Yeah, it only took 5 cycles to go from 98% to 97%. That’s nuts.
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iOS 26 battery life thread.
- Thread starter goldmac2006
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Morac
macrumors 68030
Once the percentage starts to drop, it does so rather quickly until around 90% and then slows down again. My 15 PM is at 86% with 634 cycles. I can only get around 3 hours of screen active time on it before it drains the battery from a full charge.
Yesterday's 1 hour gym session, doing nothing but streaming Apple Music over bluetooth via wifi, dropped my battery from 97% to 31%. Charged back up to full, sending three emails and five texts over wifi dropped it from 100% to 81%. At this point I'm getting roughly 75 minutes of on-screen time across apple-developed apps (regardless of wifi or cell data) before my phone is asking to switch to low-power mode.
I've restarted, I've closed every app other than what I'm using at the moment, I've turned off background app refresh. This single update has utterly destroyed my ability to use this phone in any real manner.
Any advice or tips would be very, very appreciated at this point.
So yours plateaued out at 90% before it went down, right?
When did it hit 86%? My iPhone still takes a little more around 4-7 hours off a full charge. I use a charge limit though.
Do you also use your iPhone to track workouts or stream workout videos that are third party? My iPhone drains faster on Nike Training Club and GoNoodle when I stream exercise videos vs fitness+ which that first party app on the fitness app takes only half the rate it drains my 15 pro.
Apple Music and Nike Run Club doesn’t have any video and is just audio media so it’s not a huge thing with that aspect.
That’s completely fine as it’s initial setup and update being finished in the background. Give it time to get used to it, 24-48 hours is the key.
Dang. For me it took me 10-25 cycles to do a drop down of 99% to 95% then 30 to 40 cycles to 91% which was when my iPhone ran iOS 26 beta release last summer
"Do you also use your iPhone to track workouts or stream workout videos that are third party?"
Nope. Literally the only thing running is Apple Music, over wifi, streaming to bluetooth headphones, and some text messages.
1 hour and 15 mins at the gym today with Apple Music the whole time (screen off 90-ish% of the time) and sending 7 texts over messages resulted in 100% -> 42% battery life.
This is comically bad.
I use AirPods Pro 3 for listening to my music and workout videos for working out, and wear an Apple Watch. Do you use these too?
Nope. Just plain old soundcore bluetooth headphones. No watch and no videos.
Third-party accessories sometimes differ in battery life between the AirPods and the iPhone.
Have you experienced any hot flashes (warm to the touch) on your iPhone when you played music on Apple Music for extended periods? This can happen if you use music haptics or play playlists for hours, similar to when I used to play numerous playlists during long runs or school.
Matsamoto
macrumors 65816
For me that’s not normal behavior for a battery.
Maybe you got a default battery?
When I had my iPhone 15 Pro for 10 months I still had 100% battery health after 177 cycles.
FeliApple
macrumors 601
Just wanted to say that this seems iOS version-independent and it affects newer iPhones far more than older ones. My 16 Plus on iOS 18 dropped from 99% to 92% within 40 cycles (yes. It was ridiculous). This took me about 4 months. A year and I’m at 92%, ridiculous. A family member’s regular 16 (also running iOS 18) dropped from 99% to 93% within 100 cycles and 5 months.
My iPhone Xʀ still running iOS 12 dropped to 98% straight from 100% after a year (vs 8 months on my 16 Plus, similar amount of cycles), then dropped straight to 94% after three more months (so it was at like 120 cycles after 15 months and 94% health). Exactly a year in? My Xʀ was at 100%.
Today, still running iOS 12, six years after the drop to 94% and at about 380 cycles, it has 89%. So, it dropped 6% in 15 months and for the next 5% it took 66 more months.
And if you go back it’s even better: my 6s on iOS 9 was at 94% after 3 years with a similar usage and cycling pattern to my 16 Plus (like 400 cycles).
The 99-90% segment of modern iPhones for some reason just seems to collapse.
FeliApple
macrumors 601
Yeah, this is beyond ridiculous. Not even my updated 6s with a horrible battery life is this bad to play music (with Apple Music over Bluetooth via Wi-Fi, like you).
Other than disabling battery-heavy settings like push mail and background app refresh I’m not sure what to recommend. It’s just awful.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
Did you try signing out of iCloud and messages? That type of drop is not normal and if it were a core problem would be all over the internet.
I use my 15PM somewhat analogously* at the gym and the percentage of battery charge drops an insignificant amount.
*I stream something from one of the streaming services.
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w_aldo
macrumors regular
511 cycles and still at 90%
August 2023 manufacture date
I’m pretty impressed, my old XS Max was at 82% by this point
I kind of want to get the battery replaced still, but at the same time, I feel like it’s pointless. Maybe in another year…
August 2023 manufacture date
I’m pretty impressed, my old XS Max was at 82% by this point
I kind of want to get the battery replaced still, but at the same time, I feel like it’s pointless. Maybe in another year…
Which ngl my 15 pro did that from 100 to 99 then 98 in the same amount of 40-50 cycles last year. Beta testing iOS 26 brought it down even more to 91% in June. It went down to 90% since February.
So yes it is version dependent. I did have a launch day iPhone XR that was second hand for a year and in the one year I had it, only shaved a percentage point off from 84% to 83% battery health on iOS 17 to 18. It was on iOS 16 when I first started then updated to 17 then to 18.
pdoherty
macrumors 68000
This craziness is why I haven't updated my iPads and am still on 18.x
Liquid Glass makes matters worse especially on older iPhones, including the adaptive power. Which is gimmicky given that adaptive power isn’t helping anything in general
Dropped from 100% to 99% when I hit 210 cycles.
Then dropped to 98% when I hit 249 cycles.
Then dropped to 97% at 254 cycles.
Just dropped down to 96% after hitting 259 cycles.
Then dropped to 98% when I hit 249 cycles.
Then dropped to 97% at 254 cycles.
Just dropped down to 96% after hitting 259 cycles.
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That sounds like how my 15 pro went thru it a year ago. While on iOS 18 and to iOS 26.
And was it due to heat, betas or excessive battery drainage apps ?
Even various iPhone users here go through this bump before.
w_aldo
macrumors regular
Barbareren
macrumors 6502a
TwoBytes
macrumors 68040
Agree, plus it overheats like crazy. I've read the same of others, maybe the .1 release is a bugfix for this.
Conspiracy theory: they're making battery life worse so next month they can say they're improving performance and battery life with iOS 27 and people that update to iOS 27 can praise Apple how much better it is compared to iOS 26. 🤪 /s
Jokes aside, battery life on my 17 Pro also got worse on iOS 26.4 and even worse on 26.5 compared to 26.3