Google Employee Claims Google Now App Does Not Cause Significant Battery Impact

I just hate the location icon constantly being in the status bar, that is the reason I turned it off.

I would have thought the same. Since the app is running 24/7 who knows how much battery life it drains.

Ive had the app for a week, and haven't had any battery issues.

How about the "many users" quit complaining and stop using the app? Instant fix.

My battery has still lasted me all day. That's weird.

No issues here on iPhone 5 and iPad mini.

theheadguy said:

How about the "many users" quit complaining and stop using the app? Instant fix.

Click to expand...

That fixes nothing.

crisss1205 said:

I just hate the location icon constantly being in the status bar, that is the reason I turned it off.

Click to expand...

Exactly the same, it's now disabled on mine. Shame though.

Grokr is a very similar app and had the same exact problem at launch but fixed it very quickly with a software update and now works perfectly. Google should have no excuse to fix this

"I notice significant battery loss. But Safari feels much snappier!"

- I'm guessing this is the layperson reaction. It's all a matter of perception.

Funny but I believe it does

Have a co-worker that downloaded it when it came out and later in the day was complaining about his battery life.

My battery life…

…is actually longer.

And it's growing new hair on my head!

I haven't noticed my battery life changing at all. I think people that claim it's draining their battery have something else going on.

I believe what Google says. Mainly because the complaints I saw popped up mere minutes after the app launched.

Those aren't battery complaints. Those are "I see an arrow" complaints. Real battery assessment takes days.

I've had many other apps that use geofencing (like Apple's own Reminders) without seeing a huge impact on battery. I'm sure this Google Now service works the same way.

Turned on Google Now. Left home, listening to tunes. Went from full charge to half charge in 3 hours. Turned off Google Now. Still playing tunes. Went from half charge to quarter charge in 5 hours. I don't know what Google calls "significant battery impact" but I know what I call "significant battery impact".

Battery life seems the same on my iPhone 4. I don't understand the fuss.

Edit:


I've only just put my iPhone back on charge for the nightly refuel whilst I sleep.

dmcwally said:

Google should have no excuse to fix this

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Fix what? Have been trying this out for a few days with no noticeable impact on my battery.

I wasn't aware this was a problem until I saw this article.
I did noticed last night the Location Services icon showing on the top bar in my iPad. When I checked to see what was accessing it, it was the Google app, which was not even open or running. It's probably a background process it has.

Continued access to Location Services could definitely cause battery drainage. So as a quick fix I disabled Location Services for Google.

Take note I haven't seen this behavior until I upgraded to the latest Google app.

Does anyone else noticed something like this?

UPDATE:
- I just enabled Location Services for the Google app, and immediately the Location Services showed on the top bar (Google app is not open)
- I restarted my iPad and Location Services didn't show anymore.
- I ran the Google app, and the Location Services icon appeared again, and remained showing even after I closed the Google app. It's been about 5 minutes and it's still showing. The only two options is to restart the iPad or turn off Location Services for the Google app.

All I can say is that it's definitely a bug in the Google app. It must leave a process running in the background, causing this problem.

I had significant battery drain from this app, normally lasts through the day and ends around 30%, but after google Now it dies around 4pm. I went into settings in the app itself (not iOS Location Settings) and turned off location reporting and it still seems to work well enough but without the drain so far.

Not True!

My battery was being drained because Google left the locations feature on.

The crazy thing is that it kept locations running even though I would completely close the app down. I even tried restarting the phone with no avail.

At first, I couldn't figure out why the locations feature was on until it hit me. I had updated the Google app. Once I removed the app all was well again.

Has anyone got screenshots of their excessive battery usage in the settings menu at all?

Would be interested to know which phone they're using in case it's related to a specific model/version.

Very odd!

Amazing Iceman said:

I wasn't aware this was a problem until I saw this article.
I did noticed last night the Location Services icon showing on the top bar in my iPad. When I checked to see what was accessing it, it was the Google app, which was not even open or running. It's probably a background process it has.

Continued access to Location Services could definitely cause battery drainage. So as a quick fix I disabled Location Services for Google.

Take note I haven't seen this behavior until I upgraded to the latest Google app.

Does anyone else noticed something like this?

Click to expand...

Or you could simply go into the options within the Google app settings and disable the background location setting there (so the app can still use location when needed, but won't do it "continuously" in the background).

C DM said:

Or you could simply go into the options within the Google app settings and disable the background location setting there (so the app can still use location when needed, but won't do it "continuously" in the background).

Click to expand...

Good observation. I didn't check, because I didn't think they would be so stupid to continuously access it. That would definitely drain a battery!

Edit: it's called Location Reporting and it's inside Privacy. That took care of the problem. Thanks!

I haven't noticed much decrease in battery life. By the time I hit the bed my phone is sitting at 40%. I have room to spare in terms of battery life.