iOS 11.4 battery drain

Even airplane mode didn’t help my 6s. This was my wife’s iPhone and she wasn’t happy at all when I started to try to figure it out. Bought her an iPhone X last week because she was past due for a new phone and I was happy to repurpose the 6s to music alarm clock duty replacing a 5s in that position. That made it easy to sit it on the shelf all day and see what happens with various settings. I restored the 6s to new phone status with iTunes on the PC and deleted every app I could that wasn’t being used. No improvement until installing the iOS 11.4.1 Now two days working fine, showing 97% battery remaining today after a full day on the shelf with airplane mode off and on 5G WiFi. I say my wife was past due for a new phone because the 6s was mine prior to my 7+, but my original 6s was replaced under warranty by Verizon when it stopped connecting to cell service, followed by Apple replacing that one a few months ago when the battery was swollen and couldn’t be replaced. 3rd 6s in other words and it’s only a few months old now, although it shows up in the Apple Store files as being purchased in 2015.

Reminder: the "battery health" feature is still marked beta. I've had a utility called "coconutBattery" for some time which reports on the health of the batteries of MacBooks as well as any iOS device that's plugged in. Right now it reports a health of 85.7% while iOS says 87% on my 7 Plus. No, not a big difference, but there are clearly different ways to report/calculate the value. Also works out to be 0.5% health lost per month since I got the phone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It seems many have seen the issue get better with 11.4.1, so anyone who just found this thread who has the problem, update to 11.4.1 and report back. Just remember that iOS frequently uses more battery for a short time after an update for re-indexing and other black magic. (I know that the original problem with 11.4 is MUCH beyond that.)

Gogogagetipod did you update the 6s to 11.4.1 over WiFi or plugged into a computer with iTunes? 11.4.1 seems to be hit or miss with people fixing the battery drain problem and I wonder if that’s the cause. I updated my 6s to 11.4.1 through iTunes plugged into a PC and it’s working fine now. My 6s has stayed 96%-100% sitting on a shelf all day, 3 days in a row now, with WiFi 5G on and airplane mode off, using it plugged in all night with a music alarm on. Previous update to 11.4 under same conditions killed the battery 100% to red in 1/2 day.

As I posted earlier, I was having the same rapid battery drain on a 6s with iOS 11.4, but updating with iTunes on my PC to 11.4.1 fixed it completely. Through the ordeal I restored my 6s to new iPhone status a couple times. Currently running as a new iPhone restoration with any apps installed new, not from backup. I suggest anyone still dealing with rapid battery drain try doing that. Maybe there’s something in your old 6s backup that 11.4.1 doesn’t like. There has to be some reason 11.4.1 fixes it for some and not others. Apple Support are you paying any attention to this lengthy forum thread?

Here is a update to share with you. I currently have 2 open engineering support cases. One is a battery concern, and the the other is a outlook calendar issue. Both of these concerns started last fall with the update of 11.0 (My 5s was updated around end Sept- Oct 2017).

It has taken months, months, and multiple visits to the apple store to finally have someone escalate my cases. As of today with update 11.4.1, I received a call from engineering that the outlook concern (Exchange server email & calander) was corrected. They indicated that numerous cases were submitted but none with the 5s. It seems that regardless of the phone , IOS 11.0 OS had numerous bugs. I asked about the battery and was given some relief that with update to 12.0 this fall, the battery & performance concerns should be corrected. If my 5s was unplugged overnight prior to 11.0 battery was around 90-85% after 6-8 hours. Now I will be lucky to see it above 40% and have had numerous shutdowns. I feel your concern but my suggestion is shut everything down (location services, wifi suggestion, ect) and use battery saver mode. I was offered BETA 12, but in the mean time I have my phone stable. I know that 3-6 hours is max usage with applications running. My suggestion, manage your battery life, social media, email, face time, ect to maximize phone performance. I was given no promises but Apple knows all of the issues with the update and was assured it is fixing it.

Hi,

I opened a chat and requested an analysis after my 6S lost 45% on my way to work - not using any functionality. They found that my battery does‘t meet the „high performance“ requirements introduced with 11.4

They will replace the battery which is compatible. Just to mention the battery was replaced just a year before with a replacement program.

It‘s free - so I give it a try.

PS: a simple notification before the update that clearly says the battery isn‘t compatible would be better. Why should I agree on an update which makes my phone useless?

You should try to turn the WiFi off (via the Settings app). It worked for me on iOS 11.4 : 10% battery lost per hour with WiFi on vs 1% with WiFi turned off.

I updated my iPhone 6s to iOS 11.4.1 beta and the battery high consumption issue was fixed. Overnight it spent only 3% after installing 11.4.1. Before it was using 70% of battery charge overnight.

Here you go:

PSA: If you’re experiencing excessive battery drain on iOS 11.4, it’s not just you

https://9to5mac.com/2018/07/08/ios-11-4-battery-drain-iphone/

Had the battery drain issue with my iPhone SE, but I later realised that the location services and background refresh were the main reason for this whole problem. Try switching location services to be used only when the app is used and switch off background app refresh for the apps which you don't need all the time.

Hi Pavel, you can downgrade to 11.3.1 by downloading the IPSW file for your model (searching on osxdaily dot com for IPSW 11.3.1 will give you the links to the respective file on Apple.com.)

Connect your phone to iTunes after the file has downloaded.

Select the iPhone icon in iTunes.

Select update phone whilst at the same time holding the option/alt key. This will open a window where you can navigate to your downloaded IPSW. Select open and follow the steps on screen. let the process finish without disconnecting your phone.

After reboot your iPhone will be restored to 11.3.1

Replacing the battery doesn’t solve this issue!

I’ll repeat: Replacing the battery wont solve the drainage problem. Read the replies, there have been already a few people who tried to fix by replacing the battery. This is a software issue. Save your money and wait for the update. Or if you have the 11.3.1 file, you can downgrade.

I have an iPhone X, after installing iOS 11.4 my battery starting draining 2 to 3 times faster than before. I tried everything possible for a week to fix this. Nothing worked.

So I had an appointment at Genius Bar yesterday. Some of the Apple store employees themselves experienced the same issue on their iPhone X. They had no solution whatsoever. They replaced my iPhone X hoping that after restoring my stuff the battery issue would be solved. But we agreed that it wouldn't necessarily work.

Turns out, it did work! My new iPhone X's running iOS 11.4 and the battery works as perfectly well.

So if you're phone is still under warranty, just have it replaced.

In my case, turning off "Cell data" before going to bed solved the problem of battery draining that only occurred while I slept. I think this is a bug that seems very reproducible affecting mostly iPhone 6S/6S plus users. Hope this can solve your problem too while we wait for Apple to find a permeant fix.

With all due respect Lawrence, it is clearly a problem with IOS 11.4. It just doesn't impact all devices. On my SE, I went from being at 70% battery left at the end of the day to having 20% left. My wife's SE was impacted as well. I was able to downgrade to 11.3.1, and the problem immediately went away. My battery health was 100%.

As of now, the root cause is unknown. If you are on 11.3.1, I'd strongly recommend staying put until Apple releases a fix. This was a huge hit on battery life and there was no feature in 11.4 worth the risk.

I absolutely agree that folks with this problem need to escalate to Apple officially, but don't expect that a battery replacement will help.