Facebook Aware of iOS App Battery Life Drain Issue and Working on a Fix

[MacRumors]

Facebook today acknowledged its awareness of an issue raised by a few iOS users last week, who saw large amounts of battery drain on their iPhones while the social networking app ran in the background, even with background app refresh toggled off. Speaking with TechCrunch, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the company's awareness of the bug and promised a fix would be in place "soon."

MacRumors Forum member Oridus suffering from the Facebook battery drain bug​

"We have heard reports of some people experiencing battery issues with our iOS app. We're looking into this and hope to have a fix in place soon," the spokesperson said.

A number of Facebook users have commented on the issue of background battery drain over the past week, with users on the MacRumors Forums posting about the issue as far back as last Thursday. One poster (seen above) saw Facebook responsible for a dramatic 39 percent battery usage over a six day period, despite having background app refresh set to off.

Several sites have attempted to theorize on the cause behind the overzealous battery drain, including MacStories, hypothesizing that the reason behind the bug could be silent audio emanating from the service's auto-playing videos. Since most people don't bother with turning off auto-play, Facebook could be keeping a muted audio track running in the background with users largely unaware, letting it run and "consume energy to perform background tasks" even after leaving the app.

The company itself hasn't commented on the source of the bug, but at least those affected can look forward to a fix for it in the future.

Article Link: Facebook Aware of iOS App Battery Life Drain Issue and Working on a Fix

 

[drumcat]

Facebook is best used on Safari in iOS. The app is always bad news. I dropped the app two years ago, and it's awesome.

 

[penajmz]

It's about time they rewrote this app to not trick iOS into thinking it's an VoIP. That's the issue. I uninstalled it a couple of weeks back and won't install it until they fix this.

 

[smith4925]

They are just addressing this now. Facebook and Messenger have always been battery hogs.

 

[MentalFloss]

That is considered a bug? Ever since background refresh was introduced, I have had that problem intermittently with Youtube - also despite having background app refresh turned off.

 

[Brian Buttplug]

I am getting old, but:

Who's looking at Facebook for 4 hours?

 

[iSRS]

This is not a new issue. It has been for the past two months or so. My wife it hat 53% on her 5s. Also seems to be an issue on iOS 9.

 

[Bbqthis]

More like "Facebook app finally publicly exposed to be crap, company promises to fix".

 

[dearfriendx]

My battery life has increased a noticeable amount since deleting my Facebook account and the app. I tried Snapchat for a while and it was also a terrible drain--also with background activity.

 

[DisNerd]

I can vouch for this. ridiculous amounts of background activity

 

[wolford33]

Facebook today acknowledged its awareness of an issue raised by a few iOS users last week, who saw large amounts of battery drain on their iPhones while the social networking app ran in the background, even with background app refresh toggled off. Speaking with TechCrunch, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the company's awareness of the bug and promised a fix would be in place "soon."

MacRumors Forum member Oridus suffering from the Facebook battery drain bug​

A number of Facebook users have commented on the issue of background battery drain over the past week, with users on the MacRumors Forums posting about the issue as far back as last Thursday. One poster (seen above) saw Facebook responsible for a dramatic 39 percent battery usage over a six day period, despite having background app refresh set to off.

Several sites have attempted to theorize on the cause behind the overzealous battery drain, including MacStories, hypothesizing that the reason behind the bug could be silent audio emanating from the service's auto-playing videos. Since most people don't bother with turning off auto-play, Facebook could be keeping a muted audio track running in the background with users largely unaware, letting it run and "consume energy to perform background tasks" even after leaving the app.

The company itself hasn't commented on the source of the bug, but at least those affected can look forward to a fix for it in the future.

Article Link: Facebook Aware of iOS App Battery Life Drain Issue and Working on a Fix

I started noticing this exact issue on Sunday. My phone died twice during the day after full charges and Facebook accounted for over half of the drainage.

 

[zweigand]

I am getting old, but:

Who's looking at Facebook for 4 hours?

Unfortunately ...everyone.

 

[btrach144]

I've been thinking of deleting my Facebook profile. All people use FB for is to brag about what they just bought or where they're going. Basically, who has the bigger wallet.

 

[teknikal90]

aka. "yup darn our sneaky workaround to keep collecting your usage data well past Apple's limitations got found out.
ok we'll stop doing it. lol. until next time.. lol."

 

[Zedcars]

Leave Facebook. It's the best thing you will ever do.

 

[jackbauerctu]

It's about time they rewrote this app to not trick iOS into thinking it's an VoIP. That's the issue. I uninstalled it a couple of weeks back and won't install it until they fix this.

Sounds right. I believe an app classified as an VOIP can run over the 10 minute background limit...

 

[2457282]

Facebook is best used on Safari in iOS. The app is always bad news. I dropped the app two years ago, and it's awesome.

Agreed. I did that a couple of years ago as well. And then about a year ago I dropped Facebook too. I spend so much more time doing something other than posting silliness or reading other's silliness. I actually go out with people and share my silliness live and in person.

 

[MentalFloss]

I am getting old, but:

Who's looking at Facebook for 4 hours?

That is over a period of six days. That's 40 minutes per day. If you have a lot of Facebook friends who post a lot of updates and if you actually write some comments and post some updates yourself, then it's easy to reach 40 minutes a day.

I'd like to see the battery usage data for all the people who will complain about that now so that I can also go: "Who's using ... for ... minutes a day??!?!"

 

[Xgm541]

Unfortunately ...everyone.

As you can see from the screenshot its over the course of 6 days.

 

[teknikal90]

I've been thinking of deleting my Facebook profile. All people use FB for is to brag about what they just bought or where they're going. Basically, who has the bigger wallet.

lol i like it when friends and family post travel pictures. its cool to see, makes me happy for them, and gives me ideas on where to go next.
to me, thats one of the only good things about facebook.
the other being event invites.

 

[radioactive]

I barely use my iPad and never use FB. The usage in settings said that 55% of my battery in the last week was due to FB background activity. I uninstalled the POS last week, and haven't regretted it (or missed FB).

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

They are just addressing this now. Facebook and Messenger have always been battery hogs.

They use a lot of battery because they're 2 of the top 10 most commonly used apps on iOS. They're where people spend a majority of their time on the phone. They don't generally draw any more power than other online apps like web browsing.

The average US user spends 40 minutes on Facebook per day. Facebook accounts for nearly 20% of all time spent online.

 

[GreyOS]

to play background audio surely it has to appear in the control centre music player. I don't think there is a way around that.

it is most likely using the VoIP exception to run in background

which is terrible for two reasons

1. it doesn't do VoIP (only its sister app Messenger
2. from iOS 9 VoIP doesn't need to run in the background- special VoIP notifications can start the app when a call comes in.

if they are doing 1 or 2 then apple's app review process is heavily flawed!

 

[WannaGoMac]

Agreed. I did that a couple of years ago as well. And then about a year ago I dropped Facebook too. I spend so much more time doing something other than posting silliness or reading other's silliness. I actually go out with people and share my silliness live and in person.

I just turn off notifications and background app refresh. That really limits how often you use facebook to just when you happen to feel like looking.

Also, I looked at my battery and Facebook in last 7 days had barely 6% due to background activity. So turning off all that crap (and auto loading of videos) seems to prevent battery hogging.

 

[avanpelt]

And we'll never know when the battery issues are fixed because their release notes tell us absolutely nothing about what's been changed or fixed with each update.