iPhone SE battery draining fast with iOS12

stanoman28,

Usually it is a rogue app that mis-behaves with the new version. Do this to identify the app/apps:

See the section "View battery usage information" in the link below to see the apps that are consuming your battery:

Maximizing Battery Life and Lifespan

So over the past week I noticed a huge uptick in the amount of battery power that my iPhone 6s (iOS 12.0.1, new battery installed in December, Battery Health 97%) was using. Like I would lose 10-15% alone just driving my 10 minute commute to work (not even using the phone at all), and sitting around the house doing nothing again would just eat up all the battery in an evening. Tried rebooting with no fix.

Based on the battery usage reports, it looked like News was one of the biggest offenders, and it also listed Background Activity. So I went on a bit of a background activity rampage and turned it off for almost every app except the ones I really thought I would need, like Mail and mapping apps. I know I technically should have tried just the top one (News), but I'm going to be traveling next week and I needed to just figure this out quick.

Attaching 2 screenshots to illustrate. Note that News on the screenshot doesn't show Background Activity because I had turned it off before taking the screenshot, but you can see how on Wednesday things just shot up in terms of consumption.

Why don't we accept it? Because there are millions of every iPhone model in use, and if iOS broke any model there would be thousands of posts about it, and it would be in every trade paper and website in the world. For example, a real battery problem 6 years ago:

That's almost 13 THOUSAND posts and 2.5 MILLION views. And this problem affected only 5% of the 100 million iPhone 4S models in use at the time. So 5 million phones affected and 13,000 posts. And half of the affected users at least viewed the thread. Similar to the number of SEs in use. Do you see 13,000 posts about it?

It's easily explainable. Your battery is failing. All of the symptoms can be explained by that. Make a genius bar appointment and get the battery replaced. Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

I think you are being a little obtuse, probably intentionally. If there is a problem with only a few phones the problem is in the specific phone, not the version of iOS on the phone.

Regarding my 4S thread, the problem was fixed 2 weeks after it was reported.

There is something wrong with your phone, probably caused by the update process rather than what you updated to. Sometimes apps don't take the update process well. Basic troubleshooting for this type of problem:

If none of these fix it (particularly the last one) your phone has a hardware problem.

BTW, every version of iOS released (about 4 dozen) in the past 11 years has generated threads from people who are convinced that the latest OS version (whatever it was) caused all of their problems, whatever they were. And only 2 actually were related to the update.

I totally agree. I have had iPhones since they first came out. Unless they can fix this issue, this one will be my last iPhone.There is no reason anyone should have to turn off any app that came with the phone to preserve battery life. I am getting about 3 hours of battery life with low power mode turned on. I talk on the phone for 10 min a day.

Do you have iCloud on, and have selected items to sync to iCloud? If you do that could be using energy. However, once everything is synced the battery drain should stop.

To check open Settings, tap at your name at the top, then iCloud.

stanoman28 wrote:

A theory: Maybe the new performance enhancements in iOS12 are causing the battery issues on older iPhones. As far as I know, the CPU timings were changed in iOS12.

Your hypothesis (it's not a theory) is wrong. All of the major trade testing organizations have found that battery life is better under iOS 12 on every platform it runs on.

You have a problem with your phone. Not with any specific version.

I too have the same problem. IOS12 definitely have not been kind to the iPhone SE. I have completed a clean install, my battery is at 97% capacity so well in the green but battery depletes from 100% to 50% in less than a couple hours.

What happens when you restore the phone to factory settings and don't install any apps, configure any features (mail, photos, sync, etc) then test it. With nothing on the phone does it still deplete quickly? If it doesn't then the problem is one or more of your apps.