IOS 11.2.5 battery drain

I starting having this problem when I updated from 11.2 to 11.2.5, previously my phone would last all day without any issue. Surely, after an update, the phone should work as before and you shouldn't have to start turning off this and that to get it to function as before (this somewhat defeats the object of having these fancy settings on the phones). I notice you say turning off iCloud drive may help, but what exactly does iCloud drive do (is it just a back up for documents) and by turning it off, will it still sync contact etc? I also notice that below the iCloud drive toggle, it has backups turned on for other apps. By turning off iCloud drive, do these other apps still backup? (these may sound like stupid questions to you, but I am a technophobe and have only learnt stuff on a need to know basis). Thanks

My iPhone6 is driving me crazy. Before 11.2.5 (i had 10.x) i had zero problems with battery run time, which means to charge it every 1-2 days. Now, i have to charge it every ~6-8 hours.

The App lirium Info lite tells me the battery wear Level is at 88% and it is in good condition. When i monitor the CPU load it doesn’t go below ~30%. iCloud Drive is off, Siri off, iMessage off, background update for nearly all apps off. I have done a hard reset with 11.2.5 and made a restore via iTunes (newest x64 version for win10). It didn’t solve the problem. I have updated to 11.2.6. No difference. Followed by a second hard reset and restore via iTunes, but no difference.

I assume the iPhone CPU doesn’t go into “sleep”/standby mode, because the iPhone is warm. I am an IT engineer and to me it seems that quality assurance is really bad this time. From the past I know that updating to a new version results sometimes into a slow warm iPhone because of some background processes executed. But this normally ends after 1-2 days latest. But this time with 11.2.5/.6 it is different.

I am really disappointed and if this won’t change in the next weeks then I won’t buy any new Apple product, after a long and happy journey... and will also not recommend it to others...

I have owned a 3G, 4, 5S, and now a 7.

Everything was great until IOS 11 Vista came out.

It has been such an absolutely godawful experience that I am done with Apple.

I was lucky and got my phone back to 10.3.3 October 2017 when it was offered, but those ******* at Apple snuck the update on my phone a week ago in the middle of the night....like thief they stole my life away from me.

Now my battery drains 20% an hour and I have to charge the phone on average three times a day.

My home button doesn't even work anymore and I called customer service about it....mother F*&^&rs said I have to pay to get it fixed. $319!

I'm done. You guys make Windows Vista and Microsoft circa 2005 seem enjoyable.

I troubleshooted my iPhone 6s EXACTLY the same way with zero positive results. The battery continues to

rapidly drain (even on standby) with updated 11.2.5. Siri off. iMessage off. iCloud off. Background updates off. I did a restore via iTunes twice and a few hard resets. Deleted most of my apps. Tried Airplane Mode. Use Low Power Mode. Location Services off. Replaced the battery. Updated to 11.2.6. Nothing has made a difference. I’ve been troubleshooting this phone for over two weeks. My old iPhone 4 (which I use to play music while working outdoors) has an original battery which will last me all day. My iPhone 6s NEW battery will last 6 hours. I’m waiting for the next iOS 11.3 update to see if this phone is going to get back to normal.

You have mentioned some additional troubleshooting ideas, which i have also tested but forgot to mention. But the result is like yours, so no difference! I expect from a smartphone operating system that it reduces CPU load drastically if I disable all your mentioned settings. Especially if I combine them together! IOS should do more or less nothing in terms of executing processes if I use all the settings in off mode and display is off too. But the real world situation is that it still consumes too much energy and gets warm, not hot but warm. And I can differentiate between cold and warm. Cold is what you feel when you shutdown IOS and wait a couple of minutes.

Hello Wanda, my phone is like yours, draining like crazy. Have you heard that a new IOS is coming out to hopefully solve this massive bug? I feel really bad because I’ve just bought a new iPhone SE for my son, exactly like mine because it was such a great phone. And now this...totally disappointed with Apple, to say the least. I wish I had never updated our phones. They had amazing battery life before!

There is no massive bug. If your battery is draining abnormally there is something wrong with your phone. It has nothing to do with a bug. And the update simply gives you more information about the condition of your battery. It isn't designed to fix anything, because there isn't anything to fix. You should be troubleshooting the problem with your phone, not waiting for some magical solution from Apple. This thread, amidst all of the whining, has some good advice on how to fix the problem with your phone.

My son and I updated on the same iPhone SE we both have, at the same time and, completely overnight, both our phones started draining like crazy. How to you explain this? I had my SE for nearly a year and loved it. Battery used to last absolutely ages. My son only had his phone for a week. We are thinking of returning it!

I would like to add one additional detail I noticed over the weekend in case anyone seems to be noticing this.
I've scheduled a battery replacement of my iPhone for now, but in the meantime, since my battery usage is now down to less than 3 hours on a single charge, out of necessity, I switched over to podcasts for my media intact.

I noticed when I watch videos, or read books on my iPhone (either on iBooks or NOOK or Safari) basically anything that requires my screen to turn on, the battery drains extremely rapidly. Literally 1% every minute, and within 2 hours or so it's dead. However, if I listen to music or Podcasts (even streaming podcasts) the phone would last over 12 hours and still have battery to spare. When I turn on my screen I see the battery percentage drop about 1% every single minute.

So while this doesn't answer anything, it's interesting that my phone can last 12 hours so long as I make sure the screen stays off. It's obvious that the battery will drain faster if the screen is on. But this rate of depletion seems disproportionate to what I've noticed my phone doing over the last 3-4 years.

We'll see if a battery swap, and possible Factory Reset fixes this behavior. Found some pretty awesome Podcasts in the meantime 🙂

So something awful and terrible and frustrating actually resulted in something productive.

Don't worry about Finch, he thinks that because this thread is not that big compared to all the millions of iphones out there in the world "there is no bug" and that we are all paranoied slightly re..tarded who come here just to do some "whining".. You'll learn how to ignore him soon too..

Don't waste your time, I've tried every single advice, trick, shutting down loads of "useful" features resetting etc etc to try helping the battery draining and at first it kind of seem the battery last a bit longer but nothing really works effectively as I need charging my phone 3 to 4 times a day compared to (once a day on ios 11.2.2).

So yeah we are all waiting and hoping that ios 11.3 which should be available this coming spring will help the battery issue but I personally doubt it..

Hello Lawrence. I have been following this thread for almost a month now and have tried (many, many times) every troubleshooting solution presented so far. I have an iPhone 6s and my mother has my old iPhone 6. Both had their batteries replaced and were in excellent condition PRIOR to the 11.2.5 update. The battery drain on BOTH phones is approximately 15% per hour on standby (more if a text is sent or call is made). You have been emphatically insistent on this thread in stating that our phones are the problem, not the IOS. I have to disagree. The IOS update did something to some of these phones making them extremely inefficient and features unusable due to us having to turn them off in order to conserve our batteries. If you know of a new solution, other than the ones you and others have posted, I would love to hear it. If the IOS 11.3 update is NOT, like you said, going to provide a “fix” for this problem, then that’s going to be pretty sad for a lot of people who are counting on Apple for help with this battery drain issue.

First, check the most common apps that cause problems. Facebook is at the top of the list, so delete it. Likewise, other similar apps; snapchat, twitter, linkedin, etc. But check battery life after each deletion. If none of this makes a difference, go to the next step.

Connect the phone to iTunes on your computer. Click on the iPhone icon near the top of the screen. Make an encrypted backup (and don't forget the backup password, or the backup will be worthless). If you want to be extra careful, make an iCloud backup on the phone also. It doesn't need a password other than your iCloud password to restore it. Go to Settings on the phone, tap on your name, then iCloud, then Backup. After the backup completes, turn off Find my iPhone on the same screen (necessary for the next step).

Once you have backups, click Restore iPhone. When prompted after the Restore completes choose to set up as a new phone. Do not restore your backup (either one). Do not enable iCloud. Do not add any email accounts. Do not add any apps. Now use it for a day and check your battery life. Most likely you will find that it is back to normal, indicating that something that was on your phone, an app or app data, was the problem. Next try turning on iCloud in Settings, and check it for another day. If the problem returns you have corrupt data in one of your synced iCloud features. Try turning them all off, then turn them on one at a time to identify the culprit.

If this works and your battery is OK, connect the phone to your computer again, and Restore the backup you made. There's a good chance the problem will not return, but if it does, start over, and this time add apps back manually rather than restoring the backup.

Thanks, Lawrence. I’m trying this once more. I set up as a new phone and didn’t restore anything from iCloud. One question though, do I sign into my iPhone on Settings with my Apple ID? Would this automatically start a restore from iCloud?

Gotta love all the apple responses of check your settings, etc. hey apple, my settings didn’t change. The only thing that changed is the garbage update that’s all of a sudden caused my battery to drain at least 5x faster than ever before. RIP Steve. Look what they did to your company.

mattshu wrote:

RIP Steve. Look what they did to your company.

It's heartbreaking, isn't it? Mr. Jobs would have been so sad to see the company he helped found become one of the richest in the world.