iOS 14.2 Reportedly Causing Severe Battery Drain

[chucksluver84]

Yes has this issue on my 6s way back to ios 13 but since 14.2 it was even worse even though the battery was one of the $29 replacements a couple years again and has 94% battery health today. Though if I had to guess I would not be surprised if that was Apple's intention (think batterygate) to get users to upgrade to a new phone because that is what I had to do and my 11's battery last way way way longer. (but if that was the case why not just drop support for the older devices from ios 14)

 

[silentdevotion]

This impacted my wife's iphone 8 plus but not my iphone X...Hope an update is in the works.

I think the issue is mainly with older models, my 8 plus has the same issues. I thought it was just a bad widget but I'm losing 10-15% in less than a hour.

 

[trfc54]

The issue is not only for old phones though. It is affecting the newer iphone 12 models as well.

What besides the 12 is apple trying to get you to upgrade to?

 

[IPPlanMan]

Had this bug immediately after upgrading to 14.0 on my 11 Pro Max and it still happens on my 12 Pro Max through every update until the current latest 14.2.1, bloody annoying when I want a 100% charge guaranteed and not a random chance of maxing out at 80% because the toggle decided to switch back on.

Don't need to restart here either, just seems to randomly toggle on, hope this bug is on Apple's patch list as it's a pretty bad one.

Sorry to hear it's happening to you as well. I only noticed it recently. My phone would randomly give off a charge sound when I was using it while plugged in.... I thought it was an issue with the cable or the device's charge port. On a fluke, I checked the battery settings and saw "Battery Optimization" was toggled on for some reason after I disabled it. So I disabled it again.... and then it happened again where it was enabled.... so I disabled it again.... and then it happened again where it was enabled.... so I disabled it again.... and round and round we go.

I submitted a bug report on Apple's feedback page for iPhone. We'll see if they pick up on it.

Hey Tim.... Fix this. We don't need more emojis.

 

[vikingjunior]

Luckily I have until January 8th to return my iPhone 12. If the battery life doesn’t significantly improve its back to Android.

 

[Clyde Crashcup]

Users on the Apple Developer forums and Reddit are widely reporting that iOS 14.2 causes severe battery drain issues.

Symptoms of the problem include rapid battery drain and longer charge times than usual. Some users are reporting that their devices are losing over 50 percent charge in less than 30 minutes, and seeing large drops of around five percent within minutes of normal use.

The issue seems to be software-related because multiple users are experiencing battery life sticking at a high percentage before dropping, as well as seeing a sudden gain in battery life after restarting their device.

The affected iPhones all appear to be slightly older, such as the iPhone XS, iPhone 7, iPhone 6S, and first-generation iPhone SE. The 2018 iPad Pro running iPadOS 14.2 also seems to be affected.

iOS 14.2 and iPadOS 14.2 arrived just two weeks after iOS 14.1 and iPadOS 14.1, in the second major updates to the iOS and iPadOS 14 operating systems that were released in September. The update included new emojis, Intercom, AirPods Optimized Battery Charging, People Detection, and new wallpapers.

There are no new reports suggesting that the battery issue was fixed in iOS 14.2.1, which sought to address bugs with MMS messages, made for iPhone hearing devices, and a significant issue with screen responsiveness on the iPhone 12 mini.

The third developer and public betas of iOS 14.3 and iPadOS 14.3 have already been released, so it is possible that Apple may fix the problem in that update. The third major update to iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 brings support for Apple ProRAW, as well as refinements to Home, Health, and Weather.

Users with older devices may wish to hold off on updating to iOS 14.2 if they have not already done so, until the issue has been fixed by Apple.

Article Link: iOS 14.2 Reportedly Causing Severe Battery Drain

I just replaced my original battery on my 6s. The improvement in battery life was very noticeable. Then I updated to 14.2 That was a mistake. I'm back to what acts like my old battery. It was below 80% in the battery health section in settings. Let's hope apple fixes this.

 

[rgbrock1]

I am glad you are finally reporting on this. There has been a thread on your forum about people with the 12 Max Pro experiencing the same thing. Leaving my phone on my dresser over night, in DND I am losing over 20% tonight!

Find "Exposure Notification" on your phone and turn it off. See if that helps. It alleviated the battery drain big time on my 12 Pro Max.

 

[hollandog]

Affected here with the iPhone 12. 3 times so far past 2 weeks and happened randomly. Charged to full and overnight the phone was shut off due to battery drain. Another time it got warm without being used and battery was draining abnormally quick.

 

[canned_tuna_og]

My iPad Air 4, 256GB, cellular+WiFi, has severe battery drain. Documented the issue w/ Apple's online support community. We have a good-sized thread going and Apple refuses to acknowledge the problem, this even after running diagnostics and confirming users' drain at Genius Bar or over the phone. To my knowledge only one person has had their device replaced by a store manager. For example, I have to charge my device 3x/day. I use it primarily to read textbooks and occasionally surf. That shouldn't warrant excessive battery usage. My 2018 iPad 6 had a longer battery.

 

[John-Paul Hunt]

Shows self-charging battery dual charging going both ways with wireless fast data private transfers as the glass windows in the old building is water like with light wires in the 9old abandoned gas station going back into my self charging ev battery car as they are angry rich losers being denied.

 

[prontojago]

I’m wondering if it’s related to cold weather

What I mean is that it’s causing the battery readings to go crazy. All the way back to the iPhone 4s I’ve had this issue, it could be 20 degrees outside and the percentage would suddenly drop dramatically or the phone would turn off, and when I turn it back on it would jump back up.

I live on the equator lol.. hot or cold its still the same

 

[prontojago]

My OG SE is effected but my 11 pro max and iPads seem to be ok.

My OG SE is fine but my iphone 7 plus is affected... not every phone gets it, it seems

 

[MacinMan]

My OG SE is fine but my iphone 7 plus is affected... not every phone gets it, it seems

It also seems to depend on the phone configuration too. As I mentioned earlier, my drain was caused by the Google assistant app, and once I took that off the phone my battery has gone back to it's typically normal state for me. Since I'm not a heavy user, i get between 3 to 4 days before needing to charge. When I say needing to charge the battery indicator getting near the red.

 

[prontojago]

It also seems to depend on the phone configuration too. As I mentioned earlier, my drain was caused by the Google assistant app, and once I took that off the phone my battery has gone back to it's typically normal state for me. Since I'm not a heavy user, i get between 3 to 4 days before needing to charge. When I say needing to charge the battery indicator getting near the red.

Thats not an iOS problem then because that drainage will show up on the battery statistics

 

[3xBoom]

I can confirm for two original iPhone SE. Also, XR runs out of power faster than ever before (by 50-60%). Poor Apple, so many iPhones, it is impossible to do proper QC before pushing updates out.

 

[MacinMan]

Thats not an iOS problem then because that drainage will show up on the battery statistics

It did show up on the battery stats, that's how I knew what the culprit was. It was use up to 97% battery for background audio and microphone. The app wasn't open at the times either, nor was the phone awake, and I don't have background app refresh going, so Google was doing something strange. There are bug reports of the problem on android, but not so much on iOS. Either way, the problem for me has been resolved. Still waiting to install 14.3 when released though.

 

[mrr]

12 ProMax on 14.2 and no issues here.

 

[prontojago]

Could it be people were so excited by iOS 14, new features, widgets that they ignored the battery issue. Now the novelty has worn off they're noticing the battery

The thing is there was already drain issues on the iOS 13... The bug was probably was already there and its much worse on the iOS 14

 

[harriska2]

Ugh, just ordered 2 batteries for our 1st gen SEs. l’ve been updating because the battery has been an issue for the past few updates. The phones drop down under 10%, you put them on a charger and they suddenly pop up to 30 some %.

 

[Bigwaff]

It would help if Apple allowed access to lower level operating system resources so developers could build insightful system monitoring utilities. Then perhaps users could identify processes consuming system resources.

 

[Caliblood]

iPhone 6S. I was on 12.1 and updated to 14.2 OTA. I used to have to charge once during the day. Now I have to charge at least twice.

My battery was replaced during the batterygate deal. I believe they used lower quality batteries than the original. The capacity dropped so quickly with the new ones.

 

[Count Blah]

Other than offering suggestions to help fix the problem I've never seen people post and say, "I'm not having any problems so nothing can possibly be wrong with your system, you just don't know what you're doing"...

Consider yourself lucky. If I get REALLY bored during the holidays, I can provide many examples for you. It’s CONSTANT here.

 

[GuruZac]

This is strange. I’ve read through the comments and there are several 2018 iPad Pro owners suffering. I can’t directly relate as I’m running my 2018 iPad Pro on whatever the latest version of 14.3 Beta is but I’ve got no issues with overheating or battery drain and I’m quite literally using Notability, PowerPoint, and Safari 7-8 hours a day studying as a med student. I jokingly mentioned upgrading to the Beta 14.3 in a prior post above, but maybe it’s worth a shot for some who are really suffering from battery drain and heat.

 

[DakotaGuy]

My 2017 iPad Pro 10.5” definitely is suffering from the 14.2 battery drain issue. I lost 20% in the past hour just surfing the web. The battery is getting a little older, but was still doing well until this update now it drains quickly. I hope they fix it because I was hoping to get another year out of it.

 

[SloRide™]

This is strange. I’ve read through the comments and there are several 2018 iPad Pro owners suffering. I can’t directly relate as I’m running my 2018 iPad Pro on whatever the latest version of 14.3 Beta is but I’ve got no issues with overheating or battery drain and I’m quite literally using Notability, PowerPoint, and Safari 7-8 hours a day studying as a med student. I jokingly mentioned upgrading to the Beta 14.3 in a prior post above, but maybe it’s worth a shot for some who are really suffering from battery drain and heat

It is. I have no doubt people are experiencing problems, just not sure what's causing it. Having been there in the past with other devices, I know how infuriating it can be. Two of the three times for me it was caused by app software issues, but it was a bugger to figure out. The second time I ended up restarting from scratch and it was resolved. Luckily, I'm running 14.2 on 3 of my iDevices and no issues. If I ended up having these issues again, I'd erase the device and start from scratch (set up as new). A lot of work, but that's always how I set up my new devices.