iOS 11.4 battery drain

After 2 more days the battery drain remained annoying on my Ipad mini 4 (WIFI). Neither switching off location services nor changing the WIFI network to 2.4GHz helped significantly. The consumption over night stayed at about 50%. I downgraded to 11.3.1. Now my iPad has reasonable consuption manners again :-).

11.4 cut my iPhone SE battery life in half. Happened on 2 different SE’s, but not on iPads. Luckily I was able to downgrade both phones to 11.3.1 just before Apple stopped signing it. Battery life immediately went back to being normal.

This is the worst experience I have ever had with a new version, including IOS 11 beta.

I have the iPhone 6 Plus and immediately after updating to iOS 11.4, the battery started draining at an incredible pace. I've worked with Apple phone support several times this week and completed everything they've instructed me to do.

I just ended another support call with Apple (June 9, 2018 9:08 AM EDT). All they could suggest is replace the battery or buy a new phone. I told her that replacing the battery wouldn't help as the OS update seems to be the problem. She did a diagnostics on my phone and said the battery is in good health!

I have seen many posts about this situation so I know I am not the only user affected.

Replacing the battery is useless. I am a light user, and prior to 11.4, at the end of the day I usually had about 70% battery life left, and I normally charged every 2 days. Immediately after upgrading to 11.4, at the end of the day I had 20%. I tried all the suggestions mentioned here to no avail. My wife's SE showed the same behavior after upgrade

I was lucky and was able to restore back to 11.3.1, Immediately, I returned to the 70% number, and my wife's phone was fixed as well.

We have 2 iPads, neither have this issue with 11.4.

Most phones appear not to have problems with 11.4, but as no one knows the root cause, there is no way to predict if a phone will be impacted, and now, no way to go back to 11.3.1 if it is.

In my opinion, there is no benefit to 11.4 worth the gamble of such a severe battery drain.

It seems wifi related for me. Turning off Wifi Location services seemed to help but I’ll need to test some more. None of my devices drain as fast when away from wifi...so whatever Apple is doing differently in 11.4 involving Wifi...that’s the issue.

"They" are not going to fix it, unless you take some action to get it fixed. It is not a general problem with 11.4, it is a problem with your phone. Either you can go through standard diagnostic steps, or make a genius bar appointment and the technician will do it with you. Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

I have the iphone 6 and also experienced MASSIVE battery drain (after the latest update), The only thing that really seems to help is turning off the wifi, but even then its still not retain the charge like it did pre update. Apple fix this issue please! Are you trying to push people away from the iphone?

I'm not sure how to interpret "5g WiFi" since my understanding is that 5g is celluar data and not WiFi. Regardless, the power drain is definitely related to WiFi and is NOT specific to WiFi band. I turned WiFi off all day yesterday and my phone, after some calls, music playing through bluetooth, and normal app usage was still 79% charged at the end of the day.

Prior to that, I tested both WiFi bands individually here and saw dramatic battery drains on both. This is on an iPhone 6s with a battery that was replaced by Apple in the store about two or three months ago. I have restored the phone and done a Network Reset several times since 11.4 caused this problem.

I also have Google Mail accounts and when my battery was haywire on 11.4 I saw Mail was the highest battery usage offender.

Another user has speculated that when a 5Ghz WIFI connection is lost and then reconnects, the current app could go into some loop, so perhaps that happened with Mail. Or maybe there's a sync problem with Google Mail. I also have two Exchange accounts.

I had tried to restore 11.4 as new but no luck.

I am back on 11.3.1 as I downgraded when still possible.

Of course, that wasn't too detailed now, was it? 🙂

1. Download and install the configuration profile to your phone using the link I provide below (the phone will reboot).

2. Go to "Settings > General > Software Update" as you normally do with regular updates. Latest beta should appear - in this case 11.4.1 b3.

3. Download & Install update

Here are the instructions and configuration profile to download. You need to log in with your Apple ID using the device you intend to update:

https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/redemption#ios

it is weird in that way - my kid and i have both have iphone 6's with 16gigs memory (we both have the 11.4 update installed). his phone is over 3 years old, mine is new (apple just gave it to me a few weeks ago). my kid plays games all day long, is constantly using the phone for one thing or another, and inspite of less than 100% battery health, he gets a full day of use on one charge (and he has been very undisciplined in charging it properly over the life of the phone). my wife has an iphone8 and she too uses her phone often throughout the day yet hasnt had any issues in spite of the update. meanwhile, until i figured out wifi was the culprit, i was barely using the phone at all and losing battery by the minute (literally). so some iphones are having issues, while others are not.. 😟

The support on this forum is in the form of user to user help which obviously can only go so far, if you require direct support from Apple you need to open a Support Case File after which they will contact you and try and resolve. If the issue has been caused by an update even if your device is outside warrantee I've found they usually will take up the issue at no cost to the user.

I've noticed a lot of users have posted in this discussion when they should have really open a case file or even submitted feedback or a bug report. Venting ones frustration in this discussion although on first view might appear productive is after a while self defeating, there is no guarantee Apple are monitoring (although I would like to think they do) and any useful data may simply not get to the right department tasked with resolving.

My Support - Official Apple Support

Product Feedback - Apple

https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/

This is just my view but if all those that had posted on this discussion had instead/also submitted either a Feedback or Bug Report Apple may by now be getting the "message", at least with the latter you get a reference number and if Apple have already been made aware a "Duplicate" confirmation.

I just got off the phone with Apple support. I can't go half a day without charging my iPhone 6, even on low power mode.

Essentially, we are screwed. Apple is not going to allow us to revert to the prior IOS, and they're not going to release an update until fall. I was given a checklist of tasks to perform to preserve battery life, but I had already performed them all, to no avail. The technician explained that "The IOS 11.4 demands a lot more from the iPhone 6 system so the battery will drain far more quickly." He also justified Apple's decision to prevent us from reinstalling the prior IOS thusly: "Apple has created a system where we want our customers moving forward and not going a step back."

Hella thanks, buddy. If there was a middle finger emoji, I would be using it right now to Apple. In the meantime, this will have to do: 💩

Yes I agree, we must all contact Apple support. I provided feedback, someone posted the link in this topic. I also started 2 chats with "Contact Support" so they now know my problem and phone type and it's not fixed by making the usual settings changes and restore phone from iTunes.

I feel your pain. Unfortunately, it is now impossible to switch back to the previous IOS. The way it was explained to me by Apple Support was that "Apple has created a system where we want our customers moving forward and not going a step back." No matter that IOS 11.4 was a huge step backwards for many of us with iPhone 6's that were working perfectly prior to the upgrade. Call support and lodge a complaint. If they hear from enough of us, perhaps they will release a fix sooner than this fall, which is when I was told they would update.