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ProQuiz

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 15, 2009
192
71
I have a month old iPhone 14 Pro running iOS 16.5. Today I browsed the Internet using Safari for about 20 minutes and the battery drained by 5-6%. The phone also got quite warm. Is this normal?

Edit: This was on Wi-Fi with a full signal.
 
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iStorm

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2012
1,772
2,207
Depending on the site(s), ads can suck up a lot of battery. Look into getting a content blocker. I personally use Norton Ad Blocker for its simplicity, but there are plenty of other options out there.
 

Morac

macrumors 68020
Dec 30, 2009
2,172
611
Even if you block ads, Safari drains batteries more than some mobile games so yeah, it’s normal.
 

tragicwinding

Suspended
May 23, 2023
55
39
Safari does drain the battery a lot. However, a 5-6% drop in just 20 minutes does seem a bit high. @Morac is right that Safari can be more resource-intensive than some apps, but if you're noticing excessive heat along with the battery drain, it might be worth investigating further. I think you could try resetting your phone settings (no data will be lost) to see if that helps. If the problem persists, it might be worth taking it to an Apple Store or contacting Apple Support for a diagnostic test just to be sure.
 

papbot

macrumors 68020
May 19, 2015
2,112
985
I have a month old iPhone 14 Pro running iOS 16.5. Today I browsed the Internet using Safari for about 20 minutes and the battery drained by 5-6%. The phone also got quite warm. Is this normal?

Edit: This was on Wi-Fi with a full signal.
Previously, I saw many posts mentioning Macrumors as a Safari battery hog. But even though Safari is shown at the top of my battery list with the highest percentage usage, which is accurate since I’ve been using it quite a bit this morning, battery drainage has been minimal, about 3%. An ad blocker does help with that as I had never seen the Macrumors issue that others had posted about.
 

ProQuiz

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 15, 2009
192
71
Thanks for the replies.

On a general note, can someone explain why battery life seems to get worse after each iOS update? It's like a "standard feature" of an iOS update along with the common response from people that start complaining about how the update killed their battery life. I actually observed this myself. On iOS 16.4.1 I could get around 1 hour 30 minutes of SOT when the battery hits 90%. I would actually be still be at 100% with 30 minutes of SOT. On iOS 16.5 is it quite a bit worse at 1 hour of SOT at 90% battery.
 
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papbot

macrumors 68020
May 19, 2015
2,112
985
I don’t believe I’ve ever had noticeable battery issues with any release. But I’m generally using the latest devices. With any new release, especially the betas, there are background functions that take a day or two to settle in which will use more battery than normal. Which is why those posts asking about battery life the day (or hour) of the release are just ridiculous.

All I’ve ever paid attention to is do I have to recharge during the day when I’ve never had to before. That’s when I would start looking for some information or advice. As long as I’m only putting it on my charger when I get into bed as I do every night then I pay no attention. Too many other things in life to be anal about. This isn’t one of them.
 

Chrisjmv

macrumors 6502
Apr 9, 2016
308
66
im experiencing the same now on iOS 17.3 with Safari and a iPhone 15 Pro Max, Safari draining battery too much, also the phone gets noticeable warmer, any idea what to do?
 

Reverend Benny

macrumors 6502a
Apr 28, 2017
716
478
Europe
Thanks for the replies.

On a general note, can someone explain why battery life seems to get worse after each iOS update? It's like a "standard feature" of an iOS update along with the common response from people that start complaining about how the update killed their battery life. I actually observed this myself. On iOS 16.4.1 I could get around 1 hour 30 minutes of SOT when the battery hits 90%. I would actually be still be at 100% with 30 minutes of SOT. On iOS 16.5 is it quite a bit worse at 1 hour of SOT at 90% battery.
Its one of those things that people love to go on about, and its not only iOS related, you find similar talks on other forums with other devices.
Parts of it is true, there have been some releases that might have had an impact on battery time depending on a number of things. Much is down to how we use the device.
Also, before it was common that after an update there was some processes running for some time afterwards making the device consume more battery.

Another reason could be that battery statistics are hard to measure, again for many reasons. We use our device differently with different peripherals. Some might be using Wifi4 and another Wifi6, and Wifi6 is more energy efficient.
We use different services that affect batteryperformance.
With every update usually software/app manufacturers have to test and update their software too since there might be bugfixes, new bugs introduced and//or new fetures added or features deleted.

Battery management is another piece of software that is constantly evolving and the OS plays a huge part in that too.

If you look at tests where they take bog standard phones with just the OS and apps and test battery performance you will notice that they aren't that big differences, sure there are the odd release that improve battery or drains if fast than it should, but overall its pretty similar.

But havin said that, if you look at a phone from when its released you sometimes have features that are added that can drain battery more if being used and also, sometimes security patches take a hit on performance that can affect battery life. A good example is to look at the Intel CPUs that hard a hardware issue that was "fixed" via software. But that lowered the performance of the CPU which could affect battery performance.
 
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