Hi everyone,
Has anyone noticed their 16 pro max battery draining quicker than it should? Got the phone on launch day, under Settings>Battery it mentioned some updates running in the background may affect battery and thermal performance so I waited. Now that the message is gone, I still notice the battery draining quicker than usual.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 16 Pro Max, iOS 18
I’m also very disappointed with my battery life after a week of use.
down to 30% after 14 hours, I use 80% charge cap but this is also when spending about 1.5 hours at least charging in the car during the day and me sleeping for 5 hours where the phone wasn’t used at all. Screen is idling all the time (home and lock screen) even when I don’t use it or touch it for long periods of time, that’s barely any real drain though.
The real battery guzzler is safari. Since day one, it has been responsible for 45-70% of my total battery drain even though I just use it for searching a bit on google, looking up some info or buying some stuff (which is coupled with price checking, checking for best options available and so on) and maybe watching a short info video or two.
I just use it casually yet it drains an insane amount of battery for the light browsing I do. The other apps are less than 10%, almost all of them below 5%. But safari ends up at 50-60% usually, it’s like it’s cutting my battery almost in half.
considering trying another browser.
I turned off some features in the safari options like fetching pages pre-emptively when searching for things. I also installed adguard though that doesn’t seem to have helped much except make my experience better.
I’ve now made sure to stop a lot of apps from background refreshing when I don’t need them to, turned off location services for apps that don’t need it for my uses, also turned off the majority of the system services location tracking (used to have them off but apple turned them all on again, maybe with the ios update or perhaps due to changing my phone). I also turned off mobile data background refreshing and stuff like that so it only does it on wi-fi. For always on display, I turned off the wallpaper since I just want the information.
A lot of small battery drainers add up to a lot in the end.
I honestly expect that the battery draining is also due to ios 18 being new and there are probably some bugs and unoptimized parts, especially with the AI stuff, that needs to be fixed gradually.
Ordered a wireless charging powerbank to avoid ever having battery anxiety, easy to bring along since it doesn’t need cables. I will rarely need to use it though.
I’m still happy with my battery time overall, because I came from a iphone xs max, 6 years old. Still has good battery health at over 80% but thanks to new software, it would be drained of battery after a few hours of use. This one, even if used heavily, will last me all day even with the 80% battery limit. Unless I use it nonstop with safari of course. Without safari, I could use it nonstop and still have some battery left at the end of the day.
i just feel a bit tricked since they claimed 33 hours of video watching while I can just barely squeeze out a full day with 80% battery and at most moderate use. I realize they did their tests in super optimal conditions, probably with every kind of other process stalled that will be active in normal use and probably having pretty low brightness (if I wanted to use more brightness than around 40-50%, my battery would drain A LOT faster, that’s true for both my macbook pro and phone), but it’s misleading since no one will be getting 33 hours in a real life scenario. Probably at most around 20 hours continuous use if optimizing settings and not using battery guzzler apps without too much brightness.
I hope apple fixes the issues soon, this is clearly not a hardware problem, it’s a software issue.
Yup, my wife and I both upgraded our 13 Pro to 16 Pro and she noticed it first since I work from home and am usually near a charger. Now even with periodic charging my phone battery is draining almost at the same rate as my old 13pro which had a battery capacity of 80%.
Same here.
I had an iPhone 12 Pro with a very deteriorated battery and my new iPhone 16 Pro battery lasts the same if not less. Can’t give it a full day use without charging it mid way, so disappointing.
My wife and I see the same drain with our two 16 Pro Maxes. Given that the battery improvement was the main reason we upgraded our 15 Pro Maxes, it’s more than a little disappointing to see this. Others have given tips on how to lessen battery drain, but while useful to some, if I hear of improved battery life, I expect it with my current use pattern, not with a modified one - otherwise I could have just applied those tips on the old phone and get the same battery improvements.
Initially I thought the drain was the usual
initial one when things get re-installed in the background or some initial AI training, but it’s still draining to around 30% every day (vs 50% for the 15 Pro Max) after 5 days.
How long can indexing take? I am still unable too search for iMessage conversations that I know exist and in iMessage conversations I use a lot, there are most all of the photos sent in the message conversation missing.
My phone 16 pro draining constantly leave house at 6am for work and it’s dead by 3pm not a lot of use though the day just music for a few hours of the day when commuting my iPhone 13 lasted better very frustrating
i just brought a new iPhone 16 pro last Sat. The battery drains fast like my old iPhone that I used for 5years. Normally the new phone should have better performance?! Should last longer hours. I watched videos in FB for 2hrs it dropped the battery % from 70% to 30%. This seems unusual for a brand new phone.
I got my 16 pro max on launch day (arrived sept 20th) and was just sure that the battery would be better than my 13 pro max which had 85% battery health left. I completely understand that the initial set up would drain down some battery and it did. But since then, I have turned off nearly everything that everyone says to turn off because some of those things are cool, but it still drains SUPER fast. I got all day out of my 13 pro max with 30 or 40% to spare most of the time and I have 2 phone lines on it. 1 for personal, and the 2nd for work.
That being said... I did a controlled test last night. I have my phone set to only charge to 90%. So I charged it to 90% and then laid it on my nightstand and turned on "do not disturb" and woke up the next morning and it had drained down to 78%. It makes no sense. I still haven't sent back my 13 pro max because I'm not too sure about whether I'm going to keep this phone or not after these battery issues. I want to think it's just some sort of software bug, but I honestly can't tell at this point. I wish someone from Apple would address this and say that there is a battery drain issue and they are aware and it will be addressed with 18.0.1 or something. To say the least, I'm frustrated.
Now, on the other hand, I also bought the apple watch ultra 2 in black (switched from the apple watch 8 45mm) at the same time and that battery life is UNREAL. It's amazing. 10/10. would recommend.
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I had high expectations for battery life for 16 Pro Max, because of the reviews, but unfortunately it is seems worsen than in 3 yrs old iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Made a mistake, should just keep that phone and not to spend lots of money.
This is sixth day of usage, so there should not be any indexing etc left. There was some in first two days, like photos.
Basically 1,5 hours of random usage (X, Instagram, FB, threads, browser, safari) consumes 30 percent of battery.
I literally feel the same- I was using my iPhone 14 Pro Max with 85% battery life and it held up all day and was maybe 20-25% by bed time- this phone iPhone 16 pro is awful for battery life - and I’m actually hating the swap and want to go back to my old one - iv never felt like this with a new apple product/ pretty gutted to say the least x
I’m noticing the same thing. I had an iPhone 13 Pro that I got at launch. It’s battery was down to 85% of the original and this new 16 Pro is lasting about the same amount of time if not less per charge. I’d really like to get to the bottom of it
I have the 16, and it is draining very fast, and it sits idle a lot. When I had the new13 mini, it seemed as if it hardly even needed charged up. I’m not satisfied with the way this phone is just dropping battery %’s like it’s a leaking faucet. I’ve even changed a ton of settings. Same thing.
Same situation. Had the 14 max pro and it lasted all day, streaming etc by the end of the day it would have 30%, all day for me meant 6am till 10pm. I am afraid to even look at my mail let alone streaming on this new iPhone 16 pro max. Still with in the return period may go to 15 if this is how it’s going to be if the tips I followed for closing background apps etc, don’t solve the battery drain
I have the same issue with my Pro Max. It’s gone from 100% to 84% in 2 hours. I used the GPS for a 30 minute drive and I browsed online (no videos) for about 30 minutes. My IPhone 14 had better battery life so I regret trading it for the 16.
My iPhone 16 pro max is the same having to charge it everyday, today I’ve had to charge it twice as the battery goes so quickly never had a iPhone like this I would go back to my 14 pro max but I gave it to my mum 😭 also the iWatch 10 battery life goes just as quick 😩 what should I do?
I’m running into the exact same thing. I’ve contacted support, they did a diagnostic test and saw nothing strange. I sent them a link to this thread, but they were unhelpful. Very disappointing. My 12 Pro Max at 80% battery health lasted longer.
Why is my iPhone 16 Pro Max battery draining so fast?
