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iOS 26 battery life thread.
- Thread starter goldmac2006
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26.2 Beta RC has improved my battery life on my 17PM. It's pretty close to what I was getting with my 16PM on iOS 18 again.
To put some numbers around it. I was getting about 7-8 hours of Screen Active time on my 16PM with iOS 18. That was about the best battery life I've ever had on an iPhone. The 15PM was very good but on average, an hour less. The 16PM was the first iPhone that I felt was truly a battery sipper. I did not notice the percentage ticking down during normal usage.
After upgrading to the 17PM with iOS 26, that dropped substantially to the 5 hour range of Screen Active. Still plenty for me to get through my day without needing to charge. In fact, I have my phone set to charge only to 80% and I was still doing that. But I was a little more conscious of plugging in during the day like when I got in my car.
I'd say things got a little better with 26.1 Maybe 30 more minutes. Not substantial but a little better.
What has been driving me crazy is I went from a battery sipping phone (16PM) that barely lost charge while the active to the 17PM that seemingly lost a few percentage points every time I picked it up. It drained faster while active and continued it's slow drain even while inactive.
I did not notice any improvement on the public beta releases of 26.2. All the same for Beta 1 and Beta 2.
Updated to 26.2 Beta RC a few days ago and noticed an immediate improvement. It's back to the 16PM's battery sipping ways. Doesn't seem to drain when inactive. At all. And very slow while using it.
After two days, I'm back in the 7-8 hours.
This is not meant to be a statement of what people are supposed to get. Everyone's apps and usage are different. I'm just posting this to state that after updating to every official and public beta release, 26.2RC is great for me. Fingers crossed the official release is just as good as this beta.
To put some numbers around it. I was getting about 7-8 hours of Screen Active time on my 16PM with iOS 18. That was about the best battery life I've ever had on an iPhone. The 15PM was very good but on average, an hour less. The 16PM was the first iPhone that I felt was truly a battery sipper. I did not notice the percentage ticking down during normal usage.
After upgrading to the 17PM with iOS 26, that dropped substantially to the 5 hour range of Screen Active. Still plenty for me to get through my day without needing to charge. In fact, I have my phone set to charge only to 80% and I was still doing that. But I was a little more conscious of plugging in during the day like when I got in my car.
I'd say things got a little better with 26.1 Maybe 30 more minutes. Not substantial but a little better.
What has been driving me crazy is I went from a battery sipping phone (16PM) that barely lost charge while the active to the 17PM that seemingly lost a few percentage points every time I picked it up. It drained faster while active and continued it's slow drain even while inactive.
I did not notice any improvement on the public beta releases of 26.2. All the same for Beta 1 and Beta 2.
Updated to 26.2 Beta RC a few days ago and noticed an immediate improvement. It's back to the 16PM's battery sipping ways. Doesn't seem to drain when inactive. At all. And very slow while using it.
After two days, I'm back in the 7-8 hours.
This is not meant to be a statement of what people are supposed to get. Everyone's apps and usage are different. I'm just posting this to state that after updating to every official and public beta release, 26.2RC is great for me. Fingers crossed the official release is just as good as this beta.
I agree with both of your statements. The unusual inaccuracy of battery percentage is quite common, even in betas where battery usage is more accelerated or at a lower state of capacity.
I’m quite convinced by many of your suggestions that the 26.2 iOS RC is better than the betas themselves. I’ll install it tonight.
Been running the 26.2 RC and my 17PM has been MILES better than anything; lasting longer than I recall my 16PM on 18 running.
Yep. Few more days and it appears to be holding up well.
This is good enough that I may hold off on installing the official release for a few days as I don’t want to go backwards. Will wait to see other’s experience with the official release and hope the battery life is the same.
I haven’t read the whole tread but saw a post somewhere saying to turn off adaptive battery.
I never had problems with battery drain before iOS 26.1 so I am trying this out. So far it seems to be working much better for me.
Anyone else ?
I never had problems with battery drain before iOS 26.1 so I am trying this out. So far it seems to be working much better for me.
Anyone else ?
Yes, I did that back in 26.1 and it helped tremendously. 26.2 helps even more though I haven’t turned it back on
I still use adaptive power mode on my iPhone and it controls battery drain well.
Even on iOS 26.2 RC.
It might be only on the 15 series. I have a 15 Pro. Yesterday at this time I was close to 20% and today I’m over 50%
I usualy charge to limit 80% as I'm not a heavy user and so far it had been quite enough for me. It's 9.30pm now ( my time) and I still have 52% which it a huge difference between when Adaptive Power was on . This morning before I turned it off I could see the % going down .
After noticing that the summer iOS 26 betas drained my iPhone 15 Pro battery even though I was doing everything right to keep it under control (check out my earlier post about it: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-26-battery-life-thread.2458618/post-34018939 ), I decided to use adaptive power to help maintain and control my iPhone 15 Pro’s battery life with Apple Intelligence.
The goal is to keep it running longer and more comfortably and efficiently, so I don’t have to replace the battery too soon… and so far, it hasn’t changed the battery capacity, which is still at 91%.
But, being a moderate to heavy user, I use my iPhone a lot more than just browsing on Safari and YouTube. I stream Nike Run Club, Nike Training Club, Headspace, and lots of workouts on my iPhone for about 30 minutes to 2.5 hours a day. I have a 90% charge limit.
Thank you for your help. I’m using all the same settings but auto lock which I have on 30 seconds. I just now took my phone off the charger. I’ll report back tonight.
That’s a fantastic idea! I put together that list of tips after chatting with some Apple Genius at Apple Store and a former Apple employee I met at school: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-26-battery-life-thread.2458618/post-33958425
You should definitely keep auto-lock on! DONT PUT IT OFF or only do it after a long period of inactivity! Even if you’re watching video or using HomeKit security cameras , it’s not just a security risk to leave your iPhone unlocked, but it also drains the battery quickly. The maximum time for auto-lock is 2 minutes, so no more than that! Only 1/100 times y’all have to check your home cameras constantly; we only do it if we are expecting visitors to our house or any packages coming.
So it's close to 10pm and I still have 48% left on my phone ! A huge change for me .
Better results, right? iPhone 15 Pro users often feel the pressure of battery life and heat issues equally, but more so on iOS 26 compared to our iPhone 16 Pro and 17 Pro counterparts. This is because we don’t have vapor chambers yet, and the premium titanium locks in too much heat as it’s a more solid lightweight metal.
By making adjustments and utilizing the power management features we have on our iPhones effectively, we can reduce the need for early battery replacements and the frequent charging times. This can also help prevent bad battery health issues like unexpected restarts or shutdowns.
I worry less about iPhone battery life and the percentage dropping after I followed guidance and made changes in settings from Apple employees. I even turned on adaptive power mode altogether. As a result, my battery health is still at 91% after 522 cycles. I hope it stays that way and doesn’t drop to the 80s when I reach a thousand cycles.
- Reduce the auto-lock time to 30 seconds or one to two minutes.
- Enable the adaptive power mode (available only on Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones).
- Keep the background app refresh off for all apps.
- Set the mail fetching interval to one hour (the longest interval) and use only the native mail app.
- Implement charge limits.
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gahhh a typo!!! I meant that background app refresh shall be OFF! Apple Intelligence rewrite duked it, so I edited it. MB
I have clearly a huge difference of battery life when my iPhone is connected to my iCloud account. Do someone has the solution to find the culprit ? I have check everything. A fresh install does not fix the issue. I have no pictures in my library.... How to determine what is causing this ? I don't have many suspects...
On 26.2 RC 2 iPhone 15 Pro and I think I fixed my battery drain. I turned on adaptive power and then forced restarted my phone. iPhone used to drain 10% in one hour and now I’m at 7% drain in 2 hours of similar use. Idk if it was the adaptive power that did it or the forced restart. I tried to use adaptive power before with no success. Don’t know why it’s working this time around.