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Does switching off iCloud backup really help battery life?

I'm bringing this thread back from the dead. I'm convinced having iCloud backup enabled decreases battery life. While iCloud backup was down for the last week, I was easily getting 10 hours of usage on my 6s. Now that it's turned on and doing its thing. I'm getting roughly 8 hours. My usage has not changed. And my battery health is still exactly the same. No way it's a placebo.

With iCloud backup off and no open apps. My phone is discharging at 117mAh. With iCloud backup on and no open apps. My phone is discharging at 189mAh. Bluetooth on, wifi on, cellular off. Discharge is 40% higher just having iCloud backup enabled.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
I'm bringing this thread back from the dead. I'm convinced having iCloud backup enabled decreases battery life. While iCloud backup was down for the last week, I was easily getting 10 hours of usage on my 6s. Now that it's turned on and doing its thing. I'm getting roughly 8 hours. My usage has not changed. And my battery health is still exactly the same. No way it's a placebo.

With iCloud backup off and no open apps. My phone is discharging at 117mAh. With iCloud backup on and no open apps. My phone is discharging at 189mAh. Bluetooth on, wifi on, cellular off. Discharge is 40% higher just having iCloud backup enabled.
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This is interesting. I thought it only did backup when the phone was plugged in with screen off (as it says so in settings). Have you turned off iCloud Drive as well as Backup and everything iCloud related to achieve this or just Backup off?
 
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The fact that the phone only does backup when connected to external power would not prevent it from checking files for changes since the last backup and building a file list for the next backup while battery powered.
 
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adamhenry said:
The fact that the phone only does backup when connected to external power would not prevent it from checking files for changes since the last backup and building a file list for the next backup while battery powered.
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That makes sense! Thanks for the explanation.
 
Just like everything else I can see we will argue over this too. I truly can not see how the cloud backup would affect battery life but if you think it does, turn it off. I use the auto cloud backups but also backup once or twice a month via iTunes just to make sure.
 
You are not talking about iCloud backup (which only works when plugged in), but about iCloud syncing your stuff like mails, calendars and contacts. In the later case, of course it would impact on your battery life to disable it. But then everything is local and you have to manually sync it. I think it's not worth it.
 
dmnc said:
You are not talking about iCloud backup (which only works when plugged in), but about iCloud syncing your stuff like mails, calendars and contacts. In the later case, of course it would impact on your battery life to disable it. But then everything is local and you have to manually sync it. I think it's not worth it.
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It seems that most of the discussion is in fact about the backup in particular and not iCloud in general.
 
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adamhenry said:
The fact that the phone only does backup when connected to external power would not prevent it from checking files for changes since the last backup and building a file list for the next backup while battery powered.
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I believe this is the case. Just because its not doing the actual backup, doesn't mean iCloud backup isn't working in the background to prepare for the next backup.

dmnc said:
You are not talking about iCloud backup (which only works when plugged in), but about iCloud syncing your stuff like mails, calendars and contacts. In the later case, of course it would impact on your battery life to disable it. But then everything is local and you have to manually sync it. I think it's not worth it.
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But if you read my original post, stating that the only difference is iCloud backup On vs off, and there is extra battery drain. The other iCloud services have been enabled and held at a constant the entire time. The only difference over the last 1-2 weeks was that iCloud backup was disabled because of the server issue and me not being able to enable it. Since enabling it, my battery life has decreased. Then I started watching the mAh output, and it turns out, that the phone idling with iCloud backup enabled uses more battery than with it disabled.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
I believe this is the case. Just because its not doing the actual backup, doesn't mean iCloud backup isn't working in the background to prepare for the next backup.



But if you read my original post, stating that the only difference is iCloud backup On vs off, and there is extra battery drain. The other iCloud services have been enabled and held at a constant the entire time. The only difference over the last 1-2 weeks was that iCloud backup was disabled because of the server issue and me not being able to enable it. Since enabling it, my battery life has decreased. Then I started watching the mAh output, and it turns out, that the phone idling with iCloud backup enabled uses more battery than with it disabled.
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I don't think that's possible. But maybe you are right, and the iCloud backup is doing something that is not uploading but preparing the backups? I don't know why would do that, but it's a possibility.

Do you think it's significant? I don't see any difference at all.
 
dmnc said:
I don't think that's possible. But maybe you are right, and the iCloud backup is doing something that is not uploading but preparing the backups? I don't know why would do that, but it's a possibility.

Do you think it's significant? I don't see any difference at all.
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I'm seeing a loss of 2 hours a day on battery life overall. Like I said, without iCloud backup on, idle phone with everything closed its discharging at 117mAh. With iCloud backup on, its discharging at 189mAh. Bluetooth on, WiFi on, cellular off, all apps closed. Screen brightness all the way to minimum. So its discharging at 73mAh faster. I've rebooted the device as well and I am getting very similar results. Everything is held at a constant but iCloud backup.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
I'm seeing a loss of 2 hours a day on battery life overall. Like I said, without iCloud backup on, idle phone with everything closed its discharging at 117mAh. With iCloud backup on, its discharging at 189mAh. Bluetooth on, WiFi on, cellular off, all apps closed. Screen brightness all the way to minimum. So its discharging at 73mAh faster. I've rebooted the device as well and I am getting very similar results. Everything is held at a constant but iCloud backup.
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What iOS version? I had problems with iCloud backup in 9.2.1 and 9.3 beta 1. My problems seem solved in 9.3 beta 2. Maybe you should try that, and run your tests again. It's not like final versions are very different from betas these days.
 
dmnc said:
What iOS version? I had problems with iCloud backup in 9.2.1 and 9.3 beta 1. My problems seem solved in 9.3 beta 2. Maybe you should try that, and run your tests again. It's not like final versions are very different from betas these days.
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I'm on 9.2.1 Final. The only reason why I noticed this was when iCloud backup last week was completely dead, I had to keep it off, because it would not even enable. Since being fixed a couple of days ago, I have had it enabled. I've noticed that huge battery drop, almost 2 hours of usage a day, and then I started running tests.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
I'm on 9.2.1 Final. The only reason why I noticed this was when iCloud backup last week was completely dead, I had to keep it off, because it would not even enable. Since being fixed a couple of days ago, I have had it enabled. I've noticed that huge battery drop, almost 2 hours of usage a day, and then I started running tests.
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I can tell you that I started having problems with 9.2.1 final and for me the service never came back. Not just not being able to activate it, but a lot of weird issues. For that reason I updated to 9.3 beta 1, and didn't help. But in 9.3 beta 2 it works again.
As I said before, I don't see more issues in these betas than in the final versions, so you should try that, otherwise I would recommend you to disable iCloud backup until 9.3 final.
 
thatoneguy82 said:
Plus, I don't really plan on restoring from iCloud, so it remains off.
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I don't plan on it either. It's an emergency backup. If I haven't backed up my phone to my computer in a while and I lose my phone or someone steals it, I can restore my new phone from an iCloud backup and don't risk losing any data.
 
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dmnc said:
I can tell you that I started having problems with 9.2.1 final and for me the service never came back. Not just not being able to activate it, but a lot of weird issues. For that reason I updated to 9.3 beta 1, and didn't help. But in 9.3 beta 2 it works again.
As I said before, I don't see more issues in these betas than in the final versions, so you should try that, otherwise I would recommend you to disable iCloud backup until 9.3 final.
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See I don't know if it's a bug or by design. I've always have kept backup on so I wouldn't even be able to make a comparison until these last 2 weeks.

Disabled iCloud backup last night. I'm already at 2 hours of usage and 8 hours of stand by and I'm at 96% battery remaining. Same usage that I do every day. Only difference is iCloud backup. I'm convinced there is something going on with iCloud backup.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
See I don't know if it's a bug or by design. I've always have kept backup on so I wouldn't even be able to make a comparison until these last 2 weeks.

Disabled iCloud backup last night. I'm already at 2 hours of usage and 8 hours of stand by and I'm at 96% battery remaining. Same usage that I do every day. Only difference is iCloud backup. I'm convinced there is something going on with iCloud backup.
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I believe is some kind of buggy behavior, because I'm monitoring my battery life very closely and would have noticed the difference you're talking about. The only way to know would be to try.
 
dmnc said:
I believe is some kind of buggy behavior, because I'm monitoring my battery life very closely and would have noticed the difference you're talking about. The only way to know would be to try.
Click to expand...

I reported the bug to Apple. I have been able to reproduce the battery drain on my iPad Air 2 as well. Going to attempt my girlfriend's iPhone 6s next.
 
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