iOS 12 is eating my battery!!!

[Hal~9000]

Never in the history of iOS has there been a single update that actually improved the battery life of older devices. If anything the overwhelming majority of updates have made battery life worse.

Why anyone would suddenly expect something different when updating to iOS 12 is beyond me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[myrtlebee]

Never in the history of iOS has there been a single update that actually improved the battery life of older devices. If anything the overwhelming majority of updates have made battery life worse.

Why anyone would suddenly expect something different when updating to iOS 12 is beyond me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Because Apple promised iOS 12 would be an improvement for older devices and because usually the hit to battery life isn’t this great.

 

[Hal~9000]

Because Apple promised iOS 12 would be an improvement for older devices and because usually the hit to battery life isn’t this great.

“Improvement” though could mean any number of things when talking like a slimy salesperson / politician the way Apple does during their keynote events.

Could it mean slightly faster speed? Or less crashing? Or better security? Hmmmm?

But most importantly... did Apple say anything in regards to iOS 12 improving battery life? I don’t think so.

Anyone updating to iOS 12 should have already known that Apple will NEVER put out an iOS update that increases battery life on older models. They never have and never will. It just doesn’t fit their business model. They write software for the newest devices. If the newest software with all its new code has a detrimental affect on older models speed or battery life? So be it. If anything they probably hope it does, ala planned obsolescence, albeit ever so subtly so as not to cause public outcry like the recent throttling scandal did.

 

[myrtlebee]

“Improvement” though could mean any number of things when talking like a slimy salesperson / politician the way Apple does during their keynote events.

Could it mean slightly faster speed? Or less crashing? Or better security? Hmmmm?

But most importantly... did Apple say anything in regards to iOS 12 improving battery life? I don’t think so.

Anyone updating to iOS 12 should have already known that Apple will NEVER put out an iOS update that increases battery life on older models. They never have and never will. It just doesn’t fit their business model. They write software for the newest devices. If the newest software with all its new code has a detrimental affect on older models speed or battery life? So be it. If anything they probably hope it does, ala planned obsolescence, albeit ever so subtly so as not to cause public outcry like the recent throttling scandal did.

Probably true, but iOS 11 ran perfectly well with excellent battery life on my SE and it was far from the original OS that shipped with the SE when it was released, so I figured it wouldn’t be much of an issue... but of course that assumption was wrong.

 

[Hal~9000]

Probably true, but iOS 11 ran perfectly well with excellent battery life on my SE and it was far from the original OS that shipped with the SE when it was released, so I figured it wouldn’t be much of an issue... but of course that assumption was wrong.

Yeah, it kind of sucks. I totally understand though thinking that iOS 12 would perform better than all aspects of iOS 11 after all they hyped it up.

I remember there were a lot of people on the forum with SE’s who hated the battery life drop going from 10.3.3 to iOS 11. Eventually 11.4.1 was decent near the end (which I am currently keeping all my devices on) but the feeling I got was that it still unfortunately was a drop in battery life from 10.3.3. Same went for SE users on iOS 9 that updated to 10 and saw a similar battery life decrease.

I actually hate the fact that Apple doesn’t allow people to downgrade their iOS devices the same way they can with MacBooks. I also hate that they bundle their security updates into iOS updates so that you have to nerf your older generation device with a major update just to have the latest security.

Oh well, enough whining by me 😛

My main point is simply to always expect that any iOS update will decrease your battery life, no matter what snake oil Apple tries to sell it with like they did with iOS 12 😉

 

[FeliApple]

Yeah, it kind of sucks. I totally understand though thinking that iOS 12 would perform better than all aspects of iOS 11 after all they hyped it up.

I remember there were a lot of people on the forum with SE’s who hated the battery life drop going from 10.3.3 to iOS 11. Eventually 11.4.1 was decent near the end (which I am currently keeping all my devices on) but the feeling I got was that it still unfortunately was a drop in battery life from 10.3.3. Same went for SE users on iOS 9 that updated to 10 and saw a similar battery life decrease.

I actually hate the fact that Apple doesn’t allow people to downgrade their iOS devices the same way they can with MacBooks. I also hate that they bundle their security updates into iOS updates so that you have to nerf your older generation device with a major update just to have the latest security.

Oh well, enough whining by me 😛

My main point is simply to always expect that any iOS update will decrease your battery life, no matter what snake oil Apple tries to sell it with like they did with iOS 12 😉

One thing is incredibly rare. I don't mean to disrespect anyone. I don't mean to insult anyone. But complaints about updates are ubiquitous. I can't understand why people continue to update. They complain, but then they go ahead and update again. They buy a new device because the old one is "too slow". What do they do with the new device? Yes, why, they update it again. Oh well, what did you expect? You know how it is. It's awful. But it is what it is. Not a single shred of evidence suggests that updates are positive. Well, if you want to keep updating, then do so, but don't act surprised.
It's not forum members only. A friend had a perfectly working 6+ on iOS 9. I told him: "Do not update. It will ruin your battery life and performance will be awful. The 6+ doesn't have nearly enough power and RAM for that screen size.".
He updated... And then told me "I have no idea what's going on. This phone is too slow. Battery life is far worse". Performance was awful, but let me explain on battery life: he was getting far less battery life than my standard 6s on iOS 9. Yes. On a plus. The biggest advantage of the plus is its battery life. And he ruined it. It wasn't "bad" by a regular iPhone's standard - maybe it was on the low-end of a regular - but it was absolutely atrocious for a plus model.
I told him: "Oh, I'm sorry to tell you this, but what did you expect? I told you exactly this would happen".

 

[decafjava]

One thing is incredibly rare. I don't mean to disrespect anyone. I don't mean to insult anyone. But complaints about updates are ubiquitous. I can't understand why people continue to update. They complain, but then they go ahead and update again. They buy a new device because the old one is "too slow". What do they do with the new device? Yes, why, they update it again. Oh well, what did you expect? You know how it is. It's awful. But it is what it is. Not a single shred of evidence suggests that updates are positive. Well, if you want to keep updating, then do so, but don't act surprised.
It's not forum members only. A friend had a perfectly working 6+ on iOS 9. I told him: "Do not update. It will ruin your battery life and performance will be awful. The 6+ doesn't have nearly enough power and RAM for that screen size.".
He updated... And then told me "I have no idea what's going on. This phone is too slow. Battery life is far worse". Performance was awful, but let me explain on battery life: he was getting far less battery life than my standard 6s on iOS 9. Yes. On a plus. The biggest advantage of the plus is its battery life. And he ruined it. It wasn't "bad" by a regular iPhone's standard - maybe it was on the low-end of a regular - but it was absolutely atrocious for a plus model.
I told him: "Oh, I'm sorry to tell you this, but what did you expect? I told you exactly this would happen".

Well, it works for me.🙄

 

[FeliApple]

Well, it works for me.🙄

Do you upgrade every year? If you do, then naturally, it can't affect you.
If you don't, wait. It'll affect you soon, unfortunately.

 

[myrtlebee]

One thing is incredibly rare. I don't mean to disrespect anyone. I don't mean to insult anyone. But complaints about updates are ubiquitous. I can't understand why people continue to update. They complain, but then they go ahead and update again. They buy a new device because the old one is "too slow". What do they do with the new device? Yes, why, they update it again. Oh well, what did you expect? You know how it is. It's awful. But it is what it is. Not a single shred of evidence suggests that updates are positive. Well, if you want to keep updating, then do so, but don't act surprised.
It's not forum members only. A friend had a perfectly working 6+ on iOS 9. I told him: "Do not update. It will ruin your battery life and performance will be awful. The 6+ doesn't have nearly enough power and RAM for that screen size.".
He updated... And then told me "I have no idea what's going on. This phone is too slow. Battery life is far worse". Performance was awful, but let me explain on battery life: he was getting far less battery life than my standard 6s on iOS 9. Yes. On a plus. The biggest advantage of the plus is its battery life. And he ruined it. It wasn't "bad" by a regular iPhone's standard - maybe it was on the low-end of a regular - but it was absolutely atrocious for a plus model.
I told him: "Oh, I'm sorry to tell you this, but what did you expect? I told you exactly this would happen".

I can’t speak for everyone, but I update for security updates. Seeing as I do my banking and have other sensitive information on my phone, I’d rather not take the risk however small. I lived with a 5C on iOS 10 when 11 was out, and although people assured me it would be fine, I still worried that something could happen. I guess that’s Apple’s plan is to scare people into updating instead of releasing security updates separately.

 

[FeliApple]

I can’t speak for everyone, but I update for security updates. Seeing as I do my banking and have other sensitive information on my phone, I’d rather not take the risk however small. I lived with a 5C on iOS 10 when 11 was out, and although people assured me it would be fine, I still worried that something could happen. I guess that’s Apple’s plan is to scare people into updating instead of releasing security updates separately.

There hasn't been any massive in-the-wild infection on iOS. I'm not destroying my device's performance, and most importantly, battery life, over perceived threats. I would still advise you not to update.

 

[Knight3]

The Genius Bar replaced my 10 month old SE due to rapid battery depletion and shutdowns after installing iOS 12. Genius Bar diagnostics noted lots of spikes too.

They wanted to charge me for the battery and sent me away with a restore. I answered the survey next day about my experience which finally got their attention. The guy rechecked the diagnostics over the phone and offered to replace the battery for free cause of the unusual spikes.
I know someone else who was having a similar issue that has been resolved after having the battery replaced. So it’s got to be iOS update that for some unknown reason messed up the battery.

 

[deep1]

As mentioned by someone earlier in this thread and mentioned by me on other battery thread long ago, I did the experiment again.
Whatsapp was draining battery very fast for me, so I went to check and found that privacy-contacts was turned on for me, I switched that off long time back as it cause lots of background usage ( prob checking new contacts every min or so) but background usage was always higher than actual usage.

so I turned it back off again and last 2 days I can not kill the battery at all, iPhone X was struggling to last full day and had to charge twice, now I have more than 50% left at end of the day, in addition to that I let drain the battery completely and charge it full.

 

[aakshey]

As mentioned by someone earlier in this thread and mentioned by me on other battery thread long ago, I did the experiment again.
Watsapp was draining battery very fast for me, so I went to check and found that privacy-contacts was turned on for me, I switched that off long time back as it cause lots of background usage ( prob checking new contacts every min or so) but background usage was always higher than actual usage.

so I turned it back off again and last 2 days I can not kill the battery at all, iPhone X was struggling to last full day and had to charge twice, now I have more than 50% left at end of the day, in addition to that I let drain the battery completely and charge it full.

What’s the point of using WhatsApp without syncing with your contacts?

 

[deep1]

What’s the point of using WhatsApp without syncing with your contacts?

You don't need your contacts to sync all time, it is not like you add new contact every min or so.
the chats you have already created will have no impact on this setting, only issue you might have it when you add new contact and want to chat, then you need to switch on the setting to sync with Whatsapp.

Small trade-off for some and me.

 

[Rhino1]

I have most certainly learnt my lesson and will never upgrade the software again. My spare SE on 9.3.5 now seems like gold compared to my daily SE running 12. I’m going to the apple store today to see what they can do. I’ve lost 40% in 4 hours with very casual usage..

 

[badatusernames]

I was also getting really bad battery life on iOS 12 with my iPhone 7. I restored it as new and now it's all good.

 

[poktangju]

do you think apple will try to fix this? seems like most ppl with the worst of the battery drain are the se and 6s users?? maybe the software and the processor don't work well together?? i think the 6s and se have the same processor. might pull the trigger on the ip8 or the xr...but just love the size of the se...

 

[Rhino1]

do you think apple will try to fix this? seems like most ppl with the worst of the battery drain are the se and 6s users?? maybe the software and the processor don't work well together?? i think the 6s and se have the same processor. might pull the trigger on the ip8 or the xr...but just love the size of the se...

Even if they don’t fix it via software they should at the very least give us some sort of real world usage numbers i.e. a days worth of battery even if that’s only obtainable by giving us new batteries to mitigate the problem temporarily until we upgrade our phones. Yep, the SE and 6s are the same processor. The SE is such a perfect size that’s the problem 🙁

 

[Rhino1]

Even if they don’t fix it via software they should at the very least give us some sort of real world usage numbers i.e. a days worth of battery even if that’s only obtainable by giving us new batteries to mitigate the problem temporarily until we upgrade our phones. Yep, the SE and 6s are the same processor. The SE is such a perfect size that’s the problem 🙁

So I went to the apple store and I quote...: “after running all tests your battery is running fine and at perfect capacity - the issue is restoring from previous versions. Do a full restore and set up the phone as new and install applications individually again. You’ve probably carried errors from your previous 9 version. If you wish to pay for a battery replacement we can do it for you however my advice is to setup as new”. Brilliant advice mate.

He also said “iOS 12 is the best version yet and battery drain issues are normally due to copying old apps and errors” er then don’t give us the restore from backup option in iTunes without a disclaimer explaining this. Get your record straight.

Anyway i’ll Try a full restore and setup as new tonight. What a waste of time this is probably going to be.

 

[poktangju]

So I went to the apple store and I quote...: “after running all tests your battery is running fine and at perfect capacity - the issue is restoring from previous versions. Do a full restore and set up the phone as new and install applications individually again. You’ve probably carried errors from your previous 9 version. If you wish to pay for a battery replacement we can do it for you however my advice is to setup as new”. Brilliant advice mate.

He also said “iOS 12 is the best version yet and battery drain issues are normally due to copying old apps and errors” er then don’t give us the restore from backup option in iTunes without a disclaimer explaining this. Get your record straight.

Anyway i’ll Try a full restore and setup as new tonight. What a waste of time this is probably going to be.

thanks pls keep us posted...hope this works...

 

[nox5]

So I went to the apple store and I quote...: “after running all tests your battery is running fine and at perfect capacity - the issue is restoring from previous versions. Do a full restore and set up the phone as new and install applications individually again. You’ve probably carried errors from your previous 9 version. If you wish to pay for a battery replacement we can do it for you however my advice is to setup as new”. Brilliant advice mate.

He also said “iOS 12 is the best version yet and battery drain issues are normally due to copying old apps and errors” er then don’t give us the restore from backup option in iTunes without a disclaimer explaining this. Get your record straight.

Anyway i’ll Try a full restore and setup as new tonight. What a waste of time this is probably going to be.

I’ll try it too

 

[Rhino1]

As suspected that was a complete waste of time. I literally set the phone up from scratch and migrated nothing but my contacts using iCloud. I didn't migrate over ANY other settings and ran the phone overnight side-by-side with 9.3.5 and ran identical applications and made identical phone call lengths. Every setting is identical. The drain is almost identical as before with 1.33% on iOS 12 for every 1% on iOS 9.3.5.

This leaves me with one last option to try which is to change the battery and see if that helps but in all honesty it seems like £25.00 in the bin if one was to do it. The battery wear is 99% on iOS 12 SE whilst the 9.3.5 SE device is 96% so I'm actually better of changing my 9.3.5 battery and getting even more battery life!

Well there you have it folks - an iPhone SE running iOS 12 DOES use more battery then 9.3.5.

Now it's a question of do you want to lose some battery for the benefits of iOS 12 or do you prefer more battery life at the loss of a few additional features and believe me they are just a few. I've used iOS 12 for a few weeks now and the only main benefit I find is all apps optimised for it actually do start and run faster. The other benefit is the ability to customize a few more features then 9.3.5. Screen time, SOS and the other few things are meaningless to me.

p.s. For all techs who want the details.

Both phones were running on the same mobile network and running on the same wifi network and calls were made to the same number for the same length of time. The same iTunes account was used. The charger used was the same and the apps used were the latest for the iOS used.

 

[bearda]

I’m still trying to sort out why my iPhone 8’s idle battery life has gone to pot. It seemed to have start around the time I installed iOS 12, the day after it was released.

The screenshot shows that I don’t use my phone all that much, but the drain seems to be fairly consistent if I have something on the screen or not. Last night the battery went from around 65% to less than 20% with no screen on time. It was in an area with excellent WiFi coverage and fine cellular coverage.

Does anyone have any ideas at what else I should be looking at in order to diagnose this idle drain? It seems like the list of apps below only lists battery drain for when the phone is screen on or active with the screen off, which takes up a very small portion of my day.

 

[CheesePuff]

Anyone updating to iOS 12 should have already known that Apple will NEVER put out an iOS update that increases battery life on older models. They never have and never will. It just doesn’t fit their business model. They write software for the newest devices. If the newest software with all its new code has a detrimental affect on older models speed or battery life? So be it. If anything they probably hope it does, ala planned obsolescence, albeit ever so subtly so as not to cause public outcry like the recent throttling scandal did.

Well you're wrong there. iOS 9 was announced and advertised as improving battery life, Apple's words in their release notes:

• Up to one hour of additional time before the battery needs to be charged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_9

 

[deep1]

As suspected that was a complete waste of time. I literally set the phone up from scratch and migrated nothing but my contacts using iCloud. I didn't migrate over ANY other settings and ran the phone overnight side-by-side with 9.3.5 and ran identical applications and made identical phone call lengths. Every setting is identical. The drain is almost identical as before with 1.33% on iOS 12 for every 1% on iOS 9.3.5.

This leaves me with one last option to try which is to change the battery and see if that helps but in all honesty it seems like £25.00 in the bin if one was to do it. The battery wear is 99% on iOS 12 SE whilst the 9.3.5 SE device is 96% so I'm actually better of changing my 9.3.5 battery and getting even more battery life!

Well there you have it folks - an iPhone SE running iOS 12 DOES use more battery then 9.3.5.

Now it's a question of do you want to lose some battery for the benefits of iOS 12 or do you prefer more battery life at the loss of a few additional features and believe me they are just a few. I've used iOS 12 for a few weeks now and the only main benefit I find is all apps optimised for it actually do start and run faster. The other benefit is the ability to customize a few more features then 9.3.5. Screen time, SOS and the other few things are meaningless to me.

p.s. For all techs who want the details.

Both phones were running on the same mobile network and running on the same wifi network and calls were made to the same number for the same length of time. The same iTunes account was used. The charger used was the same and the apps used were the latest for the iOS used.

Thanks for that and it is helpful for people who always jump on clean install, any chance you do similar test with screen time off on iOS 12 and see if that improves the battery.