Battery Drain on iOS 26 and iOS 26.0.1.

I have an iphone 13 pro with 94% battey health on ios 18.7 it lasted me the whole day with 5 to 6 hours of screen on time with this mew update ios 26.0.1 (4 days post update) i find myself having to charge the phone twice a day maybe 3 times and it’s so bad that i find myself losing aroud 10% every hour with the phone idle and no apps nor bothing running in the backround no app refresh no location on no nothing

[Edited by Moderator]

And so the saga continues. Used my phone this morning like I have done for the last two years. Read and replied to a few texts, read and replied to a few emails, made several phone calls, no web searches, no instagram, no news apps, no YouTube. I went from 100% at 6:00 am to 35% by noon. Before iOS 26 I would still be at or near 75% during the same time. As a repeat, battery health went from 100% pre-update to 80% post update. Jeff, if all of us are at fault and Apple has done nothing wrong, please explain the drop in battery health within minutes of updating to 26? Also, please explain why it takes 4 to 5% of my battery life just to do a restart on my phone.

I have done a force restart so many times and it still doesn’t change the fact my battery dies by noon. All I’m doing is texting and emails. This is ridiculous. It’s a software issue not a battery issue. The battery life was fine before 26 & 26.01 updates.

I am having the same Issue I have an iPhone 16 Pro that after the update gets hot for no reason. Just sitting indoors on the desk gets very hot an I use to go 13 hours on a charge now only get 3 hours. It gets to hot to put in my pocket. Also getting System services using 93% battery. This update made my device useless. Only had this device 6 months.

this issue needs to be fixed. and if this Update is killing peoples batteries they should give out replacements. My battery was able to charge to 100% before the update and now after it only able to go to 95%

This will be my last iPhone. to many issues with updates lately.

iOS 26 was tested extensively for months.

Don't say it wasn't tested just because you don't like the changes.

Also, what was your signal strength where you used your phone? Nothing will kill your battery faster than being in an area with only one or two bars of signal, as the phone has to use full power to periodically check in with the local cell tower and respond to pings.

As I type this I am setting up a replacement iPhone 15 for my daughter. She updated to the new iOS earlier this week and noticed the power drain and heat. She was concerned and asked me about it and I told her it was a normal thing with the iOS updates because they take a few days to re-arrange the files etc. The following day she called and said her phone was very warm and the battery had swollen pushing out the back AND the screen. Of course I told her not to plug it in anymore and we would file a claim through Verizon. Her phone was all original, purchased new through Verizon, and had never been repaired so it had an OG  battery. Maybe it was the combination of the new iOS processes running and a defective battery- we’ll l never know. I do think  needs to consider a way to make the updates less stressful on a phone. She had it less than a year- only 44% paid off.

Ok, I have read all the comments, and I am not alone. I have tried the suggested measures (updating apps, waiting for indexing to complete, restarting, etc. ), but none of these fixes the issue. I can literally take my phone off the charger, it is at 100% leave the house, and it is now on 66%. I don't play on Facebook, TikTok, or any of those. I have nothing showing up in the battery area. beyond emails and messages. I went from a battery that would last all day, maybe 80 to 70 % after a hard use, to one that, on a 20W charger, can barely keep up. charges like 2-5 per hour. This phone only had one thing changed, and that was I updated to IOS 26. Which, incidentally, my watch gets good battery life on the one that continued to function (series 9), the Ultra, it killed the O2 sensor (might have been a coincidence, but it was immediately after upgrading). So instead of attacking the others on here and saying it is their fault alone, it is not. There is a problem, and hopefully Apple will address it sooner rather than later. Unlike the 15 series and the Bluetooth issue, which was never addressed.

I have the following Apple products: iPhone 15 Pro Max (Current), 14 Pro, and 13 Pro Max, Watch Series 9, 2x MacBook Pros, Ultra Watch 1st gen.

My battery health was 100% before updating to ios26. I even checked before installing ios26, while installing i slept and checked it in the morning and It dropped to 90%. Its an iphone 13 with a brand new battery replaced by the apple store. And even weeks after and on 26.0.1 its still draining the battery. I will not use the phone all day and leave it at 100% a couple of hours later it has gone down to 60%. I have turned off background refresh and locations already. What is apples excuse now? Aside from trying to force people to upgrade to the new model?

Hello~ The iPhone 17 Air may drain a bit faster due to its thinner design. Click on below for some tips that may help…

If the battery in your iPhone or iPad drains too quickly - Apple Support

~Katana-San~

Hi! I just wanted to confirm that I’m experiencing exactly the same issue on my iPhone 17 Pro Max (iOS 26.0.1).

My phone is brand new, 100 % battery health, recently returned from Apple Service (no hardware issues found).

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.

I could kick myself for doing the 26.0.1 update! It ruined my iPhone 13 ProMax! So upsetting!!

Drag & Drop doesn’t work on the home screen

Camera doesn’t give the 3 options to reduce-enlarge picture like previous version did.

Battery drains without even using the phone! Used to last all day and well into the evening before the **** 26.0.1 update. Apple said they don’t support going back to previous update and they don’t know how to fix the problems I’m having. What to go Apple!!

I disagree. It’s been 5 days since I did the update to 26.0.1 on my iPhone 13 Max Pro and the battery drains twice as fast now. Also, may features like drag and drop on home page do not work. Regret doing the update! It ruined my perfectly good iPhone.

I have the same experience of an iPad Air M1. The battery used to last a long time, after the update the battery drains 3x faster. I used to charge it once every 4-5 days, now it hardly lasts 1 day. Even in standby it drops 5% in 7h. I already updated all apps, restarted, removed notifications. It is something at the OS level. The iPhone 15 Pro was similar, but I moved to the 17 Pro so that’s now working well, but I don’t want to update my iPad, I would just like to go back to iOS 18.

Please Apple look into this as it’s a bad experience for all your customers.

I’m also experiencing tremendous battery drain with my iPhone 15 Pro Max. Yes, the battery isn’t that fresh (88% 430 cycles), but on iOS 18.x it was pretty okay, dare I say, good.

After updating to 26.0 I immediately noticed significant increase in battery drain and much more overall device heat.

I waited patiently those “2-3 days” for it to optimize itself and finish indexing. I noticed little to none improvement after.

Then I did a hard reset and restored form iCloud. Didn’t help either.

Now I’m on 26.0.1 and I charge my phone twice a day, sometimes 3 times. On iOS 18 it carried through the day with no problem.

My quite new iPad Pro m1 13” is also dying very quickly after the update. It has relatively fresh battery (Apple sent me a new replacement in April).

Feels like iOS 11 all over again, even worse.

Is there a way to rollback to iOS 18?

Me too, iPhone 15 Pro Max here with 99% battery capacity. On iOS 18 I could charge my iphone once per two days. Now I am once per day and sometimes even twice a day.

i rely heavily on my iPhone during holidays (map, photos, mountain trek). Battery life is almost vital for me, I can’t rely on my phone if it doesn’t last a day in the mountains, even more on a 1-week trek, except if I bring with me 3 powerbanks

In battery setting, I lost battery unusually fast, and « Lock screen » is draining at least 5% a day, to almost 10% sometimes