Why "Home & Lock Screen" consume more than 20% battery life in iOS 8.3?

Those are good practical tips, Styna. Thanks.

Thanks for the info, davehart. It seems like the phone is running smoother since I tried out your suggestions. Thanks again!

If you just bought the phone you have 90 days of Applecare so call them. In the mean time see if you can purchase an Applecare plan. Worth every penny!

There is 100% something wrong with 8.3 especially it seems on 5S handsets. I have done every tip trick and restore/ set up as new phone going. I've even gone so far as to set up a completely new apple account and iCloud account to rule this out. I have also been to the Mac store in london that ran all the hardware and battery tests on my 5S and confirmed that hardware was fine. interesting that your replacement handset was better however which makes me think either there are certain hardware configurations of iPhone that are worse coded for in 8.3 or there are more defective 5s batteries out there than Apple want to admit. Either way the consumer is being screwed here!!!! A smartphone where you have to switch off half the features just to get half a days use out of it isn't a smart investment!!!

I recently had a similar problem. Go to Settings -> General -> Usage -> Battery Usage, wait a bit and see what programs show up. The Music app (naturally) was in first place but was actually tied with a calculator app which was in the background and should have been suspended. After speaking to the developer I noticed that the calculator app had also installed a widget. I disabled the widget (which shouldn't have been drawing any power) and the calculator app battery usage dropped to virtually nothing. So try looking for non-running apps that are drawing power and see if they have an associate widget, if they do, disable it. It worked for me.

Update from me, spoke to Apple a few times and went in to see genius again. Still no sign of a cure in sight as both hardware and software checked out ok. As I needed a working phone for work I ended up paying for a replacement handset. You know what, I'm now getting amazing battery life out of 8.3, so it must have been something wrong with the handset. my only conclusion is there there are some batches of handsets out there that don't play nice With 8.3 but apple don't want to admit this or pay for replacements. Shame really a they have plenty of cash (£200 more since yesterday )…

I have this problem too.

I have a brand new iPhone 5s, it came with iOS 8.3 on it.

What I have noticed is that my home screen is using up most of my battery and I haven't used my phone at all much yet.

I went over with a Apple specialist from the Apple Support yesterday and he noticed that its not coming from any apps since I have them all turned off. My battery usage info says home screen and settings. I do check my settings from time to time but that shouldn't be using up so much of my battery would it?

So when I open my iPhone, slide the standby lock off and turn off airplane mode, I use 4 percent of my battery just doing that each time I do it.

Can something be done to minimize this kind of battery drain?

Thanks, Martha

One of the greatest drains on the battery is illuminating the screen. If you have the brightness turned up all the way the battery will indeed drain faster.

You might also have apps working in the background. Check Settings for this.

Settings > General > Background App Refresh > Turn this off for any and all apps that you really don'e need running in the background.

GGive this a try not sure if it helps because I know i don't have a problem with battery drain. take the clock app and move it into a folder. It's animated so it uses some battery but if it's in a folder it will only run animation if you open the folder. Good luck.

rojas01420 wrote:

GGive this a try not sure if it helps because I know i don't have a problem with battery drain. take the clock app and move it into a folder. It's animated so it uses some battery but if it's in a folder it will only run animation if you open the folder. Good luck.

Ok, I've done that long with many other apps. Thanks!

The only apps I have out of folders are: Messages, photos, camera, weather, maps, notes, app store, messenger (for Facebook), settings, FaceTime (which I don't use), calculator, reminders, find my phone, contacts, phone, mail and Safari app. Should I place any of those in folders too? 🙂

There appears to be a misunderstanding of the measurements shown on the Battery Usage screen. If you are not using your phone for anything else, then the display and actions of the Home and Lock Screen are going to be pretty much the only things that are using your battery at all. It's a relative measurement. If you look at the entire list and add up the percentages, you will see that they add up to 100%. That's 100% of the Usage not 100% of the battery....

Think of it this way - You have an 16oz. glass of water. You take a gulp of it, consuming 2 ounces. Then you use an eyedropper to remove an additional 1/2 ounce of water. So, you have now "used" 2.5 ounces of the water. Of that 2.5 ounces, you used 80%, and the eyedropper used 20%, but you still have 13.5 ounces left in the glass.

In relation to the 16 ounces of liquid that you started with, it has been reduced by 15.625%, so 84.325% of the total original amount still remains.

Unless your battery is draining at an unacceptable speed, the measurements you are seeing based on your activity are as they should be. My iPhone typically shows around 28% for my Home and Lock screen, followed by Weather app Background Activity (27%), Mail (15%), and Settings (13%). That's because I use my phone to turn it off and on (using my Touch ID to open it), and check the weather (Home & Lock Screen), have Background App Refresh turned on for Weather (which is updated frequently), receive mail whenever it comes in, and occasionally read it from my phone (Mail), and go into Settings all the time while doing support work on this site (Settings).

If you start using your phone to take photos, make calls, surf the internet, you will see that those activities move to the top of the "Usage" list.

Hope that clears up the mystery.

Cheers,

GB

Yes, GB, I did understand that. What I didn't understand is seeing my battery drop 3 to 4 percent every time I unlock the screen and put the airplane mode on or off. That was what didn't seem normal to me.

And thanks for your reply!

So you are saying that when you unlock your phone and turn Airplane Mode off or on, your battery percentage at the top of the Home screen goes from 100% to 96% just by doing those activities?

The confusion arose when you said: My battery usage info says home screen and settings. I do check my settings from time to time but that shouldn't be using up so much of my battery would it?

That implied to me that you were referring to the Battery Usage information.

So, not sure which one you are referring to now? The Battery percentage at the top of the Home screen, or the Battery Usage info?

Cheers,

GB

I was referring to both. The Apple support man had me look at the usage and I understand that most people's highest percentages are the home screen or settings which mine were also.

But what really bothered me was the battery percentage going down so much (at the top of the screen next to the battery) when I would use my home screen to lock and unlock and put the airplane mode on and off at the same time. Yes it can drop up to 4 percentage just using that.

Thanks, Gail from Maine.

Martha

Yeah - then that is a problem. I've had my iPhone 5s with me the entire time we have been posting at 100% while opening it multiple times with Touch ID, going into Settings multiple times, and going in and out of Airplane mode multiple times and it still is at 100%.

Do you notice whether when you come out of Airplane mode if your Cellular service comes back quickly and your Wifi connects quickly? Those are pretty much the only two things that go out searching as soon as you turn off Airplane mode (unless you also have Bluetooth on, in which case that does as well).

In your Settings>Privacy>Location Services, turn off Location Services for any apps that you don't need them on. I have them turned off for everything except for a very few. And of those few where Location Services is turned on, I have as many as possible set to "While Using" only.

Also, be sure that you have Background App Refresh turned off, and unless you need them, Automatic Downloads turned off as well.

Give those a try and see if that helps at all.

I'm guessing the Apple tech had you also try:

Resetting your device (nothing will be lost): Hold down the Home and Power buttons at the same time and continue to hold them down until the Apple appears (up to 30 seconds). The Slide to Unlock screen will display as soon as the reset is complete.

Did the tech also have you back up your device to iCloud or iTunes and then reset it to Factory settings, set it up as a new phone (not from the backup), and then see if the battery issue remains or goes away? If it goes away while you are running at a bare bones level, then you would want to slowly rebuild your device manually rather than restoring it from the backup. If it doesn't go away, then you can reset to Factory again and set it up from the backup at that point.

Cheers,

GB