iPod touch iPod touch 6th Gen: How's the battery life?

[smorrissey]

Some data. Over the past year, I've been getting between 5 and 9 hours of use, depending on how much WiFi I use.

Now, I typically run in Airplane mode -- and, during the day, with brightness at 1/4. (One gets used to lower brightness pretty quickly!). At night, I use it for ebook reading with colors inverted and the backlight barely on.

When I turn on WiFi to fetch news, the battery can drain 8-14% in only 2-3 minutes of use!

It is a shame as it undermines an otherwise fine device.

--------------------------

BIG TIP: One of the gurus in the Apple forum recommended leaving it charging for a full 6 hours-- well past the point it first gets to 100%. The IPT 6 charges quickly, but apparently the gauge is off-- it needs to be charged longer, much longer than first hitting 100%.

That has helped-- some WiFi sites now barely register on battery life.

Yeah battery behaviour on the ipod touch 6 is messy. It charges quickly but also discharges quickly,i recently found that when the device hits 20% battery left i still can use it for an hour more watchig youtube videos so i'm calibrating it currently.

 

[newellj]

Has anyone here owned an IPT5 and an IPT6? How does battery life compare? A lot of the comments here on battery life for the IPT6 would be accurate for my IPT5.

 

[colodane]

Has anyone here owned an IPT5 and an IPT6? How does battery life compare? A lot of the comments here on battery life for the IPT6 would be accurate for my IPT5.

I own both.

I bought the IPT6 because I thought the battery on my IPT5 was nearing end-of-life. Bottom line is that the battery life between charges on my IPT6 when new was about the same as that of the IPT 5 when it was over 2 years old. Needless to say, this was a disappointing turn of events ;>) Since then, the time between recharges on the IPT 6 has kept getting worse. This is with very minimal usage, airplane mode when not being used, display brightness set at 30% and no viewing of videos, etc. I do not recommend the IPT 6 to others for this reason.

Wish I had better news, but that is my experience.

 

[newellj]

I own both.

I bought the IPT6 because I thought the battery on my IPT5 was nearing end-of-life. Bottom line is that the battery life between charges on my IPT6 when new was about the same as that of the IPT 5 when it was over 2 years old. Needless to say, this was a disappointing turn of events ;>) Since then, the time between recharges on the IPT 6 has kept getting worse. This is with very minimal usage, airplane mode when not being used, display brightness set at 30% and no viewing of videos, etc. I do not recommend the IPT 6 to others for this reason.

Wish I had better news, but that is my experience.

Wow. I'd say battery life on the 5 is only mezzo. If the 6 is worse, well, wow... I made the mistake of updating to iOS 9 on my 5 and of course it's basically a brick at this point.

 

[Larouche]

We all know that the battery life of the iPod touch 6 is ******, but it's even ******** now, with the latest iOS update (10.2.1). At least on my device... Anybody else experienced the same thing? I also tried the 10.3 beta update, because I read here that it was stable and all, but no luck... I get barely 2 hours before i get the "20% battery left" message. I also had to re sync my 8000 songs or so, but that's another story...

 

[DallasStorm]

That's the best kind of "limited".

And this may be a old post. But the gold was not a limited edition. It replaced the Lime Green IPod Touch 5th Gen. The only limited edition color was the Product Red. And a part of the cost went to that charity.
[doublepost=1486028965][/doublepost]

We all know that the battery life of the iPod touch 6 is ******, but it's even ******** now, with the latest iOS update (10.2.1). At least on my device... Anybody else experienced the same thing? I also tried the 10.3 beta update, because I read here that it was stable and all, but no luck... I get barely 2 hours before i get the "20% battery left" message. I also had to re sync my 8000 songs or so, but that's another story...

Nope. My battery is doing great on that iOS update. I just spent 30 min talking via Facetime and it barely used any battery from being fully charged. I usually have to charge once every 10 days maybe...give or take a day and that is with daily use. Take it to a Apple store near you and have them look at it. My only suggestion. You might have something else causing it to drain in the background.

 

[drivenbymadness]

And this may be a old post. But the gold was not a limited edition. It replaced the Lime Green IPod Touch 5th Gen. The only limited edition color was the Product Red. And a part of the cost went to that charity.
[doublepost=1486028965][/doublepost]


Nope. My battery is doing great on that iOS update. I just spent 30 min talking via Facetime and it barely used any battery from being fully charged. I usually have to charge once every 10 days maybe...give or take a day and that is with daily use. Take it to a Apple store near you and have them look at it. My only suggestion. You might have something else causing it to drain in the background.

Background: I got (and wished for) the IPT6 128gb red version as a christmas gift because i missed my old IPT5 that broke down, when it comes to the battery life on the IPT5 i didn't think that much about it because only listening to music it lasted long enough that i didn't reflect on battery life but my new IPT6 lasts between 3-5h, this amount is way below what was expected. It's really painful to own a device that doesn't even last long enough as a mp3-player, when that is it's designated task.

Question: My question to you is how do you manage to make the IPT6 last 10 days when mine lasts 3-5h? Sometimes it does not even last 3h.

(sorry for my poor english and i wish my username would be different).

 

[Larouche]

Nope. My battery is doing great on that iOS update. I just spent 30 min talking via Facetime and it barely used any battery from being fully charged. I usually have to charge once every 10 days maybe...give or take a day and that is with daily use. Take it to a Apple store near you and have them look at it. My only suggestion. You might have something else causing it to drain in the background.

I found the problem... At the same time I updated the OS, I also add a bunch of videos with a certain codec, and that codec was the issue. Since I'm watching a bit of video each day like I always do, I was sure it was the OS. But no... So I'm back to my regular not so good battery life ;-)

 

[newellj]

I found the problem... At the same time I updated the OS, I also add a bunch of videos with a certain codec, and that codec was the issue. Since I'm watching a bit of video each day like I always do, I was sure it was the OS. But no... So I'm back to my regular not so good battery life ;-)

Can you give us more details?

 

[Larouche]

Can you give us more details?

Sure! I'm using Infuse to watch my videos and the problem files were ones that were HEVC coded. They (the app developers) know about the issue and currently working on it, I was told.

 

[ackmondual]

True!!! no point of trying to make it so stylist since its aiming for young kids. Im sure a little heavier will not make it harder for them to hold, in fact they would have a better grip on the device.

AFAIK, a thicker IpT with bigger battery could mean they'd have to charge more.

 

[iGeek2014]

I'm using Public Beta 4 on my IPT 6G and find the battery life to be OK for my uses.

I have turned things like Background App Refresh off and some of the Location Services though.

 

[drivenbymadness]

When i'm feeling better i feel more okaj with the battery life, but when i become miserable it becomes a problem for me, so i have to wrestle with the ipod touch in a way. But there really are some changes that apple should do if the information i've gotten is correct that the newer versions of iOS slows down older devices they should really inform before you install the newest version of iOS that it could slow down your device if you happen to have a older device. Also i do understand that it is almost technically impossible to fit a bigger battery in the ipod touch with it's current design but having a 1043 mAh battery it's not enough for the faster processor if they have the same battery as the ipod touch 5 that is. I think apple should realise this during the testing of the device that the battery might not be enough, i have noticed with my use of the ipod touch 6 that the battery is okaj if you happen to have music playing in the background, then the battery life extends to about 6h but if you're using the touch screen and actively pick songs it lasts about 3h and 33ish minutes, the 3h and 33ish minutes is not enough for me to even listen to all of my personalized song lists and albums for the day on apple music, i can listen to about 75% then my battery turns red. I trusted apple as a company that much that i didn't do any research about the ipod touch 6 i just assumed they would do everything correctly but apperantly there are some flaws (i wish i could find a better word than flaws but you get the idea).

 

[newellj]

When i'm feeling better i feel more okaj with the battery life, but when i become miserable it becomes a problem for me, so i have to wrestle with the ipod touch in a way. But there really are some changes that apple should do if the information i've gotten is correct that the newer versions of iOS slows down older devices they should really inform before you install the newest version of iOS that it could slow down your device if you happen to have a older device. Also i do understand that it is almost technically impossible to fit a bigger battery in the ipod touch with it's current design but having a 1043 mAh battery it's not enough for the faster processor if they have the same battery as the ipod touch 5 that is. I think apple should realise this during the testing of the device that the battery might not be enough, i have noticed with my use of the ipod touch 6 that the battery is okaj if you happen to have music playing in the background, then the battery life extends to about 6h but if you're using the touch screen and actively pick songs it lasts about 3h and 33ish minutes, the 3h and 33ish minutes is not enough for me to even listen to all of my personalized song lists and albums for the day on apple music, i can listen to about 75% then my battery turns red. I trusted apple as a company that much that i didn't do any research about the ipod touch 6 i just assumed they would do everything correctly but apperantly there are some flaws (i wish i could find a better word than flaws but you get the idea).

The iPT6 has the same A8/M8 hardware that the iPhone 6/6 Plus had. I've moved on to an iPhone 7 but I had a pair of iPhone 6 phones and they ran iOS 10 just fine and got battery life that was indistinguishable from iOS 9. I suspect the problem with the iPT6 is battery capacity, pure and simple.

 

[Mista_Kool]

I use iPod 6; iOS 11.0 beta, the battery is practically non-existant- it goes less than an hour before 20% battery. it's 19months and 2 days old...

 

[Paddle1]

I use iPod 6; iOS 11.0 beta, the battery is practically non-existant- it goes less than an hour before 20% battery. it's 19months and 2 days old...

It's a beta (an early one at that) and doesn't reflect the battery life on a stable version of iOS.

 

[Mista_Kool]

It's a beta (an early one at that) and doesn't reflect the battery life on a stable version of iOS.

True, but I find that it was like that before I updated too. Maybe I just overuse it

 

[sudoreboot]

I'm usually getting about 7-9 hours, the shorter times with more video playback (mostly YouTube) and longer times with almost exclusive browsing in Safari and use of Mail.

It's been said before in this thread, but the iPod 6th consistently charges much faster than my phone -- sometimes in around an hour.

 

[newellj]

I'm usually getting about 7-9 hours, the shorter times with more video playback (mostly YouTube) and longer times with almost exclusive browsing in Safari and use of Mail.

It's been said before in this thread, but the iPod 6th consistently charges much faster than my phone -- sometimes in around an hour.

I haven't looked up the specs, but one reason for more rapid charging, probably the most obvious reason, would be smaller battery capacity that the iPhones, which in turn means shorter run times.

 

[JuicyB27]

After having a gen5 iPod Touch for 3.5 years, the battery seemed to be sagging so I thought I'd upgrade to a gen6. Big mistake. First I tried a refurbished ("brand new battery!"), but could barely get 3 hours of use from fully charged to "in the red". And that's with all the battery-saving tricks (turned off bluetooth, background app refesh, 50% brightless, email push, etc.).

Having been extremely disappointed to get significantly WORSE battery life when I was expecting at least somewhat better, I returned the refurb. for a brand new model. Same exact behavior. On this one, I tried IOS 10.4, 11, and 11.0.1. All of them, around 3 hours of battery life after full charge.

My use case: simply scrolling Facebook. Very little use of other apps. The goal is to be able to plug in overnight Friday, wake up Saturday morning, and be able to use Facebook without needing to recharge before noon - in this case, iPod gen6 is unable to achieve this, whereas the 3.5 year old gen5 running older iOS can easily last 4.5 hours.

Super SUPER disappointed, especially after a visit to the Genius Bar fed me lies ("we don't replace batteries", "it's not designed to be used like a cellphone") - it has LESS to do than a cellphone, and less hardware. I have been using iPod touches "like a cellphone" for 5 years now with no problem. Which is why again I am so SUPER disappointed to have to leave my favorite ecosystem, just because of what to me seems like a failure in design, OS/hardware/app compatibility, and testing. (in this case, the genius folks discovered the ipod failed a bluetooth test... that's fine, I turn bluetooth OFF!)

 

[newellj]

Your experience doesn't seem to be unusual.

My 5th Gen is ridiculously slow when performing any operation, even just loading an app. However, once loaded, the apps all run fine.

My battery life is still excellent.

My plan for now is to keep using my 5th Gen until the battery gets weak, then either have Apple replace it or replace it myself. I don't know if we'll ever see a 7th Gen iPod Touch. I'm hoping that if we do it will address the battery life shortfalls with the 6th Gen.

 

[ackmondual]

After having a gen5 iPod Touch for 3.5 years, the battery seemed to be sagging so I thought I'd upgrade to a gen6. Big mistake. First I tried a refurbished ("brand new battery!"), but could barely get 3 hours of use from fully charged to "in the red". And that's with all the battery-saving tricks (turned off bluetooth, background app refesh, 50% brightless, email push, etc.).

Having been extremely disappointed to get significantly WORSE battery life when I was expecting at least somewhat better, I returned the refurb. for a brand new model. Same exact behavior. On this one, I tried IOS 10.4, 11, and 11.0.1. All of them, around 3 hours of battery life after full charge.

My use case: simply scrolling Facebook. Very little use of other apps. The goal is to be able to plug in overnight Friday, wake up Saturday morning, and be able to use Facebook without needing to recharge before noon - in this case, iPod gen6 is unable to achieve this, whereas the 3.5 year old gen5 running older iOS can easily last 4.5 hours.

Super SUPER disappointed, especially after a visit to the Genius Bar fed me lies ("we don't replace batteries", "it's not designed to be used like a cellphone") - it has LESS to do than a cellphone, and less hardware. I have been using iPod touches "like a cellphone" for 5 years now with no problem. Which is why again I am so SUPER disappointed to have to leave my favorite ecosystem, just because of what to me seems like a failure in design, OS/hardware/app compatibility, and testing. (in this case, the genius folks discovered the ipod failed a bluetooth test... that's fine, I turn bluetooth OFF!)

I've already been getting the vibe that IpT6 has inferior battery life vs. the IpT5 (after all, same form factor, but better/faster processors, without any changes to conserve battery usage), and I don't doubt your post. However, TBF, isn't Facebook known to be a huge battery suck, or was that just the app?