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cottonjenn

macrumors member
Original poster
May 4, 2009
63
1
When I first got my iPad Mini it seemed that after a charge I got good usage out of the battery, maybe over 24hrs. It's been 8 months and now it seems as if I'm lucky if a get 24 hrs out of it, if that. My sister got her at the same time and she can go a day and half. Don't know if it's my imagination or not. Now I know I'm always on it, and my sister and I play the same games. It's possible I'm just using more than I realize but I'm just concerned, could the battery go out completely where I won't be able to get any time from it?
 

Rodster

macrumors 68040
May 15, 2007
3,177
6
When I first got my iPad Mini it seemed that after a charge I got good usage out of the battery, maybe over 24hrs. It's been 8 months and now it seems as if I'm lucky if a get 24 hrs out of it, if that. My sister got her at the same time and she can go a day and half. Don't know if it's my imagination or not. Now I know I'm always on it, and my sister and I play the same games. It's possible I'm just using more than I realize but I'm just concerned, could the battery go out completely where I won't be able to get any time from it?
Each device is different and it depends what's running in the background. If you have lot's of notifications enabled in your Apps, that will affect the battery. If you have the Bluetooth Radio ON, that will cause battery drain as well. Screen brightness turned way up, WiFi turned ON will all affect battery drain.

To put it in perspective if I stream live radio with the screen turned off I can go 3-4 days without needing a charge on my iPad 2. If the screen is on with Auto Bright and playing games or apps like Safari I can realistically get 11-14 hours.

People sometimes make the mistake of comparing two identical devices only to find out each person tends to use theirs differently. ;)
 

poloponies

Suspended
May 3, 2010
2,661
1,366
When I first got my iPad Mini it seemed that after a charge I got good usage out of the battery, maybe over 24hrs. It's been 8 months and now it seems as if I'm lucky if a get 24 hrs out of it, if that. My sister got her at the same time and she can go a day and half. Don't know if it's my imagination or not. Now I know I'm always on it, and my sister and I play the same games. It's possible I'm just using more than I realize but I'm just concerned, could the battery go out completely where I won't be able to get any time from it?

First of all, you're not getting 24 hours of usage out of a charge. Battery life is measured by active usage of the device, not how long you can go before you need a chage (if 1 use my iPad for 1 hour a day for 4 days I can't say I'm getting 4 days of battery life). If you got 24 hours of active usage between charges then you'd not only have nothing to complain about, you'd have a miraculous iPad.

Batteries do no last forever but the batteries in your iPad are rated for 1,000 charging cycles before they will fall below 80% of original capacity. That means you can charge 1,000 times from 0% to 100% and still have relatively long battery life. You also need to maintain the battery by going down to 0% and charging to 100% at least once a month.

https://www.apple.com/batteries/ipad.html
 

PBG4 Dude

macrumors 601
Jul 6, 2007
4,291
4,524
My iPad 1 bought on day 1 still gets daily usage by my son. Still gets great battery life.
 

charlituna

macrumors G3
Jun 11, 2008
9,636
816
Los Angeles, CA
could the battery go out completely where I won't be able to get any time from it?

yes. All rechargeable batteries have this issue, it's generally referred to as consumption.

Batteries are packs of chemicals, those chemicals lose their strength over time and thus don't react as well as they used to.

Although what you are likely seeing right now is probably more something to do with settings or software corruption than actual battery degrading.
 

Moonjumper

macrumors 68030
Jun 20, 2009
2,741
2,909
Lincoln, UK
Batteries will lose capacity as time goes on, but there are things you can do to reduce degradation.

Lithium Ion batteries don't like to be discharged. Put it on charge when at 40% rather than empty if you can.

They don't have memory, unlike Ni-CD or Ni-MH. So no need for a 12 hour charge before first use. And no need for deep discharging to reset the memory. Plus you do not need to do all your charging in one go (2 50%, or 4 25% charges still count as one cycle).

Overcharging is bad. Apple chargers should stop this automatically, but unplugging a charged device is good. Batteries will degrade a little quicker at 100% charge than 70%.

Lithium Ion batteries don't like heat. So don't use or leave them near radiators. And avoid heavy use when they are still warm from charging if you can.

Store them at between 30% to 70% for minimum degradation.

But all Lithium Ion batteries deteriorate over time, even without use. A battery that has been on a shop shelf for a year is not as good as one that has just been manufactured.
 
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