iPhone 13 mini Battery life doubled/no ATV ads

[cobra521]

Day before yesterday I noticed an intrusive ad from Apple TV+ on the home screen of my iPhone 13 mini. Disgusted that Apple would put an ad on my home screen, I deleted the item - I think they call it a widget or some such - anyway, it's gone.

After the deletion my phone's battery seems to last almost twice as long! Could this intrusion by Apple have caused that much battery drain?

Tom

 

[throAU]

Not sure what you saw, there's a TV+ app, but i've never seen an ad on the home screen. Then again i'm a premier subscriber for years so maybe i just didn't get targeted?

 

[StumpyBloke]

They won’t have put an ad on your home screen. You may have had some kind of smart stack widget which includes Apple TV, but they most certainly will not have “infiltrated” your phone to do so.

 

[cobra521]

Stumpy,

"smart stack widget which includes Apple TV"

You're probably right. Not sure of the terminology but it did appear on my home screen unbidden. Battery life increased markedly when I deleted it. It seemed to appear after an update from Apple.

Tom

 

[StumpyBloke]

Yep, wouldn’t surprise me.

You’re not the only one that’s mentioned widgets seemingly causing battery issues.

I don’t know why Apple have bothered with widgets, they are barely useful, hardly interactive and nothing on what android can do. Just another typical half-arsed implementation by Apple. (All IMO obviously)

 

[throAU]

You're probably right. Not sure of the terminology but it did appear on my home screen unbidden. Battery life increased markedly when I deleted it. It seemed to appear after an update from Apple.

It could also be that post-update your iphone was shuffling/reindexing data and burning through battery for a while, and deleting the TV+ app was nothing to do with it (the indexing just finished). But if you don't use it, no problem.

 

[cobra521]

thro,

Battery life increase could have been caused by anything; coincidence is an OK explanation too. I'm not going to put it back to test that theory, though LOL

Battery life at the moment is better than it has been for about four months - since I got this phone new.

Tom

 

[throAU]

thro,

Battery life increase could have been caused by anything; coincidence is an OK explanation too. I'm not going to put it back to test that theory, though LOL

Battery life at the moment is better than it has been for about four months - since I got this phone new.

Tom

totally. I've seen battery life go up and down from update to update; same phone. about 12 months ago one update was particularly bad, if i recall GPS was somehow busted and caused massive battery drain for me in addition to maps/waze not working properly in carplay. Phone was getting super hot too at the time.

It happens.

 

[rocketbuc]

thro,

Battery life increase could have been caused by anything; coincidence is an OK explanation too. I'm not going to put it back to test that theory, though LOL

Battery life at the moment is better than it has been for about four months - since I got this phone new.

Tom

Which iOS are you currently running?

 

[eilavid]

strange you say this. i deleted the apple tv and podcast app too last week and i noticed the stand by drain has improved. 12 pro max / ios 17.2

 

[cobra521]

rocket,

My iPhone 13 mini is currently using iOS 17.2.1

I usually update within a week of the release of the new version. I guess I'm too much of an optimist?

Tom

 

[Apple_Robert]

A good idea is to see background app refresh turned off for all apps, which helps to lessen / prevent problems like this.

 

[eyoungren]

I don’t know why Apple have bothered with widgets, they are barely useful, hardly interactive and nothing on what android can do. Just another typical half-arsed implementation by Apple. (All IMO obviously)

Widgets were actually introduced with iOS 6. At the time jailbreaking allowed placing widgets with transparent backgrounds on both the homescreen and lockscreen. Much like they are now, just with transparent backgrounds. The backgrounds are actually PNG files, just need to clear the pixel data out and resave.

Anyway, because of jailbreaking you could have a control center before Apple ever introduced it. So that was useful. I would very much like to see the old Yahoo weather widget with a transparent background back on my home and lockscreen again.



Now it's different and I guess app makers haven't figured out how to offer useful (enough) widgets.

 

[winxmac]

I wish I can downgrade my iPhone back to iOS 13.x where widgets on the home screen were not a thing... I always remove/delete widgets and keep only icons on the home screen...

I really wanted to use the iPhone 13 mini with the 2340 x 1080 which for me is 2nd best to 1920 x 1080, and physical body close enough to iPhone 5/5c/5s/SE 2016 but I really wanted a bigger battery so I went with 11 Pro Max and 14 Pro Max...

Background app refresh is enabled only on Wi-Fi but it is off on all installed apps...

 

[russell_314]

I wish I can downgrade my iPhone back to iOS 13.x where widgets on the home screen were not a thing...

Just don’t use them? I’m not aware of any apps requiring a widget but maybe some exist.

I personally love them, especially ones for banking apps where I can see information at a glance without opening the app.

 

[rocketbuc]

rocket,

My iPhone 13 mini is currently using iOS 17.2.1

I usually update within a week of the release of the new version. I guess I'm too much of an optimist?

Tom

Mine is still on iOS 15 and everything is working fine. Not sure if I should upgrade or not - do not want my battery life to take a big hit for basically no re reason. Can’t really make up my mind…

 

[russell_314]

Mine is still on iOS 15 and everything is working fine. Not sure if I should upgrade or not - do not want my battery life to take a big hit for basically no re reason. Can’t really make up my mind…

Everything is fine on 17. If you don’t have any data on it then not a big issue but running an outdated OS with a bunch of personal and financial information on it is asking for pain

 

[Reggaenald]

Yep, wouldn’t surprise me.

You’re not the only one that’s mentioned widgets seemingly causing battery issues.

I don’t know why Apple have bothered with widgets, they are barely useful, hardly interactive and nothing on what android can do. Just another typical half-arsed implementation by Apple. (All IMO obviously)

Support for interactive widgets has luckily finally returned and third party widgets offer a lot of functionality and information density compared to Apples own widgets. I appreciate them a lot and widgets along Dark Mode are two things I wouldn’t want missing ever again.