Battery

[ElsaDaniels0102]

It seems like the battery is being drained faster with the update. Is it just me or for everyone?

 

[MBAir2010]

my iPad is going good, not any drainage and runs 5-6 hours with iOS15.latest
do you keep your plugged in?

 

[BugeyeSTI]

Battery performance is excellent on my devices. 15.2.1

 

[antmit]

I’ve noticed a fair bit of drain over the last few weeks on mine (2020 12.9 iPad Pro), though I can’t pinpoint exactly when I first noticed it. Today when I started using it about 8.30am, it was on around 80%. I used it to browse Reddit and a few websites for a total of 45mins, before putting it down when it was on no lower than 73%. Watched a 20min video and now on 62%. I’ve just the analytics method to find the battery health, which is 99%.

Maybe I’m just used to my new laptop seeming to have never ending battery, but it does feel like there’s an unusual drain. The battery app usage doesn’t seem to show anything in particular, either. One thing I’ve done lately though is introduce a fair few widgets on the Home Screen. Has anyone else experienced issues with doing this?

 

[ab225]

Yes, on my iPhone XR it's dramatically worse, it drains about 30% faster. It barely gets through a days light use anymore

 

[Unsupported]

Since updating my iPhone 8 to iOS 15.3.1 I've seen several hours of Mail "background activity" showing in Settings-->Battery that I've never seen before.

All of my email accounts are "Inactive", checking set for manual, not Push, and even deselecting Mail in iCloud settings doesn't seem to make any difference.

I can't say yet if the battery is draining any faster, but I'm curious to know why Mail is doing something in the background. ?

 

[cynics]

There are so many variables.

While its true with version updates the device will need to work harder if more features are added. What effects that even more is Apples hardware is optimize to run its software features, this is referred to as many things but Hardware Acceleration is a standard term. If the hardware doesn't exist then those task/features need to be done by software meaning the CPU is tasked with the load, this can be very inefficient (slower, more battery usage, hotter, etc).

A good example would be decoding HEIC/HEVC on iPhone 6/7. It can do it but not as well as a device with a dedicated decoder. But that is just an obvious example, augmented reality (ARKit), HomeKit (such as iPad being used as a HomeHub), etc...

If we are talking a minor update (ex 15.3 to 15.3.1) it could just be Spotlight indexing data.

If you have a Mac use the Console program and just watch the processes iOS is running. You might see something like Spotlight indexing or Photos syncing metadata (faces). Photos can be a big one for some people because its not just syncing the photos its syncing the metadata which includes edit history (keep in mind if you edit a photo that edit gets sync'd, other devices and undo it so its can be a incredibly slow process).

Personally I have't noticed a difference in battery recently, but I have since I bought the phone (its at 82% battery health so ~18% less battery life right out of the gate on this old battery).

 

[cynics]

Since updating my iPhone 8 to iOS 15.3.1 I've seen several hours of Mail "background activity" showing in Settings-->Battery that I've never seen before.

All of my email accounts are "Inactive", checking set for manual, not Push, and even deselecting Mail in iCloud settings doesn't seem to make any difference.

I can't say yet if the battery is draining any faster, but I'm curious to know why Mail is doing something in the background. ?

You don't have an active email account at all?

Generally for an iPhone long background operation of the Mail app is because the IMAP index is being rebuilt. Makes sense after an update. This is automatic if the index mail data is missing, invalid, or corrupted. There is a possibility that deactivating and reactivating an account will cause that mail data to be reindexed, never tried it though.

The process will require caching all current mail data, downloading all your email, synchronizing the mail data, compressing and caching it (possibly removing it from the client), verifying, deleting the old cache. Meanwhile spotlight and backup will be reindexing their databases to match the new content.

Normally not a big deal but if you have 10k+ emails with gigabytes of attachments you will hours on a computer. On a mobile device running in the background trying not to negatively effect your user experience and not kill the battery in 30 mins I wouldn't be surprised if it took days, it will be on and off determined but verifiable like battery start, your usage, charging, etc...

If its not that I guess there is the possibility that the battery page is showing the mail daemon (maild) which other processes use and you can't to its operation. I find that unlikely though.

Plugging the device in a mac and running console will show you what processes its using.

 

[Unsupported]

You don't have an active email account at all?

Thanks for your response!

I have several, but only 4 + my @icloud.com account configured on my iPhone. I don't really use the iPhone for email, I do all my emailing on my MacBook Pro...

Generally for an iPhone long background operation of the Mail app is because the IMAP index is being rebuilt.

There's nothing on my iCloud account, which is the only one I have using IMAP, to index. I like to keep it empty...

Makes sense after an update. This is automatic if the index mail data is missing, invalid, or corrupted. There is a possibility that deactivating and reactivating an account will cause that mail data to be reindexed, never tried it though.

I have a feeling that all that background activity on the iPhone may have been due to me fiddling around attempting to configure SMTP for the iCloud address(es) on the Mac, which was sending from the SMTP server of my Apple ID address's domain, rather than p33-smtp.mail.me.com which it has configured itself now.

I was fiddling around following the instructions here which didn't work for me. "smtp.mail.me.com" gave me errors...

Mail's background activity on the iPhone after 24 hours, since I stopped using it, is now zero, so problem solved.

Plugging the device in a mac and running console will show you what processes its using.

That's a useful tip, thanks again! ??