iOS 11.4 battery drain

3 weeks ago i was given a replacement iphone6 (to replace another 6 whose battery went fully dead after the 11.4 update) and have had battery issues literally from the first night of receiving this new phone. but for the first time in 3 weeks, that is for the past 36+ hours my phone has finally functioned with super low battery usage, like i was used to getting. over the course of the day i texted, listened to podcasts for over 2 hours, and spent over 1 hour on the phone, with total battery use for the whole day: 10%. if you have a phone that is draining sooo much that you actually can't use it, then try this:

-turn wifi OFF in settings. then go to cellular (in settings), turn cellular ON, then scroll down til you see a list of apps/functions that you can turn cellular on for. turn it on for the apps you intend to use. obviously this will use data so if you have a limited data plan, limit the number of apps you turn cellular on for (and limit your usage accordingly). i have unlimited data, so i turned it on for phone, contacts, text messages, email, find iphone, podcasts, shazzam, waze, and weather. next, hunt through your settings and turn wifi OFF for anything that uses wifi and switch that dependency over to cellular. periodically check and continue to make sure the wifi is turned off - for some reason for me it comes back on on its own at some point in a 24 hour period. but with wifi off and all programs that use wifi switched over to cellular, i finally have a phone that hasnt had to be charged in over 36 hours and still is at 54% battery remaining.

please note: i did not list the usual suspects like background app refresh, email fetch, etc... i already have all those things turned to minimal usage, but made sure to switch any wifi dependencies over to cellular.

also note: this is not a fix, but a temporary solution that will (hopefully) allow you to at least use your phone for bare minimum stuff like texts and calls, possibly even other things... i dont use my phone to play games or surf the net, so i cant say how the battery will behave for those uses. but if you can turn wifi off and minimize it's usage on your phone, im fairly certain you will see a substantial change in battery consumption. try it and see for yourself! it should at least get you by until apple figures out what needs fixing and fixes it.

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.. 😟

arlingtonian138 wrote:

it is weird in that way - my kid and i have both have iphone 6's with 16gigs memory...he gets a full day of use on one charge...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...so some iphones are having issues, while others are not.. 😟

Probably not so weird when you consider our iPhone's can have hardware sourced from different manufactures, even the same model's have chips from different suppliers (Qualcomm, Intel etc). It's only my view but if all the usual fixes fail (ie. Restore as New) this problem is really starting to point to the iOS version itself being the issue, in that some conflict has been setup with certain hardware contained in those devices following the update.

It's not hard to believe really, after all, remember when the first Retina laptops came out, people were actually returning units for replacement in order to get one with a Samsung screen due to the fact LG was considered inferior, it was later resolved but it took Apple some time to get "consistency" back to an acceptable level. Should this have happened, probably not on devices with a premium price but I suppose Apple just can't source from any one manufacture any more. It could be one of the reasons they are turning to in-house chip design/production.

Turning wifi off is a non-starter if you require wifi to assist your cellular reception in a tall office building or other cellular-unfriendly locale.

My 6 has gone down 12% today, but I drove to work with GPS on, sync’d my Garmin, and am typing reply now — this last bit, reading replies and typing mine has cost 3% of the 12.

My 5S has stayed at 100 so far, but I have done nothing to it other than check the lock screen.

The only difference from the epic-meltdown of last night has been that I charged both devices all the way to 100%.

If you are still having trouble after a good stint at 100%, that may be a sign to take drastic action. In my case, I have taken note that the next Note may be coming out soon.

Good info and many thanks. I will go that route.

It might be in Apple’s best interest to change the name of this forum or to better define the purpose to “consumer to consumer” hints or comments.

We are all trying to incite a riot with the hopes that Apple might do something with all good intentions to get our expensive phones fixed when it wasn’t the consumer’s faults. The forum does show that that this is not an individual operator issue.

Thanks for clearing this up.

Just spoke to Apple Support. The ONLY SOLUTION they have at this time is to TURN OFF WI-FI.

I'm not kidding. That's it.

She told me that Apple knows they have a problem caused by all the "new features" that were added with the latest update, but they don't have a solution. She couldn't promise if or when they would a real solution. She said to "check it every once in a while" by turning wi-fi back on occasionally to see if it stops draining the battery.

Brilliant.

If I had to guess I would expect the ”comments” on this discussion haven‘t gone unnoticed by Apple (with or without the aid of a riot!), and the fact that those using the lastest beta are seemingly reporting better battery life goes some way to back that up.

It’s just sometimes, no matter how frustrating or painful the issue is, all that can be done is sit back and wait, I like many others would like Apple to be a little open about things, and I wouldn’t think it would dent there reputation to have an area on the web site that kept users updated on known software issues, a little like that for there various services.

But until that day comes, we have to use what’s available to get info to Apple and then sit back and trust a resolution will be forthcoming no matter how hard that may be with a problem like this that literally staring you in the face every time the device is used.

I wish I had your confidence in Apple. Earlier this year I went through the same thing we're experiencing with an iOS update ruining my batteries. They finally gave up and told me I had "vintage" hardware (myiPhone 5 and iPad 3). They no longer service them and my only solution was to buy newer ones. I got a new iPhone. But this will be my last one.

Fool me once, shame on Apple. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Contacted Apple Support and went to Chat. A notice came up that they would be with me in 2 minutes. After 20 minutes I gave up. Hopefully others are trying to contact them also. I will try again after a while to see if they respond to the case number.

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: 💩

They can will the battle and lose the war.

If this isn't fixed and I am finally tired of having to keep my phone plugged in all the time, they won't get any more of my money. That is all any of us can do.

I have had Android before and there are some Apps that they don't have.

However, I need a mobile phone that is mobile.

PS: My iPhone 6S does have a middle finger emoji. I guess it was meant for this purpose.

I’m facing pathetic issue with battery drain when I updated to ios11.4 . I’m not even able to use my phone for 2-3 hours. Back to iOS 10.3.3 it was working perfectly fine whole with a one time charge . I don’t know what the **** with Apple . Either they don’t test before releasing or what. I want to downgrade my iPhone to iOS 10.3.3 .

Magmason wrote:

I just got off the phone with Apple support... ...and they're not going to release an update until fall...

I wouldn’t think the next release is that far away personally, iOS11.4.1 beta has just been released to developers in fourth addition and to the public in third, so why Support would be forecasting sometime this Fall I’m not sure, may be they are confused and thought you where talking about iOS 12.

https://9to5mac.com/2018/06/18/ios-11-4-1-beta-3/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykarcz/2018/06/25/surprise-monday-release-for -ios-11-4-1-public-beta-4-ios-12-coming-…

Also it’s still being described as “bug fixes” so that could tally with those that have used it and reported better battery performance, but until the actual release we can only hope because I still can’t find any reference to fixing battery issues in the release notes.

I managed to solve the issue on my SE. It was necessary to disable "Calls on other devices" option.

It constantly communicates with other Apple devices on your local network.

That's why some people note that the problem exists only when connected to their home WiFi network.

I had the same issue with my Iphone 6s. I called 1-800-myapple and we did fix it.

You need to back up your phone, either to icloud or your computor. Then you restore the phone. ( as if it was a new phone). What 24 hours. If the battery does not drain like before,(it can be used over this 24 hour period.)

Then you go back into Itunes and hit restore backup. This worked for me.

Hope this helped. But if not sure call the 1- 800 number.

I