iPhone 6 battery life. Why is my phone dying at 20%?

Ok, thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it this week. Usually, I could always count on using the 6 all the way to 1-3%. I don't usually charge it just to top it off. I only like to charge it when it's really low and when I know it'll get to 100% before unplugging it.

radiolarian wrote:

Ok, thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it this week. Usually, I could always count on using the 6 all the way to 1-3%. I don't usually charge it just to top it off. I only like to charge it when it's really low and when I know it'll get to 100% before unplugging it.

There's no need to do that, and it may shorten your battery's life. It's harmful to Lithium chemistry batteries to be allowed to discharge completely. Fortunately, the iPhone won't let it go to a flat condition - "zero" is not really completely discharged. To completely discharge it you must let it go to zero, then leave it unused for about a month. That will completely kill the battery permanently.

Best practice is to charge it overnight, every night. Regardless of what the state of charge is. And don't worry about overcharging; it's also impossible to do that, as the phone's built-in charger will discontinue charging when the battery reaches full charge.

Guess I started this practice years ago with all my c-phones dating back to the early 90s. I remember reading how rechargeable batteries can only be charged a finite number of times before they start to lose run time. And since this was the case, I figured the fewer number of times I charged it, the longer it will last. Back then, the batteries were stuff like nickel metal hydride, nickel cadmium, and others.

I charged my iPhone 4 and 4S like this. and when I gave it to my cousin the 4S almost 3 years later, the battery still maintained a pretty good charge.

Um, this is not correct. Not even remotely correct. There is zero guidance from Apple not to let your battery get to 20%, not that at 20% it does;t have enough power ti support what you're doing. This is simply, completely incorrect.

Not sure if you ever got to the solution of this problem, but I havce been experiencing it recently...phone just dies with 20-40% battery life yet and every time it has done so I've been listening to Podcasts, normally ones I've downloaded to my phone, not streamed. Have the iPhone 6, and current iOS version 9.2.1. Should I try and re-install the software? There have been many times where I have fully drained the battery or it has got down to single digits...any help would be appreciated!!

See my post on recalibrating the battery gauge, above.

I'm getting the same issue, it always seems to be when I have music running and try to use another app, always around 40/50% battery life. Without music running battery just runs down as normal. Would seem like maybe a bug rather than a phone issue??!

ChrisJ4203 wrote:

You should never let your battery get that low to where it is shutting off like that. That is the worse thing for those types of batteries. Charge the device before it gets that low, you will ruin the batter prematurely. Battery level that low will not support operation of the device, and it is protecting itself by shutting down. You certainly do not want the battery to get down to 0%, or you may not recover if you do it that often.

DId you even read what he wrote? Unbelievable. He said it dies at 20%. It's a terrible problem lots of people have. Try reading the post before you get on your high horse.

TRICKorDEVICE wrote:

DId you even read what he wrote? Unbelievable. He said it dies at 20%. It's a terrible problem lots of people have. Try reading the post before you get on your high horse.

Did you even look at the date of the post you responded to? Unbelievable.

TRICKorDEVICE wrote:

ChrisJ4203 wrote:

You should never let your battery get that low to where it is shutting off like that. That is the worse thing for those types of batteries. Charge the device before it gets that low, you will ruin the batter prematurely. Battery level that low will not support operation of the device, and it is protecting itself by shutting down. You certainly do not want the battery to get down to 0%, or you may not recover if you do it that often.

DId you even read what he wrote? Unbelievable. He said it dies at 20%. It's a terrible problem lots of people have. Try reading the post before you get on your high horse.

Thanks for noticing something I posted a year ago. I appreciate you reviewing my old posts. Maybe you should read what everyone wrote.

Thars cool, you made a simple mistake. I shouldn't have been so harsh, but im having the same issue and it appeared you were blaming the user for a known hardware/software issue. While it's an old post, unfortunately the problem is still very current. No harm no foul. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

TRICKorDEVICE wrote:

DId you even read what he wrote? Unbelievable. He said it dies at 20%. It's a terrible problem lots of people have. Try reading the post before you get on your high horse.

Did you even look at the date of the post you responded to? Unbelievable.

The date is irrelevant. Thanks for following up for him though.

I did not make an error. The information I provided was current at the time. Also, if you are experiencing an issue, then I suggest you read the entire thread, as it provides manners to address your issue. If that does not, then the update is supposed to address it. The fact is, the battery percentage issue was identified later than that thread, but the iOS 9.3 is supposed to address that issue.

radiolarian wrote:

Guess I started this practice years ago with all my c-phones dating back to the early 90s. I remember reading how rechargeable batteries can only be charged a finite number of times before they start to lose run time. And since this was the case, I figured the fewer number of times I charged it, the longer it will last. Back then, the batteries were stuff like nickel metal hydride, nickel cadmium, and others.

I charged my iPhone 4 and 4S like this. and when I gave it to my cousin the 4S almost 3 years later, the battery still maintained a pretty good charge.

NiCd batteries needed to be discharged completely before recharging. They would develop memories and if you charged to top off then they would only last as long as the charge you gave it.

NiMH batteries were better as they didn't have a memory problem but they didn't last very long as they tended to overheat with charging.

Lithium Ion batteries do not have memories and can be charged as much as you want. They also will last many cycles before giving up.

I guess we can agree to disagree on whether you made an error. I did read the entire thread, and many more like it, and support articles from Apple (KB's), and threads on other forums, and articles by tons of sites, I've spoke to Apple support via Twitter, had an in-store Genius appointment, and spoke to them via telephone support. I now have a second Genius bar appointment because the issue persists.

Let's just move on. Life's short, enjoy your day and I wish you nothing but the best going forward.