iOS 10.1 Battery drain

And your armchair consulting approach isn't helping as you are not experiencing it. And your analogies with cars are terrible.

~Belisarius~ wrote:

Ok so if replacing the battery works for some, but not others, the phone may be the culprit.

Perhaps... but "The Phone" may be the culprit, is a rather general catchall for an issue.

The point is, nothing that you say can change the facts nor the troubleshooting sequence.

Which facts are your referring to? I am not trying to change facts but to understand the issue at hand and share my experiences.

So what I am getting is that your first solution in the troubleshooting sequence is to pay for a new battery? Is this correct?

If battery repair fails, you get your money back. Or a discounted new Apple iPhone or same gen

If I had taken your advice I would not have a phone that is functioning fully right now.

Since the phone is functioning fully. At least in my case a battery replacement would have possibly left my phone in the same state and I would be back here still looking for answers when the likely answer is somewhat different from your one-size-fits all solution.

Since this began with a sudden shift upon a software update, then it could just as easily be fixed by a software update.

In my case the issue seems to have been fixed by a recovery factory reset.

You solution would just be wasting my money.

Also, not that all older iPhones, 1yr plus, in technical books, the batteries could very well be done. At 600 cycles, they have served admirably. Evry year, the percentile of reliability decreases dramatically.

Except I have 3 or 4 phones from 3GS's and 4s that all still work fine and are used by my kids on a daily basis.

Could a battery be done by a software update?

You seem to be saying show and proselytizing so rather prolifically.

However in my case your advice would have been rather poor and cost me some extra money.

I would like to defer you to the past 9 years worth of iOS battery drain (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) and as well other OS by other manufacturers. Only then you might realize that there is nothing special nor unique about this occurence to you and the very unlucky tiny minority experiencing it.

Yes this crops up over and over again.... nothing new. But software updates seem to take care of some of the issues for some people some of the time. Sometimes it may be an actual battery issue, sometimes it may not.

Yes, once a new iOS gets installed, a bunch of firmware is also installed. It in the rel notes! Most people do not read them anyway. The device goes through a complete, often irreversible programming and tests. And more checks as this unfolds. A tiny minority of devices fail this.

So 10.0 was the firmware update. 10.1.1 was a bug and security OS update and likely was 10.2 and 10.2.1 will be. etc.

It seems Apple decides when people can back out or not. For a time after 10 was released, people who had major issues were allowed to go back to 9... as in previous iOS updates... this is the case.

I suppose your supposition is it is the Battery which fails most often. But I don't know how you would reach this conclusion and rule out other things which may be at play in a complicated system.

So who cares if the iOS is the culprit when the battery ends up failing?

The point is what if the battery is actually not failing and instead for some people it is simply a glitch which will be remedied in a further update. That seems like a fundamental point to understand which up to this point you seem to be willing to offhand in a rather cavalier manner.

If the OS is the culprit, then an OS fix of one sort or another could potentially remedy users problems. This happens over and over and over again. But you seem to only see "Battery"

Could be Battery... or could be something else. Perhaps letting people freely explore their options without having to respond each time with "Its the Battery stupid" might be better in the long run. People will decide for themselves what they want for their situation is all.

why would Apple change their settings for the tens of thousands or so that do not pass? Makes no sense.

They wouldn't.

But that is why there are constant updates to fix bugs and security holes.

Apple doesn't intentionally make peoples phones not work, but in the complex business of software development and hardware development there are often unintended and unforeseen complications as you well know. This happens on both sides of the equation... software and hardware.

The older the phone, the less likely it will fare well major upgrades and the Apps reinstall, indexing which heats up the phone (grab it and you can tell).

I am not sure I agree entirely with you on this. Fare well in what sense. Most of the failures of devices I have encountered happen relatively early on. Of those which survive which most do, they seem to go on and on like tanks.

I have a drawer full of devices of different sorts which have been updated and upgraded and still work just fine.

In my experience, what will go wrong will generally do so closer to the beginning.

What does happen with older devices is that they just are not able to keep up with the hardware cycle and they become obsolete because new paradigms are always arising.

Certainly older phones will not be able to keep up with the amount of code and the new functionality. Hardware is slower and less efficient, but Apple takes care of this by retiring its devices. I view my daughters iPhone 5 as a survivor and a tank. It will just not break or get bad at this point. What it may do is gradually lose its power potency at which point we can get a new battery.

But what happened with the sudden Battery drain and premature shutdowns for us simply was not a Battery issue. It was that something in the OS update 10.1.1 was wonky. Simply updating it to 10.2 did nothing to flush out the problem and in fact made the problem worse until her phone with its old and much smaller battery only allowed for her to use it unplugged 5-10 minutes at a time.

When something changes suddenly, one looks for what changed first and that was the OS. Certainly a battery issue is in the mix as is potentially another hardware issue as you have pointed out, but it seems unwise to just proceed to... it is a battery issue. That could be a great solution that will work for some people, but for other people that is simply not the issue and they will have incurred expense without determining a way to fix what is also not a battery issue. They will still be lost and frustrated without apparent solution. Until Apple figures out a way to push out a fix that is.

Great news.

Update 5:

I carried the iPhone all day around in my pocket. It is still on. Initially I had it on with the screen active which drained the battery from 100% down into the mid-70% range in a couple of hours. Then I just left it in standby for the rest of the day. No spontaneous shutdown.

It now sits at 42%.

Previously when it was upgraded before the factory reset to 10.2 it would shut down in the 60% range.

I am thinking it will just keep lasting perhaps all night.

That would give me a full 24 hours of standby.

Maybe beyond deep into the day.

Seems like my assessment of this being a glitch with the way the OS interacted with my daughters iPhone may be correct. A recovery restore installed 10.2 and wiped out any residual code that could have been potentially conflicting.

So far the phone seems to be maintaining the near the same level of battery life it demonstrated before the 10.1.1 upgrade.😁

Future updates coming.

That's just right! I'm tired of getting ping-pong notifications of the Apple-fanboy-versus-the-world that thinks we're all here to destroy Apple. If we were like that, we would already switched to Android or Windows OS, never setting a foot here again, on these forums.

This space is about experiences and trying to get attention of an issue that's bigger then its advertised.

As I already said, 8 out of 10 of my family and professional network have this issue, one way or the other (shutting down from 10 to 60%, covering iPhones 5 through 6S Plus).

For now I just want to know if iOS 10.2.1 is solving this issue or not? And when it might be out (final version)?

For now I just want to know if iOS 10.2.1 is solving this issue or not? And when it might be out (final version)?

Unfortunately I cannot comment on that. As a Beta tester, it is against the Beta test program policy to comment on active Beta releases.

I do have some level of hope for improvements based simply upon past experiences with a variety of issue that were solved by subsequent releases.

Sorry for not being able to comment further than this at this time.

"However in my case your advice would have been rather poor and cost me some extra money."

Just to make sure, are you Anglophone, read/write? Not using Google translate when reading and replying? Because by resetting or reversing the iOS, you did the very first thing I recommended. And it may have worked.

Another dicothomy, the best one, is spending countless hours staring at your phone(s). Personally I value my time at 300-500$/hour. But let's assume you value yours at... 100 or even 50$. I am not sure my advice would have cost you money, you actions surely do- rawly might we add, valuable holiday time - and money- while providing here entertainment on critical thinking what not to do.

"Its the Battery stupid" Definitely sorry to hear you feel intellectually inferior, or that critical thinking has that effect. However, easy peezy example. Since I never wrote that- nor claimed it, you did a Strawman Fallacy, an error in thinking. you omitted my first step (resets/restore), focused, cheaply, on the money argument and then attacked it. You also attributed language not used in our posts- another Strawman. Would not pass in Critical thinking 101 (usually philosophy classes), legal court, and so on. I understand these technical socratian argument may exceed your formation, but the three step solution I recommended (Reset, Replace Battery, Replace iPhone), is not at all changed.

Narcissism is when someone views the universe through their own, exclusive lense. You just dish unfounded jibrish about Apple, the iOS, ignore mounting evidence from users whom a battery replacement fixed their issue, this is what we would call cognitive dissonance and attribution error. Worse, if you spend too many hours staring at that phone, watch out, it might start boiling...

This forum has been fixing people's various mobile issues for years,and battery, long before you realized that your battery was draining too fast and started blaming Apple. Fix your issues, and enjoy the holiday. Then agaion some like staring at standby phones....

If you have not yet reset, reversed iOS or replaced your battery, call Apple support etc, there is nothing the forum can help you with. All these numbers mean nothing.

Just to share some updates from my troubleshooting

After 1month cycling iOS updates from Apple, I finally did a factory reset yesterday

Phone is at 29hrs standby and 2 hrs usage, 4G, almost no apps

Looks like improved, although it's been 8 hours so far staying below 4% without switching off.

Something is still messed up with battery metering.

I will try to fully discharge and recharge a couple of times and let you know

IPhone 6

Same problem here, I am iPhone 7 plus user with iOS 10.2. Tried to restored, no help.

@achw - am iPhone 7 user had problem with excessive battery drain. Tried everything to fix from my side, like resets, turning off notifications, etc. Made appointment with Genius Bar, they said no problems with battery. However, I said something definitely wrong as I shouldn't lose 15 to 20 % battery while phone switched off overnight. They replaced phone and now works as it should. Today 1hr usage 9 hours standby and currently at 88%. Would get apple to replace phone. If worried about getting replacement rather than new. You can get comfort that the replacement phones are thoroughly tested before giving out and you still have warranty.

So, essentially, a hardware issue... Another interesting thins is that Apple's sales number have increased so much from ten million to 250 million units per year. The number of warranty issues - phones defectives- at 3-4% has also matched that ratio. So far more items with issue due to the much higher volume of sales than 10 years ago.

Sudden power cut off is a good hardware bet. Since every week some owners do experience issues, when they coincide with an iOS release it is very tempting to make that causal correlation.

Hello, Adrian here again.

After over a week on the new battery courtesy of Apple I am sure my issue has been pretty much fixed.

No sudden shutdowns, battery running worse than on IOS 9 but lasting almost a full 12 hour days usage even when playing Pokemon Go.

The question remains: Why did my battery (and all the others here) fail coincidentally after IOS 10 and why is the battery performing worse than on IOS 9?

What remains to be seen is if my battery, which is new, will last a year like the last one, longer or less?

Only time will tell.

If a battery is meant to expire anything between 1 and 2 years on a premium phone costing many of hundreds of pounds, then Apple should make the battery removable and cheaper and/or perhaps give guidance on how long owners can expect their battery to last.

How can, for example, a 6s Plus, which is just over a year old and in some places still being sold as new have only just over a years battery life?

Fair enough on a 5 or a well used 6 but a 6s Plus ??????

Adrian.

I usually buy a new iPhone every two years and battery performance has always been fine to the point of never noticing a difference in such time lapse

Still have my original iPhone (using it, now, as bedside alarm clock. on its charging base) and battery on that one died after 4-5 years (but I wasn't charging/recharging it anymore. believe it even stayed totally discharged for days, which definitely doesn't do the battery any good)

Hello Adrian,

The very well researched Arstechnica article may offer some answers:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/09/good-news-ios-10-runs-pretty-well-on-the-ip hone-5-and-5c/

"The question remains: Why did my battery (and all the others here) fail coincidentally after IOS 10 and why is the battery performing worse than on IOS 9?"

So let's say a company named Abigale has a 3.5% warranty replacement cost, and ships 250 million units years. That is over 8 million units of that yearly batch, or some 168 thousand every week. May seem high but, in contrast to overall volume, low, then let's say that 1 in 5 of those 168k units have battery issues, that is 33 000 units a week, every week. As the Arstechnica article poins out, iPhone 4 users had issues with iOS 7. Some had with iOS 8, 9, and issues for 10 vs 9 are nothing different nor special. However, imagine that over 3 weeks Abigail releases several OS updates, that means that 99 000 units experience normal battery failures coinciding with those incremental OS updates. Nearly 100k users associate the issue with the OS.

Another example was the cell phone and cancer link. Initially thought to cause cancer, subsequent studies found out that the initial research ignored that x% of all humans got cbrain cancer anyway. The cellular effect were correlatory, not causal.

The OS install does several things, stressing both CPU and battery - and why they heat up a bit when installing. The Arstechnica breaks down further processes, explaining how one CPU's advanced technology may be a previous one's undoing- works more. More work = more power.

I know users that had dreadful battery life on their iPhones 5 with iOS 10. As soon as they checked processes and disabled Facebook, battery life went to normal. yet, in iOS 9, the Facebook app was not an issue. And yes, some iPhone users with 800 cycles no doubt saw their phone battery have issues immediately after iOS 10. but those batteries were already hanging by a thread.

How can, for example, a 6s Plus, which is just over a year old and in some places still being sold as new have only just over a years battery life?

Adrian, although Apple Li Ion standard is very high, they are still the most unreliable technology component in any mobile device- or even car. Can fail Day 0 or 180, day 360 or Cycle 998. Toshiba/Samsung/Sandisk SSD's for example, are rated 1/10000 failures. Chips? 1/ 1 000 000s.

Not batteries. For example, my first 2012 MBA arrived, Day 0, with a swollen battery that deformed the unibody. Yet it passed all tests. Apple replaced the computer - and the Geniuses told me what they found inside the unit.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

Battery university was the reading which helped me understand why my 6 month old iPhone 5 battery suddenly died at 95% health- it just happens. Or to avoid discharging below 30-40% (kills Li-Ion battery). They handle well overcharging, but dislike below 30% and above 95%charge conditions.

To ensure that these batteries are also safe, manufacturers built in complex management controllers, recurring self tests, new iOS test etc. One thing an engineer mentioned is that when Li Ion batteries start exhibiting issues, management controllers change operating parameters (e.g. Service sign on Macbooks). Samsung tried, belatedly with the SGN7, it did not work.

All this to say that, if you rely on the analogy above, every week, worldwide, tens of thousands of <1 year Li Ion batteries fail. Far more will fail, weekly, in year 2 and 3. An installation is usually a very intense electrical process, simultaneously charging (heating(), updating, indexing, CPU going and discharging that said battery. Everything firing at once. Just think that some people have hundreds of Apps. I tend to do clean installations so everything on that phone gets stressed.

Anyways, reading the Arstechnica and Battery University is a good start. For a few years now, Arstechnica broke down the installation effects on hardware for several mobile computing technologies.