your Battery

setting where it shows usage by app. VPN's

are often right up there at the top.

I had the same issue with my IPhone 14 plus that I bought 3 weeks ago. After updating I noticed the same battery drain and I didn't find any fix until I saw some guy on reddit that said that he fixed the problem by trying his IPhone without sim, it fixed it for him so he changed his carrier/operator so new sim. I tried mine without sim and it fixed the problem. Also I tried some other stuff that you see on videos like background app refresh and stuff.

Just wanted to follow-up on this. About six days after updating to 16.4.1, my battery appears to be back to normal. This indicates that the estimates of 1-2 days for iOS to perform clean-up, re-indexing, or whatever the processes are, may not be entirely accurate in all cases. This has just been my experience with this latest update, but wait a few more than 1-2 days -- give it a week! -- and see what happens.

Hello everyone,

I wanted to provide a quick update about my experience, as there have been a few developments since I last posted.

As I stated previously, restoring to factory default settings helped me to restore my battery's drain time prior to iOS 16.4. My phone worked brilliantly...for a time. But with the release of iOS 16.5, iOS 16.5.1, and iOS 16.5.1 (c), my battery quickly degraded in performance. Which brings me to yesterday. I decided to restore to factory default settings again and restore from backup again. And once again, the battery's performance is working as it did before iOS 16.4.

I called Apple to explain what had happened across these two factory resets. They directed me to bring it into an Apple store. I did that this morning. They ran some diagnostics and found nothing wrong with the battery. (It's at 97% maximum capacity at the moment.) They said they wouldn't recommend getting a battery replacement, and they thought the issue might have to do with the OS updates.

I just got off the phone with Apple again to explain what happened during my appointment. They didn't provide much in the way of help. They said that I could send the phone to Apple directly, but I don't see the need to get back the same answer as I did this morning with an even longer turnaround time. They didn't say anything about the OS updates when I brought it up during my call.

Even so, it seems to me at this point that there's something off in the iOS 16 updates or in the update mechanism itself. I've seen some promising posts about the iOS 16.6 beta, and then there's always iOS 17 in September, so maybe one of those updates will fix it.

Resetting your phone to factory default settings will restore battery capacity for a while. I'm also thinking about trying this advice here so that I don't have to keep resetting my phone: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254371223?answerId=258230131022#258230131022.

I was hoping for more promising news. Maybe we'll all get it in the next few weeks.

Yes, the method I used involved iTunes and restoring the phone that way. Yep, still no complaints. I finished charging my phone at around 10:00 ET local time today. After about five hours, my battery had fallen by just 2%.

People, iOS 16.4.1 has been released.

I am currently upgrading to iOS 16.4.1 to see if it improves my battery performance.

It generally takes between 24 and 48 hours after doing an update for the phone to complete all the behind the scenes tasks. While it's doing that, your battery may drain more quickly than you're used to. Give it another day or so.

It appears that the latest update to 16.4.1 and 16.4.1 (a) both have caused significant battery drain issues on all 3 versions of iPhone 14. My wife has the 14 Pro Plus, I have the 14 pro, and son has the iPhone 14 flat model. After last update - all of them drain absurdly fast.

C’mon Apple-fix it!

I solved the problem by downgrading to iOS 16.3 that Apple still signs. With that I was officially able to return to him.

Hi Aramana,

Same has happened to me. I had 3-4calls with apple support. They had ran diagnostics on my phone and did couple of other things to find out what’s the exact issue but everything seems good to them. I told them if I leave my phone on standby, it still drops battery. Usually when it was on 16.3, it dropped 1%in 8-9mins. And now in 4-6mins it drops 1%. That is why it had 9-10hrs screen on time battery at that time.

It was best when we were on 16.3. Just getting some 21emojis and compromising battery life is a bad deal to upgrade to newer version.

I realized that it is better to move back to iphone 13pro rather than using this hectic 16.4 on a flagship phone.

Having the same exact issue. Upgraded from the 13 pro max to the 14 pro max less than 30 days ago. Battery drain is INSANE!!! Averaging about a 1% drop every 4-5 minutes of normal use.

AOD turned off

Display at 65% brightness

Haptic Keyboard Off

Most Apps for background App Refresh off

Visited the Genius Bar, they reset and restored my phone and had me setup as a brand new device without restoring from backup and that did nothing. I did a follow up over the phone with Apple support where they remotely ran a diagnostic and once again they are saying everything looks normal.

What is interesting to note is calls don’t seem to drain my battery as fast. I can average a 45-60 min call and lose 2% but browse safari for 15 minutes and I’ve lost 3-5%.

Morning routine is about a 30 min mix of checking emails, responding to overnight texts and slack messages and doing a quick browse of my IG feed and a couple safari searches and I’m down about 10-15% for just 30 minutes of use

I could use my 13PM all day with heavy use and still have about 70-75% battery life left. I’m dropping down in into the low 40%’s with the 14PM before the end of the day and really have to monitor and be mindful of my use and sometimes do a quick charge up.

updated to the new 16.4.1 and that didn’t do a thing to help with the issue

All you need is to download the latest signed iOS (link site at the end) after downloading open the Finder locate your iPhone and press the restore with the OPTION pressed and point to the file you downloaded and everything will be done.

https://idevicecentral.com/ios-signing-status/