iOS 8.1.3 - Battery draining very quickly

Then that is truly a mystery. It's not App Store updates, and it's not a regular iOS software update. Could be somehow related to Exchange but I doubt that.

I can't help but think that something is going wonky between iOS 8.1.3 and iCloud and software updates - all in the background - that's causing all the battery drainage and overheating (even while battery usage stats show no likely culprits, although mysterious usage occasionally appears in cellular stats).

Firmware?

To the best of my knowledge, firmware is only updated with a 'Restore iPhone...' in iTunes.

Maybe it's the NSA or Homeland Security getting data sent to them by a secret Apple background program!! LOL! Roscoe, I was also seeing the Software Updates with MBs as sizes for some reason as well as Push Notifications in the MBs. I have all push notifications turned off as best as I can tell so not sure where MBs of Push Notification data comes from.

It's interesting. I have an old iPhone 4 at hoe that I am using basically as an iPod. It's running in Airplane mode and I sue it to stream music. I can leave that sitting for days and i lose only 1-5% of my battery in that time. On my iPhone 6, I have one outside app installed and many of the features turned off and the battery usage is still chugging steadily downward.

I saw a report that 8.2 is a possibility for next week (as early as Monday) and 8.3 likely before March 9, the date of the Apple Watch presentation. But everything I read says the updates are mainly for the Watch. Nothing shows any fixes for battery life. And with the way my phone is now, I can only imagine the drain an Apple Watch will have on these phones. Ouch.

OK, here is another report. At 1:00PM the phone was charged to 100% and the settings set as Brian suggested in his earlier post.

2:00PM - was down to 95%

2:45PM - was at 88%

4:00PM - was at 76%

I reset the cellular statistics at 2:00PM and since then Cellular usage is 929KB (almost 1MB). Of that Safari didn't register anything and Settings registered 134KB;

On the other hand, System Services has used 695KB in about 2 hours. Of that, Push Notifications is 400KB, Networking 222KB, iTunes Accounts 67.5KB and Home Screen 4.8KB.

I have no friggin idea what Push Notifications are causing the data amounts to increase the Cellular Data. I have them all turned off. If there is some setting I am missing, I don't know that I am missing it.

but I think I can safely say that it's not a rouge program that is causing this drain. It's something in iOS 8. Not even iOS 8.1.3. Just something in v8. As I said, they replaced my phone at the Genius Bar this week and it came with iOS 8,0.2. I was still having the same drain problem.

I am going to reset my phone again and add all my apps and stuff and enjoy the phone. I found a $15 battery case on Amazon (it even has a lighting plug for charging instead of the normal micro USB charging plug) and will stop fretting about it. Hopefully apple fixes this but I am not counting on it with all their concentration likely centered on the Watch.

If anyone finds anything hidden in the settings that will help with this problem, please let us know.

PS - as I was typing this, the System Settings data usage increased 10KB from 134 to 143KB. Push, iTunes Accounts and Home Screen stayed the same. So whatever the heck "Networking" is under the Cellular Usage System Services screen has gone up.

I am out for now. Thanks for the help everyone.

Well I finally got around to plugging into my imac/itunes, restoring to faculty settings, reinstalling 8.1.3 and then manually adding apps back (didn't restore from backup) and I am currently at 87% since i took it off the charger about 10 hours ago. So far so good.

Push and Networking seems to be your main culprits, but god knows what functions actually fall under that since you have notifications and such all turned off.

It's like something in iOS 8 is constantly and continuously hunting around for some kind of connection. To what, I don't know. And iOS is not finding that connection, so it's draining the battery. Kind of like when you're in a big city and your phone drains faster than while at home because it's always hunting around for those elusive cell signals.

jbal77, great. Hope it sticks for you. My restores to factory have not done me any good. Which leads me to Roscoe's post. I wonder if it's something with T-Mobile and the phone hunting for a T-Mobile signal. I generally get decent coverage here in the Orlando area. Very similar to the coverage my friend gets on AT&T. But just curious since Networking is a seeming culprit if it's something with T-Mobile's carrier settings.I think you would have to be an engineer to know for sure.

As I said above, I am restoring now, and it's a, add back my apps and not worry about it. I will have my battery case and I also have a spare block battery.Between the two, I should be able to get enough life until Apple (or T-Mobile) gets this fixed.

Hey there!!

In december 2014 i bought an 5s gold version from a pawn shop (second hand). It was restored as new and i started using it as soon as i bought it (4g, calls, texts and stuff). The battery was 37% (around 2pm) when i bought it. i used it intesively until i got home (around 8pm) and the battery was 20%. I was friking happy about it untill i did a restore myself. Restore as new phone start downloading apps, system update to 8.1.2 etc. etc. etc.

Few days were awesome unplung it at 7 AM and until 11pm still got 40% with medium use (whatsup, viber, facebook, texts and stuff via wifi).

Then the problem started. Long story short.. same ***** problem you guys have to. So i tried everything...(restore as new, restore from backup, using it without apps just native ones, app refresh off, loc services off, etc etc etc EVERYTHING)

It takes me 4-5 hours to completely shut down without use. If i let it 100% at 12AM at 7 AM when i go to work the phone is dead.

I have an app that shows processes and apps running and without any app running (double tapping the home button swipe off all of them) the app says 130 processes, 50% RAM used and 3 apps running CAMERA, MAIL, APPSTORE. The mail app i can remove it by clicking it then swipe it off the screen but those 2 CAMERA and APPSTORE still remains there...dont know why..(i want to mention that i use a @icloud.com as a e-mail and icloud account, no exchange no google or yahoo stuff)

Someone told me to buy a new charger (im using an iph 5 genuine one), some say is the carrier (i have only 2 maybe 3 signal bars), some say is the battery...

I really don`t know what to do... I have an IMEI waranty but im not sure if apple covers it (second hand phone, i can prove that).

Any suggestions??

Thanks in advance, sorry for my english, is not my native language 🙂 @have a nice day!

I'm in the same spot as you.
Even restored as new, (without log in any account, without any app, practically all functions turned off - and in airplane mode!!!) the battery drains around 12% per hour in standby.
I've do this at 8.1.3 - 8.2beta5 and even in 8.3beta2

A number of us have had our phones replaced with no change in the battery drain. Just this morning my battery is down to 86% from 100% at 7:30AM EST. It's got to be something deep in the OS that is causing this problem, not the devices itself. I installed an app called System Status, and it shows processes and CPU and disk usage. I don't understand half of it, but the Overview page show that since I rebooted about 30 minutes ago, the phone has received 353KB of data and send 110 of data. I have not done anything with the phone other than to look at that program. Also, in the Overview screen, the CPU usage sill be at 4.5% for a few seconds and then jump to 23% and higher with nothing open, again other than System Status.

I don't understand the Processes page although it shows Mobile User Processes at 82, Root User Processes at 30, Wireless at 3, and a bunch of others; As I said I have no idea what any of this means or indicates other than something in the OS is pounding the battery. And I am sure this is for cell phones only, as my iPad on 8.1.3 gets great battery life.

I have lost 3% of battery since i started typing this message. And the phone has received 387KM and sent 117KB since I rebooted.

I would be shocked if any of the upcoming iOS updates fixes this.

BTW, I am on T-Mobile. No idea if this is carrier specific or not.

jbal, has your restore continued to work for you? Just curious as mine seems to be getting worse.

Thanks.

I have charged my iphone 5S for 4 times a day after installing ios 8.1.3!!!! I usually get back with just 1 charge daily before updating.....Anyone can help on how to revert back to ios 8.1.2?

I cannot afford to have my iphone battery fully drained and uncontactable....

Sometimes it pays to read the other messages in a thread before posting. That would have enlightened you as to what others have done, and also alerted you to the fact that you can no longer go back, and that going back did not fix it for people who did. Neither did going forward. The problem is no tthe specific version, but is an artifact of the process of updating. All of this is already covered several times over in what has already been posted.

Lawrence, I'm not sure where you arrived at the conclusion that the update process is the problem and not the iOS itself. I would think that if it was the updating process that the people who restored and set the phone up as brand new without using a backup would have eliminated the battery drain issue. I know I did this a couple of times and once without installing any apps other than those that install with iOS 8.

Something in iOS 8 is not playing nice with the cellular portion (for lack of a better term) of the phone. Something related to the cellular portion of the iOS is draining the phone. My iPad Air 2 (WiFi only) is running 8.1.3 and does not have this problem. If I don't touch it for a day or tow, the battery will only drop a few % points. My iPad will last a couple of days, at least, with minimal use.