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iPhone 16 Users Complain About Excessive iOS 18 Battery Drain

There’s definitely something odd about battery life on iOS 18. I tried iPadOS 18.0.0 on my M2 iPad Pro when it was still a Release Candidate, and honestly it worked flawlessly (except the numerous UI bugs that are expectable from a first release) with no noticeable battery drain. But looking how random this battery issues seem, especially on 18.0.1, I’ve decided to stay on iOS 17 on my devices until this weird battery drain is solved.
 
Maclver said:
Apple really needs to take a year, pause the new products, new features, and give us a good ole fashioned Snow Leopard and iOS 12 update. Focus on fixes.
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Good idea but how will they sell new phones if there’s no new features in iOS? it’s not like they’ll have any new hardware features. Expect maybe removing Camera Control button.
 
_Refurbished_ said:
We see this every year. Give the OS a month or two to settle.
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My 15 pro Max has had bad battery life from the start up till today. Just some browsing, checking e-mail and normal use: it won't last half a day. If I want to play a game or something else which uses a bit more power I better connect it to power right away...
 
Maclver said:
Apple really needs to take a year, pause the new products, new features, and give us a good ole fashioned Snow Leopard and iOS 12 update. Focus on fixes.
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I agree with you, and there's clearly a faction of us here that want exactly this.

But there's also a bigger faction here that constantly complain that Apple is no longer innovating and that Apple products are over-priced and boring.

(Ironically, there seems to be some overlap between the two groups 🤣)
 
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Chungry said:
How great would that be? But it’s not shiny, sexy and new and does nothing for shareholder value. If those criteria aren’t met Apple isn’t interested
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People not buying iPhones and moving on to phones with new features baked in at launch and with good battery life would upset shareholders even more, bean counters don't make the iOS experience pleasurable, like not putting the Qualcomm X75 in this years device because they know their own modem will probably be not that great to start with or maybe never that great.

Apple is a company of wallets and is a cash cow they didn't need to try but now they are running to catch up. It feels they are without good hardware and software gurus, and with no visionary leader just a financial one at the helm the company feels lost to me these day. A longer run on software and hardware is needed, so yes a new iPhone that has some bigger differences as phones have plateaued for many and people just wont buy new ones for AI or other things they cant see the need to spend over £1000 on when a holiday is more fun. A new iOS every two years, the same with Macs and iPhones. Stop pushing hardware and bad software yearly, Sequoia needs two years to bake as it did when I first got my first Mac with Leopard, then the buggy at the start Snow Leopard release, and boy there were a few big bugs at the beginning but two years made for a solid OS probably the best at the end.

Now with so many bugs its embarrassing and Apple is running to AI companies with its cap out hoping to assimilate one like OpenAI. Apple left Siri to fester without looking at the landscape ahead while other companies did. I am frustrated when I get awful Siri dictation like letting a 4 year proofread my texts and requests and why when I say "call my boss" why does it say "I don't have that app"

Apple is desperate while ChatGBT as that's the AI I know the best is fluid fast and simple to use, I can have conversations in real-time, create amazing artwork, ask it what I need and it is spot on mostly, and will guide me to the resources I need if it cant answer for itself (rare) its so fast, it speaks like a human to the point its uncanny, while Siri sounds like a voice box in a child's toy.

Apple I think thought they could assimilate OpenAI possibly but like Google with Gemini OpenAI are both light years ahead of Apple and know what they have. Apple does have good hardware with sketchy battery life each and every year and did very little to remedy the issue because it had no competitors. Now Nvidas chips are looking great, and its overtaken Apple as the worlds most valuable company, on Tuesday worth $3.34tn (£2.63tn) with the price having nearly doubled since the start of this year.

Apples range of computers is still a mess with full price to pay for a M2 Pro with hardware flaws and a chip thats years old when M4 units will soon be here, and the M3 had almost no life span before the M4 was pushed out and Apple are desperate to keep ahead with faster silicon but nothing that taxes that power, that's why I'm keeping my M2 Pro Mac mini, I just don't need a M4 a year after buying the M2 Pro version. Even the M4 iPad feels like just a slight upgrade over my old (battery exhausted) Gen 3 Pro and iOS 18 is a bug ridden mess and I thought 17 was bad, these things upset shareholders, losing the market to other companies who are pushing harder, with new SoC's and with more creativity and imagination put into their devices too, and delivering at launch what they promised not waiting for it to be an update months down the line hopefully, as long as it does not brick your device and with with nothing to show at launch.
 
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Ruggy said:
When you fly internationally, your phone is not connecting to a network, sometimes for several hours
When you land you know you'll be connecting to a foreign network and you'll get big roaming charges so ideally you switch it off before you land and connect when you get on the hotel wifi- if possible. But sometimes you forget and you get a messages saying 'Welcome to...' and then you switch it off
When you get home and see your bill for that minute or so , you are staggered, firstly for what it's cost but secondly for the astonishing amount of data it's consumed. How could it have consumed several gigabytes of data so quickly?
It's then you realise just what all those apps are doing in the background even when they are supposedly switched off.
They are checking in constantly and consuming battery life all the time. Some are worse than others but I think they all do it. That's why they push you to have their apps. It isn't really because you get a better experience, it's so they can constantly exchange information about what you are doing.
Get rid of as many apps as you can and use links in Safari for as much as possible. I know for sure you'll see a big difference in battery life because that's where an incredible amount of it is going.
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Seem a gigantic exaggeration. Gigabytes of data on a mobile network within minutes after you land? Nah, not buying it as a general statement. You must have something very specific running on your phone and ticked the box to synchronize using cellular data.

Likewise, what extravagant costs? Don't you have international roaming? Perhaps time to add it to your cellular contract. I can use data, talk and SMS like I do in my home country. That capability has been around since GSM was introduced in 1991.
 
It's weird...I came to a new 15 Pro from a 3 year old Sony Xperia.

Battery health was unnoticeably degraded since new, never noticed any throttling, ALWAYS charged to 100%, never had any issues after upgrading.

I had many OTHER reasons to change, battery was NOT one of them.

There does seem to be a persitant battery "issue" with iphones. Every upgrade there's a draining issue.

There's a persitant battery quality degradation (which I know is real but doesn't seem to be as common on Android).

Battery life just isn't that good, comparatively, out of the gate.

I don't know if it's power management, battery quality or some weird Apply thing that's been around since forever that makes it so.

I've had ipads since the first one, 5 total. And it's the same niggling thing. Almost every update just slashes my battery life for a while. Some require a update fix. But it's not as noticeable because I'm always using it at home.

But battery does seem to me as Apple's achilles heel...
 
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"In my case, I noticed an app running in the background, as shown in the battery stats, with around 4 hours of background usage in a single day."

Rebooting the iPhone fixed it for the time being.
 
Big Fat Lies! said:
Nearly every upgrade I’ve noticed that third-party apps are largely to blame. Whenever I see the battery drain, I launch Omnistat to check if the processor is running above 5% for both User and System. If it is, I start killing third-party apps one by one until the processor drops to 5%. Inevitably, it’s TikTok, YouTube, X, Instagram, and so on. After killing these apps, both the processor and battery are better.
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Then it's Apple not explaining well enough the changes they've made under the hood.

Regardless who's responsible, it creates a problem with an Apple device for users.
 
SanderEvers said:
iPhone 16 here, no issues with battery life. Still at least 2-3 days with light to moderate use. Like always.
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Me too, everything fine with 16 Pro and iOS 18.0.1.
I would say better Battery life than ever before.

Same with 2 other devices in my Family.
 
SanderEvers said:
iPhone 16 here, no issues with battery life. Still at least 2-3 days with light to moderate use. Like always.
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I absolutely do not believe this. I upgraded from a 15 Pro because of the abhorrently poor battery life to a 16 Pro and whilst marginally better it's not where I want it to be. I don't want to get the larger Pro Max either.

I would love the ability to have a true Activity Monitor where I can see in real time what is causing battery drain.

Almost thinking I scorched earth and start again without a migration.
 
Wasn't the common issue new phone indexing for like the last 15 years?

This is common and has always been patched if need be.

Edit: before people freak, ya it was joke.

My 15PMX has been draining and heating with the next to last Beta. About to update it now and see if it persists.
 
5bjoshua said:
I absolutely do not believe this. I upgraded from a 15 Pro because of the abhorrently poor battery life to a 16 Pro and whilst marginally better it's not where I want it to be. I don't want to get the larger Pro Max either.

I would love the ability to have a true Activity Monitor where I can see in real time what is causing battery drain.

Almost thinking I scorched earth and start again without a migration.
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You can check battery health graphs. And my graphs are absolutely similar to my old phone on iOS 17 before I traded it in. You can also see which processes use the most battery and quickly see where a drain (if any) is happening. Most battery use here is Safari and Music. Which absulutely fits my usage pattern.
 
I noticed my iPhone 16 Pro lasts almost exactly the same time as my Galaxy Fold 6, which does not have the best battery life, since it also needs to run 3 displays. Doesn't really speak for the 16 Pro to be honest.

I unplug both at 80% in the morning and by the time I go relax on the couch in the evening, both are around 45 %
 
MacRumors said:


Some iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro users have been experiencing excessive and unexplainable battery drain, according to complaints on Reddit, the Apple Support Communities, and the MacRumors forums. While many of the reports are from iPhone 16 users, older iPhones running iOS 18 may also be experiencing battery life issues.

iphone-16-pro-max.jpg

There is a long-running iOS 18 battery life complaint thread on MacRumors that was started while the update was still in beta, but there have been a fresh wave of complaints following iOS 18's launch and the debut of the iPhone 16 models.

Affected iPhone 16 owners have seen significant battery drain even when the iPhone is not in use. From MacRumors reader T1aaj:

From JulianL:

In some cases, much of the battery drain happens in standby mode when the iPhone isn't in use, suggesting a background activity could be causing problems for some users. Using the phone seems to cut the battery drain in these instances.

From huanbrother:

From kirbysmartdawg:

There are similar complaints about the iPhone 16 models and older iPhones running iOS 18 on Reddit, and while we always see reports of battery life issues when a new version of iOS comes out, there seems to be a definite uptick in the number of people having problems.

From Reddit user Ok-Interest-6561:

On Reddit, one user did an experiment with an iPhone 16 Pro and an iPhone 14 Pro, and claimed to have used both in the same way. The iPhone 16 Pro dropped to 58 percent battery life within 36 hours, while the iPhone 14 Pro was at 85 percent.

Battery drainage issues are difficult to diagnose because iPhone usage habits vary so much from person to person and from day to day. Impacted users have tried turning off ProMotion, disabling the Always On display, turning off background app refresh, removing widgets, turning off cellular, and entirely resetting their iPhones. Some people have seen improvement with some of these methods, but not all have, and the battery life issues persist for many despite troubleshooting.

Some users reported improvement with iOS 18.0.1 and the iOS 18.1 beta, but software updates have not worked for everyone. It is not clear exactly what's going on to impact battery, but it's sounding like there is an underlying bug that Apple will need to fix in a future iOS 18 update.

Article Link: iPhone 16 Users Complain About Excessive iOS 18 Battery Drain
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The battery life got worse not only on iPhone 16 series but on all iPhones. Apple should seriously take that this problem
 
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Is this hardware or software?
Just iPhone 16 users suggests it's hardware but it's hard to think what it could be.
 
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