iPad Pro 10.5 Battery draining quickly?

[Max Your Macs]

Hi everyone,

Been using my new 10.5" IPP this week and coming to an admittedly unscientific conclusion about battery life. It doesn't last nearly as long as my first gen 12.9" IPP. I am going to start with a full charge tomorrow morning and use it as I normally would and monitor the percentage during the day but I can say for sure, I have never had a worry with the 12.9" model doing the same tasks throughout the day. I am a consultant and I do a variety of normal tasks - email, online research and an hour or so reading news at the end of the day. Nothing super heavy, no video rendering, etc and screen about half brightness with True Tone on. I use Apple Pencil at a max of 30 - 45 minutes per day.

With my 12.9" I can finish the day with 40% - 50% battery left, every time. Here it is at just after 5:00 pm and doing even less work today (being a weekend) and this 10.5" is already down to 36% and dropping fast. In fact, it was at 38% when I started typing this... and I'm a reasonably fast typist. Using the onscreenn software keyboard also.

Just curious if anyone else is seeing quicker than usual battery drain compared to the first gen IPP. Wondering if I should take this one back and just stick with the 12.9"? Love this machine but I need reliability and I don't want to be recharging all the time where as I didn't have to before.

 

[CE3]

I’ve been on the iOS 11 public beta since day one, and right now my 10.5 usage is 2 hours and 45 minutes with 86% battery remaining at around 30% brightness (web browsing, email, and other basic apps). Initially my battery was draining faster -around 10% for each hour of use- but got better as the week went on. Even at 50% brightness yours seems to be draining too fast.

See how the full charge goes tomorrow. If nothing changes I would call support (I think they can run a diagnostic over the phone), or take it in to a store.

 

[Max Your Macs]

I’ve been on the iOS 11 public beta since day one, and right now my 10.5 usage is 2 hours and 45 minutes with 86% battery remaining at around 30% brightness (web browsing, email, and other basic apps). Initially my battery was draining faster -around 10% for each hour of use- but got better as the week went on. Even at 50% brightness yours seems to be draining too fast.

See how the full charge goes tomorrow. If nothing changes I would call support (I think they can run a diagnostic over the phone), or take it in to a store.

Thanks for the reply and good info. I am going to give the test a fresh start on a full charge and see how it goes. It's been pretty consistent like this all week but watching my usage and brightness (just looked and it was more like 40%) to see how it does.

 

[spiderman0616]

My 10.5" is getting anywhere from 10.5 to 11.5 hours of active use per charge on average. I've even hit 12 a couple of times. My 9.7" Pro never got more than about 9.5 hours and drained VERY quickly on standby for some reason, especially over night.

Interestingly, my 10.5 is running on a backup restored from my 9.7, so I now know that the excessive battery drain on the 9.7 was not software related, but more likely hardware related.

 

[NightWingz]

My 10.5" is getting anywhere from 10.5 to 11.5 hours of active use per charge on average. I've even hit 12 a couple of times. My 9.7" Pro never got more than about 9.5 hours and drained VERY quickly on standby for some reason, especially over night.

Interestingly, my 10.5 is running on a backup restored from my 9.7, so I now know that the excessive battery drain on the 9.7 was not software related, but more likely hardware related.

My current 9.7" pro has the same issue with it draining quickly while on standby overnight/in my backpack throughout the day.

What fixed it was I turned airplane mode on.

I suspect there are some background tasks that is making the iPad wake up. But I have almost all apps background refresh off by default.

 

[Newtons Apple]

Social media apps if left uncontrolled will eat you battery quickly.

 

[spiderman0616]

My current 9.7" pro has the same issue with it draining quickly while on standby overnight/in my backpack throughout the day.

What fixed it was I turned airplane mode on.

I suspect there are some background tasks that is making the iPad wake up. But I have almost all apps background refresh off by default.

I also found with the 9.7" that some mornings I would open the cover and be required to enter my passcode instead of Touch ID. I never turn my iPad completely off, so I think it was rebooting in the middle of the night for some reason. This issue persisted even after doing a fresh install and starting all over. It has not happened at all with my 10.5". It could very well have just been a rogue app that didn't work correctly on that particular hardware. I had all my social media background refresh turned off. In fact, I have very few apps I allow to refresh in the background.

 

[LiveWireless]

I also found with the 9.7" that some mornings I would open the cover and be required to enter my passcode instead of Touch ID. I never turn my iPad completely off, so I think it was rebooting in the middle of the night for some reason. This issue persisted even after doing a fresh install and starting all over. It has not happened at all with my 10.5". It could very well have just been a rogue app that didn't work correctly on that particular hardware. I had all my social media background refresh turned off. In fact, I have very few apps I allow to refresh in the background.

The passcode thing is a security feature, you will have to do it from time to time even if you are using touch-id, not using the device for some time will trigger this. There is no rebooting that is causing this.

 

[spiderman0616]

The passcode thing is a security feature, you will have to do it from time to time even if you are using touch-id, not using the device for some time will trigger this. There is no rebooting that is causing this.

Ah--that explains it then. Did not know that.

 

[NightWingz]

I also found with the 9.7" that some mornings I would open the cover and be required to enter my passcode instead of Touch ID. I never turn my iPad completely off, so I think it was rebooting in the middle of the night for some reason. This issue persisted even after doing a fresh install and starting all over. It has not happened at all with my 10.5". It could very well have just been a rogue app that didn't work correctly on that particular hardware. I had all my social media background refresh turned off. In fact, I have very few apps I allow to refresh in the background.

I have the exact same issue. with entering security code.

The passcode can always be used instead of Touch ID, and it’s still required under the following circumstances:

• The device has just been turned on or restarted.
• The device has not been unlocked for more than 48 hours.
• The passcode has not been used to unlock the device in the last six days and TouchID has not unlocked the device in the last eight hours.
• The device has received a remote lock command.
• After five unsuccessful attempts to match a fingerprint.
• When setting up or enrolling new fingers with Touch ID.

Source: https://9to5mac.com/2016/05/19/why-does-my-iphone-keep-asking-for-my-passcode/

The requirement in bold can make it seem random from time to time.

 

[luy]

deleted

 

[The Game 161]

My 12.9 lasts ages but my 9.7 was average battery life.

Maybe take some stats screenshots to see what's using the battery.

 

[Max Your Macs]

Well, into my battery test on the 10.5" for today and it is draining just as quickly as before. Mostly, I have been reading and browsing online as you can see in the screen shot and not really taxing the iPad much more than that. No heavy games or video intensive stuff at all. Watched a little bit of a Udemy course video but maybe 5 minutes of that tops. My 12.9" first gen blows this iPad out of the water for battery life. Also, this 10.5" is running a fresh install and restore from the 12.9" so the set up is absolutely identical.

At 67% remaining with only 1 hour 45 minutes usage, this is on schedule for about 6 hours - if I'm lucky.

 

[Booji]

That seems a pretty aggressive drain especially when you main source is Safari.

I have found that the outside use will drive the screen brightness way up, and since the Pro has a lot of bright power, it will really impact the battery life.

 

[Max Your Macs]

That seems a pretty aggressive drain especially when you main source is Safari.

I have found that the outside use will drive the screen brightness way up, and since the Pro has a lot of bright power, it will really impact the battery life.

Thanks for your reply. Been inside all day with it and screen brightness is set at about 40%. It has been plummeting like crazy since so I've been using my gen 1 12.9" the rest of the day. Probably taking the 10.5" back or maybe in to the Apple Store when I have a whole afternoon to spend there.
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[Newtons Apple]

Take it to the Apple store and let them run diagnostics.

 

[aakshey]

If you’ve installed iOS 11, then it is to blame.

 

[eneisch]

Click on the little clock icon on the battery usage screen. It will show you how many hours of active use vs. background use. I had a couple of apps that were running in the background for extended periods (hours), even though I only used them briefly and they reported as low % usage. Deleted the offending apps and my battery life increased dramatically. My guess is these apps need updating by the authors. One was a social media app and the other was a news app.

 

[throAU]

My 10.5" is getting anywhere from 10.5 to 11.5 hours of active use per charge on average. I've even hit 12 a couple of times. My 9.7" Pro never got more than about 9.5 hours and drained VERY quickly on standby for some reason, especially over night.

Interestingly, my 10.5 is running on a backup restored from my 9.7, so I now know that the excessive battery drain on the 9.7 was not software related, but more likely hardware related.

mine gets about 10% per hour reliably including a lot of video.

 

[spiderman0616]

mine gets about 10% per hour reliably including a lot of video.

Yep--mine gets about 10% per hour during max load only--like streaming video, running a game, drawing with the pencil, running Ferrite, etc. When I'm typing a lot or browsing or anything else, it actually drains less than 10% an hour.

 

[Ffosse]

In the short time I've had it, the 10.5 seems to have better battery life than the 9.7 pro it replaced; that's simply doing normal tasks, nothing too intensive.

 

[JohnnyGo]

In the short time I've had it, the 10.5 seems to have better battery life than the 9.7 pro it replaced; that's simply doing normal tasks, nothing too intensive.

The new A10X SOC is manufactured using 10nn technology so most reviews point to a much lower power consumption. Others have also included the ProMotion technology as energy saver (variable refresh from 24 to 120MHz instead of fixed 60MHz).