Battery Drain on iOS 26 and iOS 26.0.1.

Me too, a few days ago, my iPad acted weird when I unplugged it from my charger. All I knew was that the percentage of battery usage was supposedly up to 100%; instead, it went down rapidly. It was very frustrating to me. So, will there be any updates on iOS 26?

sk8gal wrote:

I have iOS 26.1 on an iPad A16 and an iPhone 13 mini. The iPad mostly stays at home and doesn't get used all that much. Still has Facebook on it. The battery life is fine. I haven't tested it by taking it out and about. The phone, however, has horrible battery life (85% battery health).

With an 85% Battery Health, I would expect you are going to need a new battery in about 5 months or less. The iPhone mini was discontinued over 2 years ago and released over 4 years ago, so based on the time range, that would be average if you purchased it closer to the 2 year mark and exceptional if you got it shortly after release.

Apple states that the iPhone 14 or earlier is expected to last 500 charge cycles before needing to be replaced when it drops below 80%, while later models are rated at 1000 charge cycles. What we have seen on average and also in line what Apple has disclosed on the expected Battery Life is that iPhone 14 and earlier models drop about 1% Battery Health a month on average when measured over time. The iPhone 13 mini does have a smaller battery than the base model, so there may be some truth to what you were told, but as far as Battery Health is concerned, it still looks like it has exceeded its expectations. It also would make sense the a 15% drop in Battery Health would be more noticeable when a device has a smaller battery to begin with.

With that said, the iOS update does not change your Charge Cycles for any of the expectations on your Battery Health and performance is directly related to the health of your battery. I do think the iOS 26 update uses more of your battery due to the UI effects, but personally for me it has not been a drastic change and I think you are seeing more of the effects of your decreasing Battery Health being compounded with the update where your battery will need to be replaced shortly anyways. Removing the high battery consuming apps will see an improvement, while you are in these last few months, but the battery replacement will be inevitable. That would have been true no matter what iOS version you were using.

My previous phone was a 6S. I keep them until they die. The speed with which the battery drains at times is quite dramatic - something is causing this, something is overworking. I hope my little mini lasts a while longer because I prefer a small phone!

Followyoheart wrote:

1. Following can be tried depending on your risk appetite. May not be advisable from safety point of view and depending on how essential are these features to you but could be done until the iPhone stabilises after updates:

,,,

I haven't done any of that and my battery usage is just fine

TabyR wrote:

This is happening to me also. I tried to find a way to uninstall the new iOS 26.1 because it’s so frustrating. I’ve already forced a restart and checked my settings. But today as an example, I glanced at my phone for 10 minutes this morning. And glanced again for 2 minutes around 1 pm and my phone died at 2 pm. After being charged all night mind you. Before this update my phone battery would die after 13 hrs of CONTINUOUS use. This is ridiculous

Hello~ In add to *Jeff Donald’s* request for a screenshot…what iPhone model are you using?

~Katana-San~

Mine was updated today nothing but lag since and talk about battery drain I’m literally watching it go down in front of my eyes rapidly shocking I was on 99 percent and am on 11 within a very quick time and hardly any use please help This is shocking and to upgrade all apps how do I even do that all manually ?

oldmaninflorida wrote:

Why are there three different places to disable this battery eating, poorly written program?????

As it doesn't cause problems for most people, I suspect the issue is something other than "a poorly written program."

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.

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.

This makes me believe that the issue from all the iOS 26 issues will get better.

my one big hope is the call block options will get back to a simple hit info icon on bad call/go down to block/tap and move on. It should even be easier & faster than that but I would settle for the old steps. I’ve typically been getting 12-15 phish,spam calls a day for ins, Medicare, Life and its an effort to delete now!!!

Most of the spam calls I receive are from spoofed numbers and that same number would not be used again for another spam call whether I had blocked it or not. The call blocking feature is only effective with legitimate numbers that you do not want calling back, it is not very helpful in reducing spam. That explains why you are still getting 12-15 spam calls after blocking the numbers.

Better solutions are sometimes found from your cellular provider where many use spam blockers, so they do not even ring your phone. Check with yours to see what they offer.

I’m having the same problem with my new iPhone 15 , when I upgraded it to iOS 26.1 and anytime I restart my phone my battery which is at 95 will drop to 88% when it comes on. This is so frustrating and confusing. Please Apple do something about it . I don’t know what to do 😩😩

My phone updated itself Saturday and since then my battery is playing up. I can go all day on 100 switch off at night then back in and it’s low. I was told to force switch off which I did now battery is stuck all time even below 100

snoopyq234 wrote:

Iphone 14 pro max - 87% - no apps used during this time, just left on the table.

Can we all just agree there's a major issue with ios 26 instead of suggesting tweaks, app updates, and reboots. I've got multiple Apple devices with exactly the same battery drain issue - ipads iphones watches - only started happening since ios26.

Maybe if the battery app wasnt like my kids crayon drawings & had some decent system level cpu usage we could get to the bottom of this.

Ios 26.2 has not fixed the issue either.

Hello~ No …we can’t “just agree there's a major issue with ios 26 instead of suggesting tweaks, app updates, and reboots.”

~Katana-San~

snoopyq234 wrote:

Can we all just agree there's a major issue with ios 26 instead of suggesting tweaks, app updates, and reboots.

No, we can't all agree. I've had zero, zip, nadda, no issues caused by iOS 26. In fact, to me, it's one of the most exciting iOS versions Apple has EVER released. You can speak for yourself, of course. But you do not, nor can you speak for the other millions upon millions upon millions of other users who may be out roaming around without any issues caused by this update.