My 1 year old (97% health) 16pro has become virtually unusable after installing ios26. I had great battery life before it, have not changed my habits and simply browse social media.
I’ve currently used 137% of my battery and have only had 4.5h screen time! That’s just over 3h for 100%.
I’ve reduced transparency and done every trick in the book.
how do I fix this?
iPhone 16 Pro
The phone always works extra hard after an update. It is normal to experience reduced performance and shorter battery life for the first while after an update, until everything has settled down. Especially an update from iOS 18 to iOS 26, "since pretty much everything" is replaced.
Your iPhone will definitely perform fine again. Especially when you say that the battery capacity is 97% - then the battery is in top shape.
Reducing the transparency is probably more visual than it actually has any effect on battery life, but it probably means a little. What you can try is to restart your iPhone a little more often at first.
But the best way to fix it, but which also takes some time, is a factory restore of the entire phone, preferably done from a computer, and set it up again without using a backup, as everything that was taking up space from before will just be taken over. A clean install simply.
I always do a clean install when we go from a major iOS version to a new one, for example from iOS 18 to iOS 26. I almost never experience any problems with my iPhone, either in the software or the hardware.
The phone always works extra hard after an update. It is normal to experience reduced performance and shorter battery life for the first while after an update, until everything has settled down. Especially an update from iOS 18 to iOS 26, "since pretty much everything" is replaced.
Your iPhone will definitely perform fine again. Especially when you say that the battery capacity is 97% - then the battery is in top shape.
Reducing the transparency is probably more visual than it actually has any effect on battery life, but it probably means a little. What you can try is to restart your iPhone a little more often at first.
But the best way to fix it, but which also takes some time, is a factory restore of the entire phone, preferably done from a computer, and set it up again without using a backup, as everything that was taking up space from before will just be taken over. A clean install simply.
I always do a clean install when we go from a major iOS version to a new one, for example from iOS 18 to iOS 26. I almost never experience any problems with my iPhone, either in the software or the hardware.
Last resort is backing up data, erasing, and then restoring. If you’ve tried resetting all settings, the backup restore process is next.
I note you’re not charging to 100%. I’d recommend charging to 100% for the first 7 to 10 days while the background activities are running. After that you can go back to your preferred charging process.
What apps are using your daily battery capacity the most?
In the last 4 weeks Instagram has had 13 updates. The most recent was just 2 days ago. All of the updates are for optimization and performance stability. Unfortunately, TikTok is not much better. You’re not the only user experiencing this either.
If you want to reinstall the iOS that’s fine too. It just depends on your time and patience and access to MacBook etc. One is obviously faster than the other. Either way, you’re looking at time to re-index, sync data between devices and iCloud. This generally takes 5 to 10 days depending on internet speeds, daily usage etc.
Remember, there’s an update around the corner too. If you believe it is an iOS issue, maybe wait a few days and see what happens. What are your thoughts?
By backup restore do you simply mean factory reset after a backup or using my macbook to reinstall ios?
I just use reddit/tiktok/instagram as I did for the 10 months prior to having ios26 on my device.
Thanks for replying :)
factory reset will be my last resort but it’s looking like I will have to do one as I’ve had ios26 since launch… so it’s been over a month now.
My 16pro barely lasts 3 hours after ios26 update.
