Battery Drain on iOS 26 and iOS 26.0.1.

I have the same issue on iPhone 13, at least 40 to 50% degraded battery life. Indexing and updating and such had finished as I noticed the stuttering is gone. It has been 6 days. I’ve just forced some app updates and It also seems to drained faster than what the wireless charger managed to put in and overall it went down. I have never had that happen before. And even in general wireless charging is much worse (possibly due to quicker drain).

It is pretty bad as as I always charge wireless only.

Hi! I also want to report major battery drainage on my iPhone 13 Pro Max, that was a very well functioning device till I upgrade it to ios 26 :( I would say it's 50% performance decrease.

From 100% in the morning it's around 20% at 4 p.m. Till the update I was able to use phone til 10/11 p.m. without charging.

I also see a frame rate drop, when i unlock the screen, apps show up with 60 fps or even less then that.

I updated all the apps, forced restart and waiting for 26.0.2. I would very much like to downgrade it to 18 but I'm aware its not possible with any authorized method.

Thats the thing. I wasn’t. All my apps were closed. And background refresh turned off. Also if you look closely. How can i get over 1 hour of usage in 29mins. Additionally, i have had the same YT and FB usage for years and i still only needed to charge once every day or two.

My iPhone 12 Pro Max, which had 80% battery health, was working perfectly until I installed iOS 26. Now the battery drains so quickly that it's incredibly frustrating—it feels like older phones are being deliberately pushed aside, even though they still perform just fine.

Like many families, parents upgrade their own phones while passing older devices down to their children. So please, don’t phase out older models so aggressively—they still serve their purpose well.

It’s now been three weeks since I installed iOS 26, and the battery drain issue remains severe. I updated to iOS 26.0.1 immediately upon release, but the situation has not improved. At this point, the system should have stabilised, yet the battery consumption remains unusually high.

I’ve followed all recommended steps, disabling background activity, location services, and other potential causes, with only minimal improvement. This appears to be a widespread and well-documented issue.

I sincerely hope Apple prioritises a fix for this as soon as possible, as the current performance severely impacts usability.

I have a 14 plus. I am a moderate user (no heavy usage of a particular feature like games, online etc)

I used to charge to 100% and by EOD, the battery used to be 12-15%

Now with the iOS 26 update (now iOS 26.0.1), my best new friend is the power bank! Wayyyyyy tool much of a drain!

You are correct that you would never know if the same thing would have happened by simply playing a processor intensive game. The battery was likely defective and the replacement should have been no charge to you through the standard AppleCare coverage. Heat is generated by just watching Youtube/TikTok videos and if that was the case, it would appear that action was the cause. In both cases heat is going to be increased through an update or normal use and battery swelling is the result of a defective battery.

I remember a long time ago when iphones were praised for their excellent idle time without loosing much battery comparibg to others.. but since a few years i noticed the opposite also . Nowadays ios is sipping battery life nearly as much no matter if it’s just idle and not used or used .. it’s quite weird .. i also boticed that with my set up my iphones eats more battery on wifi than on cellular from home … and yes i wish apple would give us more options in the battery section like on others , we have adaptive battery with ios 26 but no extreme power saving mode where you can opt in to delay all non urgent notifications when you unlock the phone or just wake it up .. i have a cheap 200 euros phone next to my 17 pro max and the cheap phone is barely usibg any battery idle .. i wish apple would put more effort in this area .

My wife has a 16 Pro Max and it performs better under iOS 26.0.1 than probably another of the iOS 189 versions. If you can’t figure out how to fix the issues you’re confronting, contact Apple Support. But there is nothing subtle about a great working iOS. the improvements are noticeable.

Snoopy72 wrote:

Despite a clean setup and no background apps, I’m losing around 50–55 % in about 12 hours of light use (mostly Messenger, web browsing and short calls). Overnight it also drops several percent while idle.

You should be charging your phone all night every night and I recommend using the Optimized Charge setting. If you are using a charge limit, you are already starting each day with a partially depleted battery. Your phone under any iOS version is going to drop several percent overnight while idle. What you described is having all day battery life. Don't get caught up comparing Screen on/off time as you can see adding the 2 together never equals 24 hours which are the only 2 states other than when your device is powered off.

I have bought a new iPhone 15 and right then on 28 sept I upgraded my phone to 26 then again after 3-4 days to 26.0.1 .I am not facing any issues but for the first 10-12 days my phone battery was draining fast.Now suddenly battery performance improved

Abhijitrabha wrote:

I have bought a new iPhone 15 and right then on 28 sept I upgraded my phone to 26 then again after 3-4 days to 26.0.1 .I am not facing any issues but for the first 10-12 days my phone battery was draining fast.Now suddenly battery performance improved

Yep, that is exactly what is expected and glad everything is working for you.

🛑 I regret updating to 26.0.01! My battery drains twice as fast and I cannot drag and drop apps on my Home Screen. Apple has no clue how to fix and said they don’t support users that go back to previous update that was much better than this latest messed up update. Apple should replace iPhones for those that have major issues instead of forcing us into a position of having to spend $$$$ on another iPhone‼️

Yes, I have the same issue. I ride my bike and listen to music for 1-1/2 hours…when I get home my battery is at 1% and it started at 100%. Something needs to be done if it is the new update that has caused this. It makes me want to go with a different brand altogether. I never had this issue until the IOS update.

According to my observation, iOS 16 was the last major version where you could actually expect quality and good optimization starting from initial releases.

With each new major version, it’s been getting progressively worse, now peaking with iOS 26. The backlog in AI development doesn’t help either. Perhaps its the main culprit.

Apple should really consider time limiting access to new iOS version to latest generation iPhones only. This would set right expectations and allow to be more truthful with customers and perhaps even avoid loosing customers to Android.