Level 1

133 points

Battery Drain on iOS 26 and iOS 26.0.1.

Good morning everyone,

I would like to report a VERY SERIOUS problem with the battery and performance.

I have a NEW iPhone 15 with 100% battery capacity and only 22 cycles (which I did myself; when it arrived, it was at 0).

However, after updating to iOS 26 (and even with iOS 26.0.1, the situation remains the same), I continue to have VERY SERIOUS problems with the battery life of my NEW phone.

Today, I was busy all day and did not use my phone from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., yet it still dropped from 90% to 45% WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING. No apps were open, the “Refresh apps in background” option was not enabled, the screen was set to turn off automatically after 30 seconds, and automatic brightness was enabled. So it's definitely not the phone's fault because it's BRAND NEW with a 100% ORIGINAL battery, nor is it the settings because it was in PERMANENT POWER SAVING mode. So the fault lies solely with iOS. There are no excuses.

I am writing this message to urge Apple to resolve this issue as soon as possible because, from what I have read on X, I am not the only one.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thank you very much and have a good day.

iPhone 15, iOS 26

Posted on Oct 1, 2025 8:07 AM

Top-ranking reply

Jeff Donald

Level 8

44,568 points

Posted on Oct 3, 2025 6:20 AM

You’re not taking into consideration the extra processes that go on after an upgrade (from 18.x.x to 26.x.x) and then an update.

Please update all your apps. Third party apps may not have been optimized for iOS 26 yet and that can cause severe battery drain. After updating your apps, please do a forced restart and give things another few days to settle in.

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

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345 replies

Dec 4, 2025 2:18 PM in response to Mac Jim ID

It's hard to respond to such a condescending reply in a civil manner. But I see from your bio you're it support. So I guess I'll just chalk that up to the tone.

But I'm not some tech illiterate senior novice. My career with computers started in the 1980s with punch cards. My first computer language was fortran.

I stand by my original evaluation that the software is badly written. For something to draw that much power after a major iOS update and be hard to find and turn off is bad programing.

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,821 points

Dec 4, 2025 2:57 PM in response to oldmaninflorida

It's not bad programming at all, as each of the settings does something different (as was clearly explained) and the associated settings are in the location that makes the most sense for them.

The fact that you would prefer a different user interface does not make the programming "bad."

In addition to that, I'm glad it's solved your problem, but it's not the root cause of your issue since there are millions of iPhone users around the world who have all these settings turned on (including myself) and are not experiencing the battery drain that you are.

There is clearly some other factor involved, and it's not condescension to take a strict engineering approach to the issue and realize if it was poorly written software, everyone would experience the issue… and they most certainly do not.

andrea_filice Author

Level 1

133 points

Oct 1, 2025 9:19 AM in response to andrea_filice

I forgot to attach some screenshots.

[Edited by Moderator]

tenrk9k

Level 1

8 points

Oct 2, 2025 8:41 PM in response to andrea_filice

My Apple 16 Pro max didn’t come this iOS 26 .0.1.

andrea_filice Author

Level 1

133 points

Oct 3, 2025 5:15 AM in response to Mestesso

yep, there are several bugs. like this one which I reported to apple in Feedback App.

https://streamable.com/t9r75x

(I cant attach videos here)

Oct 3, 2025 6:11 AM in response to LD150

I usually always do charge overnight and leave in the morning with 100% it was just this one time that I forgot to plug in, but I’ve done this before and having only 50% used to get me very far

Oct 3, 2025 6:59 AM in response to andrea_filice

BATTRY DRAIN SO FAST BATTRY HELTH 83 TO 79 WITH IN 4 DAYS AFTER UPDATE IOS 26.0.1

HELP!!!APPLE

andrea_filice Author

Level 1

133 points

Oct 3, 2025 8:26 AM in response to Jeff Donald

I do literally everithing you have listed here and I’m still have battery drain.

It’s at 90% a iOS optimization issue.

Adesh26

Level 1

8 points

Oct 3, 2025 11:02 AM in response to andrea_filice

I also suffer the similar problem in iPhone 15 pro max

andrea_filice Author

Level 1

133 points

Oct 3, 2025 11:04 AM in response to Jeff Donald

All the first 7 apps are all optimized for iOS26 with the new keyboard and everything. It's not their problem if the system calls them randomly and uses battery, I'm sorry.