iOS 14.2 Reportedly Causing Severe Battery Drain

[fleetfoot15]

I'm seeing some improvement on my iPhone SE2 with 14.3. I've had my phone running with bluetooth on for 9 hours today and my battery is currently at 69%. That's decent.

With 14.2, I would have been around 80% battery if bluetooth was totally off and around 55% if bluetooth was on. So seems like they improved bluetooth efficiency by about 1.5% battery per hour, which comes out to ~1.5whr of consumption over a 16 hour day. iPhone SE2 has a 6whr battery for reference.

 

[mkldev]

iPhone 6s will not support ios 15.

I hope you're wrong. There's certainly no plausible technical reason to drop support for the 6s. It is more than fast enough CPU-wise to handle any new feature that they could plausibly want to add, and dropping it wouldn't save any effort at all from a developer perspective (same screen size and resolution as the 7, same instruction set, etc.). So if they do drop support for the 6s, it's just a money grab, and it will mostly fail.

The problem is, most people who still use a 6s are holding onto it because of wired headphones, and the current Apple offerings are way weaker than Android for people who care about it, so cutting support for the 6s is likely to just cause most of those remaining users to walk away from the platform permanently.

I said I would upgrade my phone to a new iPhone when Apple moved to USB-C so I could use the same wired headphones with it and my Mac. If they drop support for the 6s before that happens, I guess I'll no choice but to move to Android after 14 years on iOS. So I really hope you're wrong.

 

[C DM]

I hope you're wrong. There's certainly no plausible technical reason to drop support for the 6s. It is more than fast enough CPU-wise to handle any new feature that they could plausibly want to add, and dropping it wouldn't save any effort at all from a developer perspective (same screen size and resolution as the 7, same instruction set, etc.). So if they do drop support for the 6s, it's just a money grab, and it will mostly fail.

The problem is, most people who still use a 6s are holding onto it because of wired headphones, and the current Apple offerings are way weaker than Android for people who care about it, so cutting support for the 6s is likely to just cause most of those remaining users to walk away from the platform permanently.

I said I would upgrade my phone to a new iPhone when Apple moved to USB-C so I could use the same wired headphones with it and my Mac. If they drop support for the 6s before that happens, I guess I'll no choice but to move to Android after 14 years on iOS. So I really hope you're wrong.

Rumor Claims iOS 15 to Drop Support for iPhone 6s and Original iPhone SE

Apple will drop support for the iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus in next year's release of iOS 15, according to a rumor shared today by...

www.macrumors.com

 

[elvineet]

14.3 doesnt have seem to changed anything on my end either. Maybe it's even a little worse.

This is with 100% Batter Health.

My iPhone 7's battery is experiencing dysentery on iOS 14.3 like it's 1676.

 

[rjjacobson]

14.3 doesnt have seem to changed anything on my end either. Maybe it's even a little worse.

Yeah the drain this week after 14.3 seems a bit more. I turned off my iPad 12.9 pro magic keyboard backlights and got a major improvement on 14.2. Went from 14 percent hour to 8-9 percent. Now with 14.3 so far looks to be 10-11 percent decline per hour so has not improved it for my iPad. But on my iPhone 12 Pro Max it as been good with all 14.x iOS better than my old 11 pro max.

 

[trfc54]

It seems that 5g/lte are the main contributors to the drain. I have stayed just on wifi for the whole day, and im getting close to 25% drain for over 2 hours 15 mins of usage total usage, 1 hour and 50 mins maybe for screen on time.

For an iphone 12 mini, that comes out to 8+ ish hours of usage for a full charge, which would be pretty good.

 

[vojo77]

14.3 drains battery too fast for me. With my normal usage since february I have never finished a day below 40, sometimes even 50%. Now 3rd day in row, I am getting a notification at 20% for low battery.

At workdays, I am mostly on lte so I have almost same usage through week. This is disaster...

 

[dj1891]

Funny I noticed this LTE drain right back on 14.0, at weekends when at home on WiFi battery was normal, at work when I am on LTE battery would barely make it through the day.

 

[vojo77]

Yeah me too. Since 14.0 LTE drain is present. On wifi 0 problems, battery is absolutely great!

 

[trfc54]

Funny I noticed this LTE drain right back on 14.0, at weekends when at home on WiFi battery was normal, at work when I am on LTE battery would barely make it through the day.

Yeah me too. Since 14.0 LTE drain is present. On wifi 0 problems, battery is absolutely great!

I wonder if it's related to the signal strength. At work and home, for instance on 5g/lte, I usually only have 1-2 bars (on T-mobile). I wonder if I go somewhere with 4 bar signal strength if I'll observe the same thing.

 

[vojo77]

I have a good signal at work, so no. Same place, same phone, same network. It was good when I bought the phone, 13.2, 13.4 and maybe 13.7. After that battery drain is noticable.

 

[Groid]

I posted earlier in this thread about sending directly to Apple for battery replacement of my 7+ at end of September. That replacement went to 87% capacity and was shutting at 20% after only 60 days. Battery setting said it needed servicing. I sent it back in (after a few rounds on the phone getting them to honor the 90 day warranty) and just got it back yesterday.

Paperwork of return says this time they replaced the battery, SVC display, and rear camera. Not sure why on those...but they didn’t charge me.

Still seems to drain rather quickly...but will see how it goes after a couple days since the reinstall.

 

[JoeShades]

Charged 7+ 11:30 last night, did not use it overnight and it was down to 6% this morning, battery health is 83%, what is going on

 

[golfnut1982]

IOS 14.3 is a battery sucker. Thanks Apple. I've seen the screenshots of battery use that look like the 90 meter ski jump that Eddie the Eagle used in the Olympics. What a joke.

 

[mateus]

Had to update to 14.3 from 13 to get the Finnish Covid app working. Prior to the update my iPhone 6S would easily last all day on a change (new battery fitted early this year), now it lasts just a few hours and I'm forced to carry a battery pack with me. 😞

 

[Lorenzo F]

Adding my experience for the sake of data, with the hopes that some of Apple's people read this forum.

I own an iPhone SE (first-gen) and, like a lot of people here, saw my battery usage rate increase tremendously after updating from 14.1 to 14.2. Installing 14.3 didn't rectify the problem.

The problem is most noticeable when I move between apps, say going from Safari to Messages to Mail. Staying within an app elicits the problem less. As an example, when moving between apps, it's common for me to see the battery drop by 20% in 20 minutes.

I've also noticed that the battery charges in less amount of time than it used to. Historically it's charged at 1% per minute, but now I've seen it charge at 1.5 times the speed.

FWIW, the Apple Battery Health indicator says 96%, and Coconut Battery says 94%.

 

[mkldev]

Rumor Claims iOS 15 to Drop Support for iPhone 6s and Original iPhone SE

Apple will drop support for the iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus in next year's release of iOS 15, according to a rumor shared today by...

www.macrumors.com

Yeah, a rumor about the iOS 15 release from before the iOS 14 release is about as believable as a White House press briefing.

Normally, those sorts of decisions are made well into the product cycle, and most people would not know about those decisions until after support gets dropped. Support can't get dropped until the iOS 15 branch exists, which wouldn't typically be until after the iOS 14 release branch is released.

In other words, short of that rumor being started by someone in the C-suite, it is likely nothing more than pure speculation.

 

[C DM]

Yeah, a rumor about the iOS 15 release from before the iOS 14 release is about as believable as a White House press briefing.

Normally, those sorts of decisions are made well into the product cycle, and most people would not know about those decisions until after support gets dropped. Support can't get dropped until the iOS 15 branch exists, which wouldn't typically be until after the iOS 14 release branch is released.

In other words, short of that rumor being started by someone in the C-suite, it is likely nothing more than pure speculation.

Sometimes the decisions are made for a variety of reasons and can certainly be made beforehand. That doesn't mean that is necessarily the case in this situation, but it can very well be.

 

[telepati]

iPhone 8 Charged Battery to %100 all background app refresh disabled, No animation, all most all privacy tracking disabled, using custom brightness %20, No push, Battery Health %91. Just standby screen lock and not touching a phone again until morning wakes up and the battery shows %64. WTF? If is it not a drain problem I don't know what that is!

 

[tubular]

Adding my experience for the sake of data, with the hopes that some of Apple's people read this forum.

I own an iPhone SE (first-gen) and, like a lot of people here, saw my battery usage rate increase tremendously after updating from 14.1 to 14.2. Installing 14.3 didn't rectify the problem.

I'm also using an iPhone SE first-gen, and 14.2 and 14.3 are draining my battery at a truly astounding rate. I can literally watch the percentage count down points per minute even if I'm surfing on a WIFI connection with Bluetooth turned off.

That's with battery health being an alleged 90%.

This is broken, Apple, and it looks like it's iOS that broke it.

This is a real problem.

 

[AppleDApp]

I'm also using an iPhone SE first-gen, and 14.2 and 14.3 are draining my battery at a truly astounding rate. I can literally watch the percentage count down points per minute even if I'm surfing on a WIFI connection with Bluetooth turned off.

That's with battery health being an alleged 90%.

This is broken, Apple, and it looks like it's iOS that broke it.

This is a real problem.

In the same boat. I am not sure when my phone updated to 14.2 (iPhone SE first gen).
This morning around 7:30 I disconnected my phone from power and did not use it.
My battery health is at 84% My phone died with a reported 1h22min of screen on and 1h57 screen off time.

 

[theres_a_nap_for_that]

My iPhone 8's battery life was fine until today when I updated to 14.3. Then the battery drained 40% in two hours while it was mostly idle. I had checked Instagram a couple of times, that's all.
Battery health is 93%. This is ridiculous.

 

[C DM]

My iPhone 8's battery life was fine until today when I updated to 14.3. Then the battery drained 40% in two hours while it was mostly idle. I had checked Instagram a couple of times, that's all.
Battery health is 93%. This is ridiculous.

First day let alone first few hours after an update aren't the best in terms of judging battery life and performance. Give it a few days and a few charge cycles and see how things go.

 

[akispapazoglou]

I updated my 6s to 14.4 and it killed my battery! I can't get 10 hours out of it! I was in 14.2 previously and the phone was outstanding, I could get 30 hours of use and nearly 40 hours without use. Now it is dying on me.My battery health is at 100% (new battery). I just dont know what to do. Thank you Apple for f@@ing up my iPhone!

 

[Cloudtrekker]

I updated my 6s to 14.4 and it killed my battery! I can't get 10 hours out of it! I was in 14.2 previously and the phone was outstanding, I could get 30 hours of use and nearly 40 hours without use. Now it is dying on me.My battery health is at 100% (new battery). I just dont know what to do. Thank you Apple for f@@ing up my iPhone!

Try restricting Background App Refresh to apps that you really need - worked well for me