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iPhone 16 Pro Battery Life Now TERRIBLE with iOS 26
- Thread starter DocBrownMacMan
- Start date
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Hi, I installed iOS 26 two days after its release, before its release I was on vacation, everyday i would shoot videos and lots of photos, use maps etc. my phone would last from the moment i would wake up to the moment i would go out in the evening (still 20-30% depends on the usage) I was very satisfied with mi iPhone 16 Pro battery, even before vacation my phone could literally go for 16-20h without charging, after updating i can't get more than 6h before it needs to charge and performance is worse even after a week since the update... Before i could moderately use my phone through the day and have like 30-20 left for the half of the next day.
When looking at many posts of bad battery experience after updating I get the impression that most seem to be using a PRO model of the iPhone. That makes me wonder if this bug/issues is related to the 120hz screen "feature" that was released with the 13 pro. Would be interesting to find out if enabling the "Limit Frame Rate" setting makes a difference.
Hopefully Apple will correct this issue ASAP, won't update my daily driver until then (16 pro user).
Edit: Just read in another thread that LPM seem to improve things. LPM disables 120hz.
Hopefully Apple will correct this issue ASAP, won't update my daily driver until then (16 pro user).
Edit: Just read in another thread that LPM seem to improve things. LPM disables 120hz.
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If by many posts you mean posts here, keep in mind that MacRumors users tend to overwhelmingly buy pro models. The regular 17 has not really been discussed on these forums.
LPM seems to help massively, I’ve read several users who struggled with battery life after updating the 16 series.
iOS 26 animations are really abhorrent. You just can’t release an update that kills battery life through everyday animations. It is ridiculous.
My iPhone 16 Pro Max featured very long battery life prior to installing iOS 26. Amazing since I use nearly every feature and capability during long work days away from the office.
Having owned nearly every flagship iPhone since day one, it’s years of experience that allowed me to fully appreciate just how great the battery life and overall performance of my current iPhone.
Then I made a drastic mistake, violating my own personal policy to wait a few months before installation of a new version of iOS.
I installed iOS 26 the day it became available.
Since then no matter what I try, battery life is massively decreased. Resets, clean installs, checking every conceivable setting, leaving it plugged in for days for indexing, while using my backup iPhone. It goes on and on.
If I didn't greatly prefer my 16 Pro Max over iPhone 17 Pro Max I would buy the new model. But I will wait for 18 Pro Max or whatever they choose to name the next model.
Perhaps a future iOS 26 update will resolve this dreadful experience.
Fingers crossed for 26.0.1 that's just released. Nothing mentioned in the release notes about fixes that are related to what you mention tho. Otherwise I guess 26.1 its what we can hope for.
It's strange tho how "regular" models don't seem to be affected as bad. Have over 100 users at work using iOS 26 on a mix of phones (mostly 16, some 14 and some SE2020/2022) and no complaints regarding battery issues.
It had been a while since Apple impacted battery life THIS much on an original iOS version. That was a solved problem: the newest updatable iPhone was always like-new (or very, very close) on its first major update.
Not anymore with this pathetic redesign.
My Pro 16 is fine no battery issues to speak of. Maybe a reinstall may help or it could be a app?
It won't "be fixed". That was never the case in previous update cycles. The iPhone/iPad/Mac get slower, with more stutters and worse battery life, on the last supported OS release than on the OS release the device came out with. Apple doesn't really care because its engineers have newer models and don't have to live with this. It's always been that way, when a new Apple OS slows down older devices, I've never seen minor updates (.x/.0.x) make those devices as fast as the previous OS.
Apple might make some improvements, but battery life will still remain worse than iOS 18. Fancy glass effects will always be more computationally expensive than the old blur. When Apple introduced Liquid Glass, they said it was meant to "take full advantage" of the "powerful hardware advancements". Read between the lines: our hardware gets more powerful making everything faster, so let's make our software more demanding, making everything slower on older chips. It's a permanent treadmill. Try a 2009 Mac with Snow Leopard and a cheap SSD, many things will be snappier than an M1 on Tahoe.
Apple might make some improvements, but battery life will still remain worse than iOS 18. Fancy glass effects will always be more computationally expensive than the old blur. When Apple introduced Liquid Glass, they said it was meant to "take full advantage" of the "powerful hardware advancements". Read between the lines: our hardware gets more powerful making everything faster, so let's make our software more demanding, making everything slower on older chips. It's a permanent treadmill. Try a 2009 Mac with Snow Leopard and a cheap SSD, many things will be snappier than an M1 on Tahoe.
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My brother installed iOS 26 on his 16 Pro on release day and was getting horrible battery life until yesterday. He "reset all settings" and now it's back to where it was prior to upgrade. His wife was getting 2x the battery life of him with her regular 16 on iOS 26, and she is a heavier user.
Just spoke to him a few minutes ago.
Yes my iPhone 16 Pro goes into low battery mode before end of the day, while it used to end the day with 50% or so battery life. This since iOS 26 and on 26.0.1 as well.
I was also on the beta train this summer, and had much better battery life than the official iOS 26.0 release. iOS 26.1 beta doesn't seem to be much better for me.
Has anyone tried doing a reset & restore to see if that fixes battery life? Sometimes that’s worked in the past but I don’t want to waste the time trying if it doesn’t actually help.
As I stated above, it worked for my brother.
He didn't do a full restore, just a "reset all settings".
It may be worse on iOS 26, but wasn't iPhone 16 Pro a little lacking even on iOS 18? I had issues with mine at launch and it's what drove me to 16+
Just curious, did he have a heating issue? I’ve already backed up and restored on my 14 pro twice and still having heating issues. Maybe a reset all settings is in store for me.
The fact that people keep hoping for a “fix” shows that after NINETEEN whole iterations they still haven’t learned this.
Folks, updating (or not) through major releases is a choice between features and compatibility vs performance and battery life.
Choose.
But don’t expect both. That has never happened and it never will.