IPad Air Battery Drain After 9.2.1 Update :(

Thanks 🙂

I've tried most of those, turning on rrduced motion, the hard reset, turning off icloud key chain and other icloud stuff, switching off app refresh etc, and I almost never have anything except email and Safari running - if I ever do, I always close them when I've finished with them, like if I've watched a You Tube vid or something. I haven't got that many apps on here anyway, because it's full of photos and mail. There isn't room to download tons of apps on a titchy 16GB pad (mine was a gift, so I can't complain, but I really really want a 128GB iPad, then space won't continuously be an issue and I might find some interesting apps to use 🙂)

Doesn't clearing cache and history lose me all my pre-entered passwords for different sites?

I've switched off Spotlight Search - what does that do exactly, anyway? It wasn't in my previous IOS. What's it searching for?

I Cloud drive is off, as is Safari under that. All that is saved to the cloud is mail and pictures.

If I reset all settings, doesn't that just undo all the power-saving tweaks I've done?? And all other user-preference tweaks like text size, putting bookmarks in order, and other stuff?

My battery useage still showing that Safari is using 85% plus, and I don't understand why. My useage hasn't changed since upgrading 9.2.1. Being on Safari all the time didn't eat up battery power like it's doing now. I wish I hadn't updated.

I know I'm not the only one experiencing poor or reduced battery performance since this upgrade. Wish I hadn't bothered with it.

Thanks for your suggestions, hope you see this and can advise further.

Angel-153

PS You'd think Apple could have made a forum where the first letter of a new sentence gets auto-capitalised, instead of being lower case, and also one that doesn't stick on caps for the first two letters of a sentence when you're forced to turn caps on! Jeez. My original faith in Apple rapidly diminishing.

PPS The "Follow" link, which I clicked on for this, didn't result in any emails to tell me there was a reply, I had to come back here to look.

Thanks for the explanation re Spotlight Search, and also the forums. That's interesting.

I spent a total of two hours on the phone to Apple support yesterday, and the battery drain since 9.2.1 IS a known issue, and they're going to email me when they have a fix for it. Meantime, I'm calibrating the battery, which apparently you should do after every update. Because the batteries in iPads and iphones are Lithium Polymer not Lithium Ion, it's safe to run them down to beyond the point where the device switches off (still has 2% or so remaining at that point) so that they are as empty as possible before recharging to 100%. I'm in the middle of recharging now (doing this reply on my smartphone, not my pad).

I wasn't having any major performance issues, but I take your point about leaving 3GB spare. Support suggested I delete and reinstate my email accounts, because for some reason I couldn't fathom, my email was hogging 2.2GB. Support said it was probably ghost data. I did what they said, and the space taken by email has magically reduced to 782MB, even after everything had re-downloaded. Very pleased about that.

Hopefully, that might help someone else who's short on space, too.

Thanks again for your help,

Angel153.

@purplesorcerer

Whilst Apple didn't previously recognise that this sudden battery drain apparently commonly happens after any of their updates (I found similar complaints going back to iOS,7) and they assured me that now they knew, they'd be working to fix it, the solution is this:

Run iPad/iPhone down until it switches itself off.

At this point, it has,about 2% battery power left.

Leave overnight, or for as long as possible/you can bear,, then plug it back in and let it fully charge to 100%.without using it.

Then leave it plugged in for another couple of hours, still without using it.

Pain in the bum, but Apple said it restarts the battery cycling. The update/s must cause some sort of glitch that screws this cycling, I guess.

Batteries in iPad/iPhone are NOT lithium ion, they are lithium POLYMER (they emailed me with my Air's specs to prove it). Leaving it plugged in permanently does it no harm at all, despite what you read online. Li-ON batteries can be wrecked by both letting them go down to zero, and also by keeping them at full 100% charge by leaving them plugged in. This does NOT apply to Apple batteries. (Older iPads MAY have li-on batteries, so the helpful man on the phone said, but iPad Air and onwards definitely have lithium polymer batteries. Anyone with a pre-Air model should check their specs. You find your model number under Settings>General>About, then go to the Apple site and find your model's specifications there.

As I said, the process is a lengthy PITA, but it's such a relief to see it holding it's power again, and not draining while it's saying it's charging :-D The relief! :-D :-D :-D :-D

When I suggested this battery-to-zero process to Apple (they wanted me to trek 70 miles round- trip to have it looked at by the techs at an Apple Store), they didn't hold out much hope of it resolving the problem. But it was that conversation that clarified whether running it to zero would kill the battery or not, so I learnt something new there, which is always a good thing :-)

They promised to contact me as soon as they'd got a fix, but they haven't yet. I think I'll get them to call me again while my case notes are still fresh on their system. Hopefully, the solution will then be given out to everyone else who contacts Support with this disconcerting problem! They spent ages getting me to change different settings, settings that hadn't noticeably impacted on my iPad before, and I have to say I kind of resent having to faff around "fixing" things that weren't broken before the 9.2.1 update. The support staff were very friendly, very helpful, and very easy to talk to, but why should we have to essentially reboot the battery after an update? (I'm going to tell them that, too!) And why didn't they know about it? It's on so many forums, and surely I can't be the first person to talk direct to them about it. Also, you'd think that they would likely to be using iPads/iphones themselves, so I would have thought they'd have first hand experience of it.

But then maybe Support's real job is to drive traffic to Apple Stores ;-)

Anyway. I hope this helps you, purplesorcerer, and everyone else with the same issue.

Let me know how it works out for you,

Angel153.

You're very welcome :-)

I just spent ages editing the above post, and then the sodding thing wouldn't update. I hate using this forum - they make everything so difficult!

I'll try copy pasting again -

Nope, stupid thing won't let me paste what I copied. I copied the whole rewritten post, and cancelled the "Save Reply" because it kept coming up with a red banner saying Click Here To Refresh, and It Isn't Possible To Save Your Reply, Please Try Again In A Few Minutes Later. Let's try again.......

Yay! Success! See below.

Let me know how you get on,

Angel153.

@purplesorcerer

Whilst Apple didn't previously recognise that this sudden battery drain apparently commonly happens after any of their updates (I found similar complaints going back to iOS,7) and they assured me that now they knew, they'd be working to fix it, the solution is this:

1. Run iPad/iPhone down until it switches itself off. At this point, it has,about 2% battery power left.

2. Leave unplugged overnight, or for as long as possible/you can bear,, then

3. plug it back in and let it fully charge to 100%.WITHOUT USING IT.

4. Then leave it plugged in for another couple of hours, STILL WITHOUT USING IT..

Pain in the bum, but Apple said it restarts" the battery cycling". The update/s must cause some sort of glitch that screws this cycling, I guess.

Batteries in iPad/iPhone are NOT Lithium ion, they are Lithium POLYMER (they emailed me with my Air's specs to prove it). Leaving it plugged in permanently does it no harm at all, despite what you read online. Li-ON batteries can be wrecked by letting them go down to zero, and/ by keeping them at full 100% charge by leaving them permanently plugged in. (Li-on batteries should ideally be kept at somewhere between 40 and 80%). This does NOT apply to Apple batteries. (Older iPads MAY have Li-on batteries, so the helpful man on the phone said, but iPad Air and onwards definitely have Lithium Polymer batteries. Anyone with a pre-Air model should probably check their specs to be safe.(You find your model number under Settings>General>About, then go to the Apple site and find your model's specifications there.)

Also, I learnt that once an iPad has reached full charge, it draws no more power in, so there's no way it can be destroyed or damaged by overcharging. Leaving your iPad plugged in all the time, if you want to, won't hurt it one bit, because it only draws whatever power it needs, then cuts off automatically. This is worth knowing if you want to buy an external battery pack - it is considered a Very Good Feature if it has what they call an auto-on and auto-off feature - I bought one recently for my phone, and this was seemingly quite a big deal because of the possibility of overcharging the battery. That would only apply to phones/other devices with Li-on batteries, but it definitely does not apply to Lithium-Polymer batteries in iPad Airs, so don't pay extra for an un-needed feature.

So, the battery restart process is a lengthy PITA, but it's such a relief to see it holding it's power again, and not draining while it's saying it's charging :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

When I suggested this battery-to-zero process to Apple (they wanted me to trek 70 miles round- trip to have it looked at by the techs at an Apple Store), they didn't hold out much hope of it resolving the problem. But it was that conversation that clarified whether running it to zero would kill the battery or not, so I learnt something new there, which is always a good thing ;-)

They promised to contact me as soon as they'd got a fix, but they haven't yet. I think I'll get them to call me again while my case notes are still fresh on their system. Hopefully, the solution will then be given out to everyone else who contacts Support with this disconcerting problem! They spent ages getting me to change different settings, settings that hadn't noticeably impacted on my iPad before, and I have to say I kind of resent having to faff around "fixing" things that weren't broken before the 9.2.1 update. The support staff were very friendly, very helpful, and very easy to talk to, but why should we have to essentially reboot the battery after an update? (I'm going to tell them that, too!) And why didn't they know about it? It's on so many forums, and I can't believe I'm the first person to talk direct to them about it. Also, you'd think that they would likely to be using iPads/iphones themselves, so I would have thought they'd have had first hand experience of it.

But then maybe Support's real job is to drive traffic to Apple Stores ;-)

Anyway. I hope this helps you, purplesorcerer, and everyone else with the same issue.

Let me know how it works out for you,

Angel153.

PS

Yes, utterly absurd.

Angel153.

Excellent, Purplesorcer! Really glad it helped. Support tell me that it only takes a momentary drop in internet connection, or server connection, to result in problems with updates, which is why some of us get issues whilst others don't. Simple luck if the draw when it comes to a "good" download.

Also, you're supposed to do the battery reset thing EVERY MONTH, once a month, to help with battery life in normal usage.

Really glad it sorted you out :-)

My girl at Apple has out me forward for "a compliment from Apple", whatever that is, re this battery drain issue. Sadly, my compliment won't be a Mac desktop or laptop. Sigh. Lol!

Best,

Angel153. X

Meremaude, have you not read my posts on this? You need to do a battery reset. Even a tiny glitch in the download process (like a server at one or other end dropping out, or your internet connection briefly dropping) can cause issues with ANY downloads, including updates.

Apple support have been fantastic for me, even if it was me who suggested a battery reset, and not them!

Angel153. :-)

Meremaide, ALWAYS ask to speak to Senior iOS Advisor.

They are SO helpful. Restore was initially suggested to me as a last resort, but like you, I refused. They didn't insist. And it obv WAS caused by the update, because this battery drain issue has happened going back to iOS 7 immediately after an Apple update. It seems to be a common issue. I got them to recognise it by pointing them out to forums where it had been mentioned. Then my Senior iOS Advisor put it down as a Known Issue. Maybe it takes their systems time to update. Or maybe they've concluded the fault isn't caused by the update itself. It can be caused by a "bad" download. See below.

Before you go off yelling at Apple, please understand that a) yelling alienates people, and b) as I have said in another post, it only takes a nano-second's drop in your internet or server connection to cause issues with ANY downloads, not just Apple's. It explains why ONLY SOME OF US experience issues like this post-update, but not everyone. Just SOME of us.

If there truly was an issue with an Apple update itself, ALL users would experience the same problem, wouldn't they?

Best,

Angel153.