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Apple Says Installing iOS 26 Might Impact Battery Life

Except my 16 Pro has had steady and significant battery drain across the beta period. Perhaps the release candidate will put an end to it, as betas sometimes send additional diagnostics to Apple?
 
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Jeremy3292 said:
For me the cons outweigh the pros of the air, especially compared to the best base model iPhone they've ever made for $200 cheaper (and $300 cheaper than the Pro). It's not about just one feature; it's an overall summary. I have no doubt a future Air 2 or Air 3 will be a solid product that I may buy. I don't want to be the guinea pig on this first model Air, especially if the battery life is as awful as speculations say.
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Yeah it just wouldn't occur to me to list the speaker as a con because it’s not even on my radar, like I hope people aren’t streaming lossless music on their iPhones and saying “this is great” lol
 
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I expected a battery knock when running the Betas, some of them were pleasantly surprisingly good in terms of battery life while others are a mess, lol.

Just loaded this latest and official build of it tonight on my 15 Pro Max and honestly outside of the phone getting warm when updating the OS and again when I then ran App Store app updates it has quickly cooled down and seems to be running more efficiently than the RC build, so it’s looking positive.

Hoping by the time I get my 17 Pro Max in a few weeks there will be further refinement on performance and efficiency.
 
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So its not just temporarily. I wouls note your current battery health and check again after update. Pretty sure it degraded drastically to force people to upgrade.

Great time to buy the stock!
 
matthew12 said:
And this is why I wait for a few bug fix updates to roll out before telling my family to update their stuff.
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I usually wait a six months to a year so I can enjoy my newer to me device without suffering battery drain or sluggish behaviour.


HouseLannister said:
"New features are exciting and help you get even more out of your Apple product, though some may require additional resources from the device."

Wait. There are new features?
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“With iOS 26, it will take your battery heat to a whole new level. Now on those brisk fall days or watching your kids at the chilly arena, your hands will remain warm, preventing frost bite! We think you’re gonna love it!!”
 
iZac said:
Performance of the springboard on my 13 mini is immediately pretty rough. Laggy and it’s having to load icons(!) as it swipes between pages. This could very well be impacted by the background activities as the phone settles in so I'll let it percolate for a few days.

I think I'll immediately be turning on 'reduce motion' in the accessibility settings though.
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Please do update with how much of a performance/battery hit iOS 26 has been once the reindexing stuff seems to have settled out. I'm sure there are plenty of other iPhone 13 Mini holdouts like us who are concerned about what this update could do to the usability of our phones.
 
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They aren't kidding. After installation, my 13 mini went from 95% to 75% and my iPad Pro went from 80% to 60%, all within about an hour. That said, all the installations (including on my Mac Studio) went very smoothly.
 
I have it on my iPad Pro M3. It’s going through the battery pretty quickly. I downloaded it on my 14PM and then deleted it before it could run. Many people over on Reddit talking about what it’s doing to older phones like 14PM. I hope the 17PM doesn’t have issues with it. I wonder if they’ll have a day one update for us.
 
my battery life has been beyond disappointing on the beta. I am on a brand new iPhone 16 Pro with 100% battery health. It doesn't overheat, but it drains way too quickly. I have to recharge it at least 2 times a day. The RC didn't make this better either. The only way I got more battery out of my device compared to ios 18 was turning off all the nasty location services from apple and background app refresh, and it's still bad.

Edit: oh I thought I wasn't gonna get any more updates after the RC, but it seems I did... Gonna test it out, but idek how much different it is compared to the RC
 
iFunk said:
I skipped the iOS update last year. I am still on 17.7. Working in the cellular industry for 20+ years I was responsible for hundred of software updates .... leaving the industry I had no desire for new features or the newness of - update now for all the cool new xyz. I guess I was just too engrained in it for too long. If/when I update my device (I am thinking of getting the new iPhone Pro) I realize I'll then have to be on the latest software and I am ok with that lol.

BTW, the battery impacts for any update are one of the big reasons I just decide to forego the update lol.
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I'm on a 2 years old iPhone 14 Pro Max with battery health at 99%. I'm still on iOS 18.2.1 and I'll NOT uppdate the OS..any longer.
 
lazyrighteye said:
As a public beta user, I can attest to increased battery drain. For me, it’s been quite dramatic. My 16 Pro is off the night stand charger at 6 am, back on at 11 pm (or later). Before iOS 26, I would routinely see anywhere from 20-40% battery remaining at 11 pm. Rarely in the red. since iOS 26, I‘m often in the red by 4 pm - sometimes even earlier - which is super unusual. I’m definitely having to change mid-day, especially if I have plans that night (like a concert) that will require phone access. While battery performance has improved a bit, it’s still not ideal. It’s 12:15 pm and I’m at 60%. Normally would easily only be at 80%, and sometimes even higher.

As always, YMMV.
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That’s compared to what exactly? Previous betas or just 26 beta vs 18 general public release? Is your overall battery health worse than whatever you are comparing? I’m just going to point out the obvious that betas have more going on in the background including more verbose logging, background processes and optimizations still being ironed out beta to beta, etc. so they tend to drain more power compared to general public releases. I’d love to see your comparison when you’ve been running the public release after a few weeks.
 
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